If you travel on your own with 3 kids

[blueskiesandforests]

Do you book one of them as an adult when booking hotels?

My eldest is 13 - almost all hotels only allow 2 children per room, but would allow 2 adults plus 2 children.

13 year old is as mature as some adults and adult size... She doesn't particularly look like an adult though, she doesn't look especially young either, she just looks her age.

Would you book her as an adult? I have no problem paying adult price for her at a budget to lower mid range hotel.

This must be a very common thing. It's very annoying.

Yes.
I often take my 3 children to hotels. My oldest son is 13 and I book a room for 2 adults and 2 children.

FaFoutis excellent, thanks.

I've stayed mostly in youth hostels before, where there is no problem having 1 adult and 3 kids. There are no youth hostels in the right location this time though!

Are you happy with 2 double beds when you travel with your kids? That's another annoyance! Why 2 double beds, or worse a double and one sofa bed, in a "family" room for 4 people? One double for the parents and a bunk for the kids in a 2 adult 2 kid family I get, but who on earth prefers 2 double beds, in any context?

Only really expensive hotels or youth hostels seem to have rooms with a double and bunks or singles, or multiple singles, or anything but the 2 doubles/ 1 double and one sofa-bed combo. Humph.

It's usually one double and two singles. I share the double with my 9 year old daughter. I use Premier Inn type hotels, Holiday Inn etc.
2 doubles makes little sense but I have encountered it now and then. My sons will share, but it's not as peaceful as two singles.

A spacious double and two singles would be absolutely fine, but my search engine searches are pulling up mainly a double plus a double sofa bed, which as you say will not be peaceful! DD is strongly opposed to sharing with either of her brothers, which I feel should be respected, but if they share a small sofa bed they may well behave like puppies and not sleep... I don't really want to share a small sofa bed with my adult size DD to give the boys a bigger bed, as it will be cramped.

I will carry on looking and perhaps phone the hotel which looks most promising to ensure we won't be stuck with two people sharing a sofa bed.

Thanks!

Yep, defo teen as an adult!

I often found we had the opposite problem when my eldest went 13 most places allowed two adults two kids, but kids cut off age was 12 so what were we supposed to do then put a 13 year old in a room on her own? so I'm sure they wont mind you booking a room for 4 that has one adult 3 kids.

Your second problem, we also came across, the sharing bed, my brother does two with his two sons that refuse to share a bed, - again fair enough, some times I rang and asked if they had room for a single to be put in room as well as the sofa bed, and usually the hotels had a plan that worked. in some hotels not all room types are up on websites. So id say do up a list of two/three you like and call them, see if they can suggest anything, I just used to say the kids will scream and make noise and have pillow fights and disturb other residents.

Toooldtocareanymore rooms for 5 are hard to find anyway aren't they? We did recently do a road trip where we used a mix of hotels, hostels and self catering which required a huge amount of searching to find suitable accommodation - we found one hotel with a family room for 5 with 3 single beds and a big double, but those are gold dust, even more so adjoining rooms with interconnecting door set ups with 3 kids beds in the adjoining room.

Apart from that one trip we usually do self catering if all 5 of us are going away and get a 2 or even 3 bed apartment, cottage or static caravan or whatever. DH isn't coming on this trip with us though and I don't want to spend family holiday level amounts, plus we won't be in one place for a full week.

I didn't think a room for 4 would be a problem as that's the average family size, but the drop downs wouldn't let me select 3 children, and not one had any kind of "max of 2 child per full price adult occupant type proviso, so there is no way of knowing why, exactly, 2 adults and 2 kids are fine, 1 adult and 2 kids is fine, but 1 adult and 3 kids isn't...