To be shocked at the cost of family days out?

Merlin cards if you live near to their attractions / London , NT / EH membership, annual pass to a local attraction - the outlay is more originally but probably works out cheaper over the year . We don’t have Merlin anymore because my kids are adult but I have a NT / EH membership and I worked out that for NT alone if I’d paid for all my visits last year I’d have spent at least £3k as I take the dog somewhere a couple of times a week without any visits I make without him .

Family days out are super expensive that's why we only do two during the summer holidays rest is filled with free days out having picnics etc.

On top of day to day costs there's no way the average household can afford doing lots of days out where it costs to get in.

70s/80s and we never had such days out - I think expectations grew over the decades!

If we went on holiday for a week ( so aged 7, 8, then nothing till aged 12 or 13 ) then my parents would buy national trust membership that year and that would be it- if it wasn't nt we didn't go

We took a picnic , never a cafe

I never went to a zoo or theme park or took a short break which needed accommodation - had never stayed in a hotel or b&b till I was 20

Did possibly 1 theatre trip ( local) every year or 2 - the panto

Cinema / I think I had been 4 times by the time I was 16

Gig/festivals - nope apart from locally organised free events

Guess there was a brief period where that became affordable but I don't think it was normal or traditional

YABU about the zoo, @holidaaay . Chester Zoo has been over £100 for a family for many years. Hell, my kids are in their twenties and we’ve been paying that for most of their lives.

If you live close enough for membership, that’s very economical, otherwise it is an annual (or every other year) trip. Which is as it should be, frankly.

Keeping animals healthy and stimulated while running a breeding programme is eye-wateringly expensive! If we want animals in captivity we need to pay a bucketload in order to fund it.

Days out with children can be incredibly pricey but don’t need to be. A bus or train ticket to somewhere for a picnic or a paddle is something they remember at least as much as a visit to an expensive attraction.

A 2 night stay in London is a mini-break, not a day out. And even that can be cheaper if you book the train in advance, have a family railcard, go to the Diana Playground and South Ken Museums etc rather than shows.

Prices have risen massively. Before covid we used to go go to London for a weekend away fairly often. Since not once. The prices are eye watering.

Normal families are being priced out of fairly traditional activities. A trip to the zoo is easily £100, and that’s before lunch, a visit to the gift shop etc. A trip to London for us in the West Country to see a show, stay in a hotel, meal out and hotel is easily £1500. My twin girls want to see Matilda in the summer hole we said ok. Tickets in crap seats are £435 for the 4 of us. A holiday in Europe in school hols for a week is going to be in excess of £3,500.

It’s all bonkers.

Travel to London and big zoos have always been amongst the more expensive days out, even when they were a relatively lower proportion of income. You have to be strategic about it. Vouchers, booking well in advance where applicable. See what annual memberships are available locally, try and find one you can rinse and then move on. Or keep it if you're getting the value.

Places like Disney have increased their prices to a level where people without high levels of disposable income can’t afford it. They don’t want families who can’t afford the food, costumes, photos, queue jumping upgrades. The entry is just the start of the rinsing …

Friends and Family Railcards make a massive difference to rail costs. I couldn’t believe it when we first got one.

I've just come back from Switzerland, and this country looks incredibly cheap in comparison now.

Best part of 10 quid to buy a sandwich or go on a 3 mile bus journey or get 6 chicken nuggets (not the meal, just the nugs).

Cheapest hotel in the location we needed was £250 a night, most are double that.

2 course meal for two with no alcohol was £200.

Average house price starts at £3m, most people are 50+ before they get on the property ladder.

Yeah, it recently cost us £127 for three adults, one child and a toddler to go to Chester zoo.

We have annual passes to a couple of local attractions. Each one was a couple hundred for the family annual pass. We alternate between these and then add in free or cheep days as well.

Regarding London trips it depends what you do. Last trip we did to London was Hyde Park and the natural history museum. We had free accomadation with a friend and drove as it was cheeper ( even woth the 2 day ulez charge). We bought a packed lunch and had a picnic in hyde park which was lovely. Shows ect in London have always been expensive.

