Game on in Greece: As holiday company Mark Warner turns 50, we visit the resort of Paleros and discover that whatever your age, you can have an action-packed holiday

The year is 1974. Abba has just won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo and McDonald’s is about to open its first British restaurant. And while it won’t make the same huge dent in our cultural life as those two, friends Mark Chitty and Andy Searle are starting a mini-revolution in international travel: the launch of Mark Warner.

The tour operator initially focused on ski holidays for singles and couples. The adverts were placed in newspapers and the trip was personally organised by Mark and Andy, both in their early twenties at the time.

Over the following decades the company grew and now, in its 50th year, it operates in six locations: five summer resorts in Greece and Turkey and one Alpine chalet in France.

The duo’s great success came in the 1980s, when, with young families of their own, they were one of the first companies to add childcare to their holiday packages.

And by 1996 they had settled on the current format: an attractive location on the beach, a swimming pool, locally produced food, childcare from morning to night and as many activities as a family could reasonably fit into a day.

Downtime: Dan Hyde checks into Mark Warner’s Paleros resort in Greece, pictured here. He discovers that with so many activities going on, there are always free sun loungers around the pool

Mark Warner has five summer resorts in Greece and Turkey and one Alpine chalet in France. Above – the harbour of Paleros town

From sailing to tennis, mountain biking to fitness classes, diving to wakeboarding and rowing a skiff, you can dip in and out as you please. And it’s all included in the main price, along with flights, transfers, accommodation and half board.

As far as I’m concerned (and no one is saying these holidays are cheap), Mark Warner has perfected his craft at his Paleros resort, in a bay three hours’ drive north of Athens and just 30 minutes’ drive from Preveza airport.

Our visit had a simple goal: to relax mom and dad as much as possible while our young son Freddy did the opposite. With a bit of luck, I might also be able to fix my bad tennis forehand.

The biggest unfathomable question we had was how to keep our restless three year old entertained well past bedtime while we ate. We were looking at a lot of buggy twisting.

Changing gears: Paleros is just across the Ionian Sea from the island of Lefkada, pictured here

The resort organises excursions to the white beaches of Lefkada, Dan reveals, such as Port Katsiki, seen above

Mark Warner not only thought about how to solve this, but went one step further.

Every night at 7.30pm we took Freddy to the ‘sleep club’. You walk into one of the children’s rooms and it’s like a mini cinema – dimmed lights, air conditioning, a projector beaming onto the wall – but with children lying on camping mattresses in their pyjamas. On the screen they show a short film – think The Snail And The Whale – followed by a longer classic like Beauty And The Beast. One by one the children fall asleep.

The Paleros dinner, like breakfast, is buffet style. The fish is fresh, the souvlaki superb and the Greek donuts delicious. If you fancy it, end the evening with the pub quiz or musical bingo (a music quiz with a bingo final) at the beach bar.

Paleros offers a wide range of activities, from windsurfing to tennis, mountain biking to fitness classes, diving to wakeboarding and single sculling

At 10:30 pm we pick up Freddy and he is immediately ready.

Paleros is just across the Ionian Sea from the white sands of Lefkada, a popular island to which Mark Warner offers excursions. The resort, just across the road from Potamaki Beach, is a mix of 130 villas and rooms surrounded by flowers, lush greenery and views of olive groves dotted mountains. Breakfast and dinner are served in the main restaurant (lunch is in the seaside taverna), but most guests sit outside at tables by the pool bar.

The appeal of a Mark Warner holiday is that guests are spread out across the resort – on the waves, on the bikes, on the tennis court or in the childcare – so there are always free sun loungers around the three swimming pools.

Olly, the resort’s young tennis pro, managed to save my forehand, just in time for the tournament on Friday.

As for childcare, you can book three hours of care every day, morning or afternoon. We were very impressed with the service.

There are certain things you can take for granted on this kind of holiday: the abundance of activities, the evening entertainment, the social interaction – and certain things you can’t take for granted: the quality of the food, the temperature of the sea, the willingness of the staff, the reliability of the childcare. On all the essential unpredictable points, Mark Warner’s Paleros was a triumph.