Mumsnet Talk

I have never done a package holiday in my life. However, I am considering an Exodus Family Adventure to Morrocco (two nights in a village in teh Atlas mountains, staying in a villager's house, three nights on the coast and two nights in Marrakech). The attractions of going with a company are that it is chaper than any holiday I could arrange myself and our kids are young so its nice to think that the villages etc are known to the tour company and we have some back-up if anyone gets ill etc.

On the other hand I am terrified that I will hate travelling with a guide, that we will not be in control of our itinerary, that we will have to fit in with other families who may have very different ideas of what they want to do.

Has anyone tried this kind of holiday. How was it?

Bump. Anyone?

Not tried their family version, but did an adult group trip with Exodus with a similar sounding itinerary and it was great. Mainly couples, using local guides in city and mountains. The other guests were very nice, reasonable people. Usually ended up playing cards together in the evening, though we were staying at a guest-house in the mountain area, not with villagers. Guides were invaluable, you'd get into all kinds of trouble without them and would get nowhere near as much out of the experience. Exodus are also quite hot on eco/sustainable tourism, so it's all handled very responsibly and you're sheltered from the worst excesses of pushy salesmanship at souks etc.

We went with Walks Worldwide to Morocco when DD was 6 and DS was 3. We picked them because they took kids younger than 5 although i notice that Exodus and a few other companies do too now. Morocco is a really great country to visit (this was our 4th visit) and the children coped really well with the trekking/food/people.

Our trip was great and the local guide was fantastic with the kids. I guess it helped that he had kids of his own that were a similar age. There was only one other family on the trip (1 child, 2 parents & 2 grandparents) so it's probably worth checking in advance what the group you'll be with is like.

DH and I never did package holidays but we went on quite a lot of organised cycling/trekking holidays pre-children (most of them with Exodus) and haven't found any of them to be 'over organised'. The ones we've taken with the kids have had some flexibility though i guess if you had a big group this might be harder.

We're taking out first family trip with Exodus to Cuba this Easter (kids are now 10 & 7) and our friends went on the identical trip a couple of years ago and said it was fantastic!