How much freedom do you give your teens on holiday?

[GraduallyGoingInsane]

We are due to go on holiday in a couple of weeks. We've been going to the same resort for years, and two sets of friends (plus their kids) will be there.

I have 4 DDs, but DD2 (aged 13) is going to a residential ballet summer camp, so isn't coming with us. DD3 (11) and DD4 (8) will be happily enrolled in watersports/tennis/sport camps in the resort, and usually make a huge group of friends in seconds, so they are not a big problem.

DD1 is too old for the kids clubs (she will turn 15 there), but there are usually loads of teens about. Our friends' kids are 18 and 16 (both boys), and 15 and 17 (boy and girl). Last year, DD1 did the summer clubs in the daytime with the 15 year old boy, but in the evenings they all hung around on the beach, round the pool, etc etc. The problem arose when the other kids were all allowed to go farther afield, and DD1 was not.

DH and I are disagreeing somewhat over how much freedom DD1 should be allowed this year.

My opinion is that there will be at least 5 of them - 3 boys and 2 girls, all of whom I trust to stick together and watch out for one another. The resort is safe (no cliffs to fall off, sea is flat as a pancake until you get about a mile out, staff everywhere etc) and the kids all know it well. There's not much that they can comfortably walk to - a couple of beach cafes, a couple of beach bars, a little shop, and if they really stretched, a night club. I highly doubt DD will get into a bar/nightclub if she tried- she's tiny and doesn't look old for her age at all.

DH says he doesn't want DD running around a foreign country, heading to bars and nightclubs, trying to get drunk, and getting hit on by strange men.

So my question to you wise Mums is...what do you let your kids do on holiday? Do you have a time they have to be back by? Do they have a limit on where they can go? Do you lay down no drinking type rules? Anyone have any good/bad experiences of letting the kids roam free?

[amothersplaceisinthewrong]

Sounds from what you say there is not much in the way of "dodgy" nightlife. If you are sure the others (espeically the boys) will stick with her and look after her then probably OK. If you think she might get left and therefore in danger of being "hit on", then maybe you have to say no, she can't go.

I let my DD and DS out at 15 and 17 on their own in Cyprus at night a couple of times in a pretty safe resort with lots of other families, on the strict instruction that they stay together and were home by 1am. They did and were fine. My kids are not huge drinkers anyway, so never really worried about that.