But yes, days out to big attractions are expensive, and always have been.

Well, no, proportionately speaking they haven’t. I’m just glad we had our kids in the 80s. It was bad enough then, but at least it was just about affordable.

Windsor Safari Park was okay, Windsor Legoland is not.

Nowadays it’s basically just hand over you purse or wallet at the kiosk, and they’ll empty it for you…

Yes, a day out with DC is never cheap! Well, the event ones, prices of tickets and treats when there. Important to interchange with free ones like picnics at the beach, park, visiting family and friends! Xx

An airbnb would be cheaper than a hotel, and so miuch easier with children.
Others have posted fab ideas too.
Not all free places inlondon are 'boring' museums! There are art trails through the City, South Bank, Chelsea, etc; you can often download a trail map and game assosciated with it.
A google search of 'free london' or cheap things to do in london will throw up some helpful sites.
😊

I think paid for activities, expensive days out etc are more about parents wanting to "make memories" than what the child wants.

It's gone up. Most things have in the last few years. Energy, food, labour, they're all more expensive in real terms than 5 or 10 years ago. But people are right, there are lots of ways to make it cheaper.

I agree we never did anything like big days out regularly when I was a child. We live in the North West and we went to London once when I was a teenager. Went to Chester Zoo maybe twice, a theme park maybe a couple of times. We don’t do much now either because I have three DC and you are talking minimum £100. Even the cinema to see a new film is too expensive and hour at our local trampoline park is £36! We go to the £2.50 showings at Odeon and use clubcard vouchers for pizza express. We have a National Trust membership which we use regularly and we get the train into Manchester sometimes and that’s it!

We used to have a annual pass for our local zoo. It's one of the best in the country and only needed to go three times for the pass to be worthwhile. It was a very good investment.

We only go to larger attractions a few times a year. Dc are 11 &13 now so 'cheaper' places farms and parks are less attractive. There are lots of places near by that are £40-£50 for a family ticket, however I know we would only pass a couple of hours or half a day at a push, so we rarely go. I much prefer to spend more for a full day out I know everyone will enjoy, eg a theme park, even though this will be less often. Other times we do cinema trips, bowling at a cheap place locally for £15 for an hour (we can fit in two games). Dc like table tennis also available at a different bowling alley £7 an hour. Then free museums, parks and walk and a picnic.

We do have blue peter cards and also use tesco vouchers so this helps with the cost.

I've noticed more and more places are doing annual passes so if it's an one off because you made a special trip, you end up paying full price but don't get the benefits of free return entry.

I think expectations have changed hugely. As a kid I only ever went to the big paid places when on actual holiday in Cornwall and the weather was bad. My own kids would have one trip to the zoo in the summer and most other outings were picnics etc.

I agree, expectations are a lot higher now.

I'm not that old (40s) but when I was little something like a trip to the zoo would be a once a year birthday treat. A trip to the cinema might have been twice a year.

And one week in a caravan park for a holiday (during that week the main entertainment was using the park's free facilities, like the pool).

A city break involving shows and meals out just wasn't something we would have expected to do, ever.

Last time we went to Alton Towers we spent around £300 for the day (tickets, fuel, food & drink etc). Same again at Blackpool Pleasure Beach!
We were going to take my daughter to London for 4 nights last year, we costed it all up including trains/hotels etc and it was less expensive to go to Spain so we went there instead.
We are not well off (at all) but we have found the money over the years to do these things, there is a lot of pressure on parents to make sure the kids have the same experiences as their peers 🤷‍♀️ I justify it to myself by keeping in mind that the 'family day out' period of our lives is relatively short, my kids are 17 & 14 now and are more interested in spending time with their friends! The best advice I can give would be do the cheaper/free things whilst they are young and the bigger/more expensive things when they are at least old enough to bloody remember it😆

To be fair, going to stay in London for the weekend to see shows etc. has always been expensive. It's not as if it used to be a budget-friendly option!

Covid and the increase in fuel prices when Russia invaded Ukraine have been exploited by many to up prices. Be it openly or through hidden charges, the latter of which could easily have been restricted by simple changes to consumer law.