Budget Family Holidays

[MrsCrosbyNRTB]

I really need some help with sorting a family holiday this year so I’m turning to mumsnet!

There’s 5 of us, 2 adults and 3 DC aged 13, 11 and 8.

Our budget is tight: absolute max of £3-3.5K all in (which I thought was pretty good until I started looking! ).

We’re all pretty easy going, would definitely like some sun as we had the wettest ever trip to Wales last year and although it was lovely I think I got trench foot.

Definitely don’t want a driving holiday as the older two will spend most of their time twatting each other with whatever’s to hand .

Any brilliant ideas? Do last minute deals still occur? Any holiday hacks that I don’t know about?

Thanks everyone.

would a holiday park like this one in Italy appeal? If you went from
30-07-2020 to 06-08-2020, you could get these flights (found through Kayak price checker, note that the departure airport and arrival one are different) for £513.50 (5 people, one suitcase), and the accommodation in Italy would cost £ 1617.00. not including your bus tickets (info on the holiday park website) from the airport to the park, it would cost you £2130.50 for a week x

You could have two weeks here depending on where you want to fly from and when you want to go of course!

I am not sure last minute deals still occur tbh - I havent managed to find any in the last couple of years.

Jet2 are quite reasonably priced generally.

i would avoid Italy at the moment....coronavirus is starting to take hold, who knows where that will lead or when it will end

Have you looked at Balken holidays?

I wouldn't avoid Italy at all. The spread of coronavirus outside China is not unexpected. It is hitting older people hardest and it isn't spreading within countries outside China at the moment, except for a very few cases.

The majority of cases are travellers who picked up the virus in China.

It isn't a pandemic in WHO terms.

A 2-3 bed holiday apartment somewhere of your liking. You can get a decent one for around £1000 per week in summer, in Europe near the sea or lakes. Hire car and flights ontop, and thats around £2000 total depending on location. The rest on local attractions, eating out, excursions as needed

As an FYI, we have an apartment (2 bed) similar to above, where its hot in summer, and nearby watersports. Its been fully booked for June-September 2020 since before Christmas, so you would need to book somewhere pretty soon to find space.

£3k is not tight! Ferry to Spain is about £1000 with car in school hols and the northern coast is lovely (within 2 hours of the port). West coast of France is 6 hours ish from the port, ferry was £240 return last time I took it (mine count as adults) via Le Havre in August. Pierre vacances cost me €550 for a week self catering and had a pool, bar, restaurant, kids and teens programmes. Flying is going to be more but should be able to get them for £200 each if you pick a route with lots of competition, self catering at £500 a week then £1000 left for food and meals out.

We go to an apartment in the Algarve in Portgual every year. We get a one bedroom apartment as just one DC but you would get away with a two bedroom as the living areas have sofa beds. The cost for the apartment would be around £1000 for July/August. The flights are usually about £250 each so you would be £1250 for flights then £1000 for the apartment. A transfer to and from the airport would be £75. Family travel insurance is around £25. Then you'd have around £1,150 spending money. An evening meal in that area for us (3 of us) is around €40-€50 so you'd be around €70-€80? The supermarkets stock bread, croissants etc for breakfast at a reasonable price. Lunches are really cheap, like €4 each for a toastie with chips or salad or €5 for a burger and chips, pizza, salads with chicken etc. I think £1,150 spending money which would be about €1,300? Would be ok for a family of 5. It would give you €185 a day to spend and even if you ate out every night with drinks, you'd still have over €100 a day for activities, lunches out and buying things for the apartment for breakfast/snacks, souvenirs etc.

It's a great area with a water park, many bars and restaurants, mini golf, out door carnival rides, a beach, a large pool at the apartment complex which is gated and leads onto the beach. There's excursions to nearby areas and taxi are cheap too

Wow is 3k budget?!

Self catering apartment anywhere where you can get decently priced flights. Maybe Canaries. Plan to eat out at least once a day and top up with easy food, drinks, ice creams etc from supermarket.

We stayed here in lanzarote. Small private pool, walking distance to supermarket, beach, restaurants and lots of other attractions like waterpark, volcano Park etc not too far away.

Canaries are expensive in high season, we are usually over 2k for 2 adults. Bulgaria is quite cheap. Also if you are in England, fly from Scotland and vice versa (different summer holidays). Foreign holiday camps are also good as someone else said (went as a child on the coach).

SquashedFlyBiscuit I know!!! I thought it was fine until I started looking. We try to go abroad every other year if we can for a bit of reliable sun. I’m a HCP so no pay rise since forever and prices have climbed. I know we’re lucky to be able to do anything but I thought it would go further than it seems to.

Thank you so much everyone for your suggestions, I’m going to look into all of them