On Tuesday 7th June, we left Pecs just after 11am but immediately stopped for lunch in McDonald's! Tiger really enjoyed their cubed 'playground' - what a cool idea. Suitably worn out and fed, she then slept for a lot of the drive which is about 123km and 2 and a half hours, the last bit which is a car ferry which takes 11 minutes and costs 3000 HUF (£6.50). The ferry was our first view of Lake Balaton, which is the largest freshwater lake in Central Europe!
I had booked to stay at Club Tihany who have an incredible website, not quite reflective of what you get (good marketing though so I'll doff my cap to them!) but only 140 euro (£120) for half board for 2 nights so a complete bargain. You pay 50% on booking, and the remainder at check out. I had booked us into a big 'atrium' forest chalet with a mezzanine double bed and a kids bedroom with 2 single beds in it, where we put the cot. It was clean, not quite as glitzy as the website but everything worked fine including the old school FM radio built into the sideboard!!
After our amazing experience of kids club at Aquaworld, I had started to dream of kids club at Club Tihany, but on arrival I found out that it is only Friday-Sunday and of course we were mid week! After we both got over the disappointment (!), we went into the big swimming pool and hot tubs where Tiger did some amazing swimming before heading into the restaurant for dinner. The fare was ok, definitely nothing to write home about, but plentiful. The waiters on the other hand were shocking and we didn't get offered any drinks at all. I learned this for the subsequent day that the Hungarian way just seems to be to accost them, then they take your room key to allocate the drinks to it and you sign a slip of paper.
The next morning, we had a really nice breakfast and were back to the swimming pool again. We were actually swimming for over an hour and Tiger again did so well almost doggy paddling the entire length of the pool in her arm bands with very little help from me! We headed back to the room afterwards, and she slept for over 2 hours!!
In the late afternoon, we got up and drove into the Tihany town which was 1.5km away (you can pay for parking at machines using Apple Pay) for an ice cream and a little wander around up to the church, and to look at the wonderful lake views, before our second dinner in Club Tihany's restaurant.
As we were leaving, I finally caved in and let Tiger choose a toy from the shop - a totally hideous thing called "kitty cat unicorn" but she has now fallen deeply in love with it!
All in all, our stay at Club Tihany was great. It has a lot for kids to do (clearly more on the weekend) but my advice would be to take the website with a bit of a pinch of salt and try and go on the weekend when the entertainment is in full swing. And definitely get out and about around the lake when you get bored of this Hungarian 'Butlins'!