To think hotels are very child unfriendly

This is such good advice

You and your brood sound like a total nightmare. You are totally oblivious to how annoying and troublesome your children actually are. There might have been other kids there but they obviously seem to be able to behave or have parents that actually stop them from disturbing other guests.

Did the hotel have a pools
with slides and kids toys, kids entertainment, kids clubs, children’s menus etc? If yes, then I would maybe expect more tolerance from other guests, depending on if your kids were as calm as you say they were. If not, YABU - it’s a hotel, that requires a level of formality and it’s a good thing to teach your children that they can’t treat everywhere as if it’s home from home.

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune
Exactly. I have kids but take them to appropriate places. I know they don't like a restaurant to keep quiet so I would stress so I take them to a McDonald's or go to a restaurant without them.
Every child is different but you have to respect other people Aswell, it's a compromise

We also travelled a lot when our 3 DC were younger ( we had 3 children in 3 years) who are now 16, 17 and 19 and they were never unattended and nor did they scream in hotel rooms when they were younger. They had to learn that they cannot behave in a hotel like they do at home. Sorry OP but if there is something that annoys me when I am away at a hotel relaxing, it is unruly and undisciplined children and it’s not the children’s fault, it’s the parents.

Thanks very much! 💐

For one thing, they are more prone to urinate, or god knows what else, right in the pool. No thanks.

Maybe next time stop at a park before arriving to allow the children to let off steam? A hotel lobby isn't the place for that. Your DH could have checked you in while you took them outside for a walk around maybe?

I suspect they are noisier than you think. Now that my kids are more grown up I'm much more sensitive to kids noise than I used to be. I think we just get desensitised being around them all the time, and don't realise just how loud and disturbing they actually are to other people. It's made me wonder if sometimes my kids were more distracting than I thought at times, when they were young.

YABU. We travel a lot with our kids as both sets of grandparents live abroad so they are used to long drives and hotel stays. Most hotels are very family friendly but your kids have to behave and you need strategies to minimise inconvenience to yourself and others. For instance, we go to breakfast as soon as the kids are up. Just brush hair, throw any clothes on and go. After breakfast, come back and shower/get ready properly. Why faff about trying to entertain/detain them so early? That’s just stressful for all.

1. Family friendly or not you don't let your children run riot inside communal areas of a hotel.

1. Be considerate of other guests.1

1. Hotel's and guests have the right to have an adult only swim time. Like it or not kids just get in the way when swimmer's swimming the lanes.

Not so. AIIowing chiIdren and being chiId-friendIy are entireIy different. Next time, choose a hoteI that specificaIIy states "chiId-friendIy."

Modern parents are helping What does that mean?

but I think with the rising elderly population and the Entitled Boomers, there is a prevailing “children should be seen and not heard” attitude that remains

So you think the response to the OP, pointing out her being unreasonable were all posted by the elderly?

Entitled Boomers What's that? A band?

“But I had easy kids”

such a condescending message

@Ontheclifftop I am with you ONE HUNDRED PER CENT.

I was thinking the same thing. It’s a wider issue, sadly in Britain we are just not a nice, child friendly country in general. Modern parents are helping but I think with the rising elderly population and the Entitled Boomers, there is a prevailing “children should be seen and not heard” attitude that remains.

You always have to check about the swimming pool, it’s often just family swim at certain times, I often email beforehand so I know.
never had any problem with people being annoyed with my three kids and sometimes I’ve travelled with also my sister and her kids so 5 kids altogether but no complaints.

No problem with them being seen and heard. I like to see them out playing.... in the right place!
Every problem with them running around and causing a nuisance in a hotel lobby. It's not safe.
Every problem with them being given access to the pool at adult times. I've paid to swim in peace.
Every problem with them making so much noise that we'd have to contact reception at 7am at the weekend. I've paid for a relaxing break.

I completely agree OP, but I know a lot of people won’t.

I think it’s time that the silly notion of children being seen and not heard is put behind us. A huge proportion of the population has young children currently, or recently had young children and 100% of the population was once a young child.

I took my young children into a shopping centre today and I was on their case the entire time we were out. Stay next to me, don’t run around, don’t touch that, don’t laugh too loudly. I basically spent the entire time we were out getting them to ‘behave’ and the more I tried the more difficult it became because they are children, and those things don’t come naturally to them. They’re good children… but they were bored, there was a lot of waiting and ultimately they don’t have the ability at 3 and 5 years old to behave like mini adults.

I think when my third was born I really realised how non-child friendly the majority of society is. We have 3 children under 6 years old and there is a large number of things I feel unable to do with them, purely because of society’s expectations that they behave in non-developmentally appropriate ways.

Exactly this. I would never let my children behave like this in an adult environment. Just because we’ve decided to reproduce, why does that make you feel entitled enough to ruin someone else’s break they have paid good money for because you haven’t taught your children when and how it is appropriate to ‘let off steam’. If you didn’t bring enough activities to cater to their needs and occupy them it isn’t the facilities/rules of the hotel that are the problem. I’d have left the lobby and complained if I was in the next room/pool too. Opt for ‘family friendly’ or self-catered and you won’t experience these issues because you’ll be the type of family that fit their target market. You likely also won’t be as stressed, as much like the other guests I bet you didn’t particularly enjoy your stay either.

UK hotels are fine when children behave.

As other posters have said, some parents today think that everyone else should put up with their kids with a smile on their faces. I would never expect others to put up with mine being a nuisance.

Most people book a hotel for a quiet break (especially if they're getting a break from their own kids). Having it ruined by children running riot is no fun.

If I was swimming and it was advertised as no children allowed at that time and then children came in I would complain- whether they are kept in the shallow end or not!

Being brutally honest, I’ve just come to the end of 18 years of taking my own children on holiday, I don’t want to spent time listening to other people’s children squawking and fussing.

I’m polite, but I do now ask to be seated away from families with young children in restaurants if possible (not ones like Pizza Hut, ones which aren’t deliberately family orientated) . I will ask not to be put in a room next to the kids’ football club on tour. I had both of these situations whilst away last week!

Probably I sound like a grumpy cow, but if I’m paying £120 for a hotel room for the night I want to enjoy it. I worked bloody hard for that holiday!

Gonna take a wild guess that their spirited children were not squealing and running around the reception, squealing in rooms or entitled to the point that they want to ruin a swimmer’s exercise slot.

do the world a favour and stay home in future

The UK isn't child friendly, let alone just the hotels

Family friendly is when hotels offer sleeping arrangements that benefit families, ie cots in rooms etc, offer childrens meals, maybe have a bit of childrens entertainment. But these days, when parents say ‘family friendly’, they often mean that the hotel should allow lots of running around, shrieking shouting, crawling round the floor between tables ‘playing’, their needs more important than adults staying there. YABVU op.

It does explain why so many adults seem to not know how to behave when in hotels if they are raised to believe it’s fine to run up and down corridors!
Too true.

It also explains why some adults are stuck with their volume switch on loud and in turn have loud families. Someone along the way missed the memo about appropriate volumes for different situations.