Which holiday

[Twizbe]

Trying to decide on a holiday for this summer.

Basic info;

Family of 4 (children aged 6 and 4) one parent works full time the other is a SAHP. Two weeks during school holidays. One child has a food allergy.

Option 1 - self catering gites or apartment in France
Pros - own pool or limited others to share with. Parents and kids have separate bedrooms. Easy to cater for food allergy. Days out for the kids. DD wants to learn French so hearing us speak it more / give her chance to speak it. Loved this type of holiday as a child.

Cons- the drive. Having to self cater, same shit, different location. Cost of entrances / meals out. Petrol costs. Lack of kids club or time for just us adults.

Option 2 - all inc somewhere
Pros - we've done this twice now and the kids really enjoy it. Especially if there's a water park. No one has to cook or plan meals. Pay everything upfront. We really limit extra spending on these holidays. No driving. Kids club / gym

Cons - hit and miss on catering for allergy. Children live off chips for 2 weeks lol. Usually all have to sleep in one room.

Personally, I would opt for either option 1 but fly and hire a car or option 3 nice hotel on b & b basis (plenty of choices at breakfast), other kids to interact with and some kids activities eat out at night. Ideally, try and find one with a separate bedroom or bedrooms.

Haven’t read all the posts what is the food allergy if its coeliac I may have the answer to your prayers.

I love both types of holiday but why do so many assume that AI is just huge buffets ?

The best ones have excellent à la carte options so no need for monotony or loaded buffet plates !

Just choose the hotel carefully !

But a 'carefully chosen, multi a la carte restaurants AI hotel' costs thousands to stay at.

I know MN thinks a fortnight in an Ikos resort is a normal thing to do, but for many, when your holiday starts to cost more than a very decent second hand car, you start to think about whether it is a good use of the money and what changes could be made to have a nice relaxing holiday that doesn't cost five figures.

Which is why many people decide to self cater and combine eating out with easy food in the accommodation. Because if you do it right, it's far cheaper than high end AI but a nicer experience than buffet AI.

Unless you go 5+* it's not that easy and it's very expensive.

We chose carefully last year - so we thought - 6 restaurants plus the buffet.

But - tiny menu, basically set one swith 3 choices for main. Difficult to book as the spaces were also tiny and very much frown upon to book with a child, they clearly wanted it as adult only without saying so.

The only one where we were really happy with the quality of the buffet and the restaurants was a complex on Cyprus where the restaurants were also open to the guests in the s/c villas and we had an allowance per day to eat where we wanted outside the buffet restaurant.

But that holiday was outside our normal price range and we only went because it was a special trip. We priced it up again for last year but Covid costs meant it's now really out of reach.