You book two rooms and end up on separate corridors. Or you book a family room and discover it is one space with a sofa bed in it. Somebody is sharing with a teenager who did not want to share. There is one bathroom for six people at eight in the morning. And once the youngest is asleep, the adults have nowhere to sit except a balcony, in the dark, whispering.
None of that is a failure of the hotel. It is a failure of the room, chosen too late in the process, after the destination and the dates were already fixed.
The good news is that 2026 is the first season where there are genuinely good answers to this at both of the brands we recommend most. Three new categories launched this year, and one existing one that most people do not know about. Between them they cover almost every configuration of a larger family, and they are worth knowing by name.
360m². Eight guests. Four bedrooms. A private pool. And it sits inside the Deluxe Collection, not beside it.
Four rooms that take eight
Ikos Odisia: the largest room we sell
The Deluxe Four Bedroom Villa Pr. Pool Sea View is 360m² of interior space with a private pool, a furnished terrace and sea views, sleeping eight. There is a three-bedroom version at 300m² sleeping seven. Both are new for the 2026 season.
Ikos describe them as “designed to welcome larger, multi-generational families”, offering “a rare fusion of private villa living with the ease and elegance of all-inclusive luxury”, and for once that is a fair description rather than an aspiration. Villa guests get exclusive access to the Deluxe Collection pool and beach area on top of everything else.
The resort behind it matters as much as the villa. Odisia sits on a secluded bay on Corfu’s east coast, twenty minutes from the airport, across sixty acres. There are ten heated pools and separate splash parks for children, which is more water provision than any of the other resorts here. Complimentary morning golf at Corfu Golf Club is included in the stay.
Book this one if the group has a wide age range and you want the most space and the shortest transfer.
Ikos Porto Petro: the quietly practical one
At 265m² the four-bedroom villa here is 95m² smaller than Odisia’s, and we still book it more often for certain groups. Two reasons.
It is single storey. With a toddler, or with a grandparent who would rather not do stairs twice a day, that solves a real problem that square metres do not.
And all four bedrooms are en suite. Four bathrooms for eight people, each attached to the room that uses it, removes the single most reliable source of holiday friction. It is not glamorous and it is the thing people thank us for afterwards.
Beyond that: a private garden with an infinity pool and an outdoor dining area, and exclusive access to the Deluxe Collection Pool. The resort sits between two sandy coves beside Mondrago National Park in southeast Mallorca, under an hour from Palma, and it is the quietest and most understated of the Ikos properties we recommend. New this season there is also a Greek restaurant and a pool with a splashpad, plus padel courts.
There is a three-bedroom villa at 230m² sleeping seven, and a three-bedroom Residence at 160m² with a front coastal view. If the sea view matters more than floor space, take the Residence.
Book this one if the group includes very young children or older relatives, or if you simply want everyone to have their own bathroom.
Ikos Andalusia: a garden to cook in
The Deluxe Four Bedroom Villa Private Pool is 260m² for eight, and it is the only villa across all of these with a barbecue in the garden and a private indoor gym.
If you have ever spent a week in a resort trying to find a treadmill that is free, or wanted one evening where you cooked rather than being cooked for, those two are worth more than the 100m² Odisia has on it.
Andalusia is the busiest and most cosmopolitan of the three Ikos resorts, with nine restaurants, nine pools and twenty-one acres of gardens running down to an exclusively serviced beach, under an hour from Malaga. It also has the broadest Deluxe ladder of any of them, with eleven categories, so if the villa is unavailable there is more to fall back on here than anywhere else.
Its three-bedroom is the smallest of the four at 125m² for six with a private pool and sea view.
One note on accuracy: Andalusia’s own website still describes its villas as the largest in the Ikos portfolio. That was true last season. It is not true now.
Porto Sani: three bedrooms, three bathrooms
The only non-Ikos option here, and it works differently.
The Three Bedroom Family Suite at Porto Sani is 145m², sleeping seven, with three separate bedrooms, three bathrooms and a private living room including a dining corner. Sani describe it as suiting up to six adults and one child, or two adults and five children up to the age of 12. There is a version with a private pool and a version with a grand balcony.
Three bathrooms for seven people is the number that matters, and the private living room is the other one. That is the room where the adults sit after bedtime, which is the thing that separates a good family holiday from a tiring one.
Porto Sani is all-suite, 148 suites, no standard rooms at all, and it is built explicitly around young families: two lagoon-style pools, two children’s pools, a toddler splash pad, and an extended Kids Club and Crèche. Fifty minutes from Thessaloniki.
Important difference to understand. Sani is not an all-inclusive resort in the way Ikos is. Stays are half or full board and dining runs on the Dine Around programme, with set menus at twelve restaurants at no extra charge or a per-meal allowance against à la carte at twenty-four. That is not worse, it is different, and it is covered properly in our Sani and Ikos comparison.
One thing true of every Ikos villa
The villas sit inside the Deluxe Collection rather than beside it. That means the private transfers, the dedicated concierge, the exclusive pool and beach areas, the two spa treatments, the two-day MINI and the complimentary Heroes Supper Club for children aged 4 to 12 all come with the villa. You are not trading benefits for space.
At Sani, the equivalent Suite Collection benefits apply to the Porto Sani three-bedroom, including the new private airport transfers and the new Kids’ Supper Club.
Where we would start
There are only a handful of rooms across either portfolio that take eight people well, and we have just listed most of them. They are limited, they are the newest product both brands have, and they are the categories we get asked about most.
Tell us the ages and roughly when, and we will come back with what is actually available rather than what is theoretically bookable.
Where this leads
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