How expensive are days out?!

[MullerInk]

My word! Just booked a day out at an adventure park tomorrow. They are running a promotion so I can get in for free, DS is a baby so he is free. We've only had to pay for DD and DP and it's £43! Pretty soon we will be priced out of days out!

Depends on your families circumstances- I was raised in the 80’s-90s- days out and theatre trips etc were common

I tried National Trust quite a few times and personally don’t get the hype whatsoever.

Of course but without the widespread use of social media we were blissfully unaware that other families were off doing expensive trips. That's what I mean by expectations have changed our expectations matched our budget but now peoples expectations do not match their budget.

I haven’t seen much but happy to be corrected- as far as I could see it was just diff forests and playgrounds to choose from

My point was I don’t think days out were this expensive comparatively to disposable income.

We went to Peppa Pig world and it cost £260! Admittedly dd's dad wanted to pay extra so she could meet the peppa pig characters in the morning.

Also not sure where you are in the country but the RAF museum cosford is free admission, which we found a great day out.

It is indeed but take a picnic, the food is very expensive.

LimeCheesecake We lived in London as a child .Yearly School trip London Zoo! Also went with my family .Had a couple of times we went abroad (Europe) .Things seem very dear now maybe post pandemic as well

It depends on your expectations of a day out. If it's just a day trip to a nice place - the beach, the countryside somewhere, and you take your own food, the only cost is travel/parking.

If you want to go to a theme park, it's going to cost a fortune.

I agree, entrance prices are becoming silly. My 14 year old ds would just say he's board wondering around national trust properties and without a car, we can't get to them anyway. We tend to save days out for the school holidays only. We don't do much in term time, so have a bit more money to treat the kids then. Tesco points were also great, gutted they aren't worth as much now but will still give you a bit of money off.

We went to Chessington recently, paid with Clubcard vouchers, took a packed lunch. Only cost a bit of petrol to get there and back.
We're doing the same for Legoland later in the year

Prices up less than 10% so less than inflation

Scrap that - sone much more depends where you go

I'll stick to the beach and the park

I think they have always been expensive though.
Mind we took Dd and Dgd on a spontaneous day out to Paultons Park, best part of £180 just to get in!

Entrance prices to paid for attractions have gone up a lot recently. The theme park type and other attractions like it we only do once a year or so.

However, what I’ve noticed is a lot of free days out are getting really expensive due to parking and toilet charge entry. Obviously these things cost to maintain but when charges are £6 all day or £2 two hours for a local woods which isn’t quite enough for a walk and picnic you do end up spending out on parking.

This! Nothing different than the local forest play park really.

Days out like that are not an everyday occurrence though surely? Especially with young children (which I'm assuming is OP's case since she mentions a baby, although accept I may be wrong :) ) a day out is a trip to a park with a playground taking a picnic. Only cost is travel and possibly parking.

Then the theme park type day out is once or twice a year and you try to use vouchers (time was we only went to these places courtesy of Tesco; unlikely to be quite so possible now they've cut the value of clubcard). As an occaionsal thing, I think the cost is fine.

Much cheaper to make your own days out. We canoe on a local stream, heron sitting, choose a lunch destination (pub) and cycle there and back. I give ds an old fashioned ordinance survey map and let him get on with it. Get up v early (I have an early riser) and drive to the coast. Have breakfast on the beach. Collect a sleepy friend on the way. Other parents love it ! Cycle the local canal towpath, take a picnic.

Picnics with ds' friends are good. Or we get them over for a barbecue and I've put benches and quoits and other stuff in the garden for teens to mess about with

... heron spotting...

How many days out would you do in the 6 week holiday?

My DC are teens now, but when lower primary school age they would typically spend probably around 2 or 3 weeks of the summer holiday in holiday clubs (two working parents), we'd go away for a week as a family (during which we might go to 1 or occasionally 2 "big ticket" days out - generally paid for by Tesco clubcard vouchers). The rest of the time days out would be meeting friends, going to free/cheap local community activities, or "park with a picnic" type days out.

And we had National Trust membership so that was always a few days sorted.

By older primary school age they were "playing out" with friends most days in the holiday and we only saw them at meal times.

I love how you imply you had a cheap summer holiday. Don’t get me wrong what you do should be normal but to break down the figures:

holiday clubs: £45-70 a day per child x 15 days
holiday: a week family of 4 anything between 2k-10k
two days out: c£500

its madness to think two 5hr activities is nearly a quarter of a trip abroad for a wk.

its sad to me how many kids will never get to go on what should be a standard day out.

I don't think I did imply that? I just said days out could be cheap.

I love how you have come up with massively inflated prices to prove your points. Our local holiday club is £28 a day, we used Tescos vouchers for days out and took our own food so it was only cost of travel and parking. And our holidays were more of the camping in Devon variety.

You're right OP. Days out used to be the cheaper alternative to going away.

When ?
Adventure park type places (and zoos etc) were certainly never cheap when my (now adult) dc were small, (end 90s and during 00s) and they never were when me and my siblings were small (60s and 70s). They just weren't a 'thing' at all when my parents were small (1930s).

As so many other posters have said. Days out don't have to be expensive at all. If you choose to go to theme parks, then they will be, but you've actually got a really good deal there. There are big costs involved in running a theme park or a zoo or safari park. If you want them to exist, you have to pay for them.
Most families surely mix things up, with one expensive place and lots of free, or low cost time spent out and about doing other things.

We didn't do much going away
And our days out were mostly the picnic kind

I guess it's hard to adjust if you have been used to something else