When to book for 2016?

[threeicklepickles]

This will be our first trip when we are restricted to school holidays.

Is it best to book early (now) for feb half term/Easter hols or wait to see if there are any deals later on in the year? Up until now we've booked fairly last minute and had a good choice of location/accommodation, but could obvs go during term time.

It would be for 2 adults and 3 dc (who'd be 6, 4, and 14mo) prob to French Alps.

[trixymalixy]

If you need childcare for the kids then you are best booking early. We learned the hard way that leaving booking until the last minute just means there is no availability.

[CrispyFB]

Yep, we did manage to book late (February for Easter) in 2013, but we pretty much took the last childcare places Crystal had, and there was no deal on what we bought. This time around we booked a full year in advance and had our pick of everywhere and there were lots of early bird offers and half price children etc etc.

Perhaps if we didn't need the childcare AND had a "holiday standard" family of 2 adults and 2 children we might be happy leaving it late, but we have four children which really limits our accommodation choices too. Lots of the deals are in hotels which gets tricky for families of above four and definitely for a family of six!