Apparently my children have never had a proper holiday

[thimblgattle167]

According to my SIL anyway
Every year we take them to eurocamp (or similar) We take the eurotunnel and have traveled all over France, Italy Netherlands Germany. We stay in a chalet and have wonderful holidays, swimming biking exploring and much more. Our kids are great in the car so it's all no bother and we have a great time.

But no apparently it's only a holiday if you get on plane and stay in a hotel. I'm utterly baffled.

@thimblgattle167 most of my favourite holidays when I was a kid were all Eurocamp!!

Your SIL is an idiot

She sounds like me when I was a stroppy brat of a teenager. My parents insisted on taking me on holidays like you describe instead of acquiescing to my demands to fly to an AI in the Med like my best friend. They were great holidays and I loved them, but I didn't consider them "proper" holidays.

As I said, stroppy brat. My DC suffer similarly now, although we did take them to an AI last year and they loved that too.

The first time (apart from migration when I was 7 months old) I was on a plane was my honeymoon aged25. We had been on family holiday (by car, in this country) every year, to a variety of locations. I had been on a school tour overseas by bus and boat, visiting 5 other European countries. DH and I had also been on a few holidays in this country by that stage.

Since then, we've had a variety of short haul flights, long haul flights, car and ferry trips and quite a few holidays by car in this country. Both before and since we had DD.

We've had lots of adventures and all sorts of fun and activities both here and in other countries. Surfing (here), white water rafting (overseas), climbing mountains (both), learning to sail (both), exploring new foods and having time to enjoy some relaxed cooking for ourselves (both). But my idea of hell on holidays is staying in a hotel for more than 2-3 days, normally we get some form of self catering in lots of different guises - apartments, cottages, lodges, caravans etc. But just having some space for us all to spread out.

Since then, I've

We've flown to very similar to Eurocamp and hired a car on arrival... would that count?!

We also had a few days where we did nothing other than slob around the pool and slope off for a massage and ice cream. I didn’t realise this made us uncultured swines

i think if you do a mix it's great. If it's the only thing you do, I find it really hard to comprehend as I simply couldn't do that. As in physically.

When I say a pool holiday is my idea of hell, I mean it because it's not something I can do. I burn so easily it's actually bad for me. More than an hour or so and I'm toast. So it's just unpleasant.

I have to be sensible and my limits are significantly lower than other people.

For me it's not about being snobby for this reason.

I don't think anyone on this thread has claimed that staying in a hotel is not a proper holiday. Using it as a base (cake at breakfast you say? Ooh!) for all those activities makes perfect sense. What they're mostly saying is that it's the activities that make the holiday, not the fact that your base was a hotel nor indeed that you got there via aeroplane. So you're allowed to be cultured ;)

I think we’d both have to be pretty disingenuous to pretend half the comments about hotels and AL goers in particular aren’t completely below the belt and rather vicious in nature. You might not have left one of those comments but plenty did. And that makes them the same as the SIL really, no need to stoop to her level tbh.

That being said I get what you’re saying, I would hate to go on a long driving holiday, self catering and doing my own cleaning. For me I may as well stay at home, I can cook and clean for free. I want the opposite so favour the hotel vibe. Both are completely normal and lovely holidays.

My comment was slightly tongue in cheek. I love a hotel but they are a pita when you don’t have separate living accommodation and children who go to bed/want to eat dinner early

#allholidaysarerealholidays

In that case I've only been on one holiday in my almost 47 years 😄

I got back from France at 2am last night. Just missed the strike.

I flew. Stayed in a hotel for one night. Then drove for 3hrs via a vineyard shop. Then two nights in a self catering place. We walked along the sea front one day. Had local meal out. Skipped over the border for shits and giggles. Went to the mountains for one day. Bought shoes. Went to the pool for an hour in early evening before getting bored. Had a baguette and cheese from Carrefour. Then took the scenic drive home through the woods and up the coast, stopping in two towns on the way back. Dropped the car. Went for a beer in the city taking in the Cathedral as we went. And cursing that I didn't have enough time to go shopping as all the dresses in the window looked amazing.

I need an early night and a rest not a holiday!

Oh why are you even giving this headspace? Your SIL is obviously stupid so please do just ignore.

Oh there's definitely holiday snobbery.

I definitely am snobby about it at times - mainly cos I can't stand the Brits Abroad Mentality. It's awful and embarrassing.

But I also think there's certain people who just can't do certain types of holiday too.

Tbh, I'm quite glad they don't, because that means I don't have to meet them whilst I'm on mine!

Hotels have their place and there's such a range of hotel room types - especially if you have the budget for it (but there's some amazing budget options if you look hard). And tbh holiday lets have ethical issues in terms of impact on society, so actually they aren't always the best either.

I think always doing the same thing and never trying different things is where it's narrow-minded.

Well you don’t know the reasoning why people might choose to do the same thing. There’s prohibitive reasons like anxiety and health conditions or sentimental value, familial connection. Or maybe they just enjoy it and it makes them happy, labelling people as narrow minded for the above is narrow minded in itself.

Doing the same thing on repeat is narrow though. Even if there is good reason for it.

You may wish to be narrow-minded but at least own it!

Quite lol! I think you should own it, glad we agree.

We do different types of holiday. But I just CAN'T sit by a pool. Cos it's a physical impossibility. That's not narrow. It's having learnt that I burn...

Okay doky 👍🏻

Yeah ok love.

God bless you.

Lol thanks 😂

Do carry on.

For why though? I can see you’re determined to derail the thread with your moody bums.

Try some suncream and a holiday 😂

I'm more worked up at the passive aggressive idiocy tbh.

Not what people do on holiday.

HTH.