The world’s 7 best hotel Christmas dinners

If you’re spending Christmas on holiday, you’ll want to make sure your festive feast is as good as it would be back home. According to global travellers, these seven accommodations provide Christmas dinners to rival your family’s finest.

Cidade De Goa in North Goa, India

A cubist, terracotta and burnt umber resort built in the 80s to resemble a Portuguese-style village, Cidade de Goa is one of only a few properties located right on Goa’s Vainguinim beach; though the architecture is dated, the occasional chipped tile or painted wall has added plenty of character. With bedrooms that face the Arabian Sea, you can smell a fresh, salty breeze and hear the crashing waves from your tropically-coloured suite. And the spread prepared for the Christmas dinner is lavish, featuring Goan seafood dishes and lashings of coconut.

Kahanbu Ocean View in Thulusdhoo, Maldives

With tables and chairs set out on the sand under the shade of slender palms, Christmas dinner on a tropical island in the Maldives does feel unconventional. But in the best possible way. Replacing a roast turkey and flaming pudding with local dishes like fish curry alongside prawn pasta inspired by the host’s Italian roots, this friendly guesthouse puts on a superb spread. After the meal, you can play a festive game of beach volleyball as the sun sets, hop in the owner’s blue painted boat and head off to spot turtles, manta rays and dolphins, or sit in a rope hammock and sleep it off.

The David Livingstone Safari Lodge & Spa in Livingstone, Zambia

On the banks of the Zambezi River, you can lie by this safari lodge’s infinity pool and watch small herds of elephants crossing the water. And you only have to drive ten minutes through the Zambian bush to stand in the mist coming off Victoria Falls, the world’s largest waterfall. With airy suites featuring private hot tubs and wooden shutters that open onto balconies above the water, this all combines to create a very special Christmas. Added to which, the Lodge’s festive buffet comes highly-recommended.

The Beach House in Hampshire, UK

This beachside Victorian mansion in Milford on Sea is homely yet grand; a particularly lovely place to spend Christmas. Wake up in a pastel-painted bedroom to views across the sea to the Isle of Wight and The Needles, before a relaxing soak in your free-standing copper bath tub. And after gorging on the hotel’s highly-recommended Christmas dinner, guests can play a game of scrabble or chess in front of a log fire in the wood-panelled living room.

7 Fells Hostel in Äkäslompolo, Finland

In a pine forest deep in Lapland, 7 Fells Hostel is about as festive as it gets, with a special meal organised for all the guests on Christmas Eve and the green flicker of the northern lights outside your bedroom window. The hostel caters for every type of traveller; whether you want to stay in a dorm or in a private log cabin with its own sauna, and relish the quiet with a glass of wine by the log fire. Or set off into the deep snow for some skiing, snowshoeing, husky and reindeer safaris and ice fishing.

Guesthouse Nypugardar in Vatnajokull Glacier, Iceland

Having feasted on tender smoked lamb for Christmas dinner, walk it off through the snow-covered Icelandic pastures around this remote working sheep farm. From here, you can see nothing but Icelandic wilderness, the Hornafjördur Fjord and Iceland’s highest mountain, Hvannadalshnjúk, in the background. The light before sunset is the most hypnotic, when golden hour makes the farmhouse’s red corrugated roof glow orange and the snow light up a lilac hue.

The Innlet Cottages in Collingwood, New Zealand

The festive season in New Zealand is marked by hours of sunshine, soft ocean breezes and nature in full bloom. And Innlet Cottages is in a prime location for making the most of this. The property is backed by the Kahurangi Rainforest on an unspoiled strip of South Island coastline; hike to the 30km-long Farewell Spit, from which you can see Golden Bay stretched out before you in all its white sand splendour. Come home to the Cottages’ communal Christmas dinner cooked with fresh local produce and relax in the flower-filled garden, with a mountain brook quietly flowing past.