All inclusive holidays vs self catering

[musingonhol]

Which would be your choice?

Love the convenience of AI but can see why some hate it… especially at buffet time! I often think self catering must be peaceful but paying all that money to come away and have to do a food shop and wash up?!

Is there a compromise?

I think that would be incredibly boring for lunch every day. I want a proper nice meal in a restaurant for lunch when I'm on holiday - I don't want to be preparing my own concoction of ham, cheese, and bloody salad, whether it's posh poncey French or processed Kraft!

Oh god I am sorry for offending the fancy ham and local cheese coupled with crusty bread people!!

Me: self catering is ok but hard work, have to cook and clean up.

Multiple posters: I don’t cook lunch on holiday, i buy ham cheese and bread

me: my kids don’t like ham and cheese sandwiches (even if it’s fancy ham and cheese and the bread is crusty/from a local bakery)

the ham and cheese bread people: eating ham cheese and bread in a meal is completely different to a ham and cheese sandwich and I am sorry for you if your idea of catering lunch is making ham and cheese sandwiches, you should be a superior self catering caterer by buying ham cheese and bread but most importantly, eating all three in separate bites, thereby making it a classy non-sandwich ham, cheese and bread based lunch.

Honestly fancy ham, local cheese and crusty bread people are in denial about what a sandwich is.

Literally every SC post mentions cheese, meat and bread.

I can't wait to go AI and gorge myself on the breakfast, hotdogs at lunch and buffet dinner as well as much AI beer I can manage.

Self catering hands down.
I want to do things when I want how I want you know?
I don't find it relaxing going to a crowded place at a set time to eat every day.
I want to rent a car and see all different places wherever I am..
I want to eat in random reateraunts or have a picnic in the middle of nowhere at midnight or eat breakfast at 1pm.
I don't want anyone knowing my business or to be sociable when I don't feel like it
I just don't find hotels or all inclusive actually relaxing. It makes me tense.
I went on a cruise once with a boyfriend before I had kids and I absolutely hated it.
Not my idea of a holiday. I don't like structure, confined spaces, crowds, organised entertainment..
I like renting little houses in the middle of nowhere and visiting places.
I find it relaxing cooking in a nice clean state of the art kitchen rather than my set up at home. I don't think of it as hard work it's more fun.

Exactly @Alwaysgothiccups AI is my idea of hell on holiday. Other people feel.like that about self catering. It would be very boring if we were all the same.

Self catering means different things to different people though.

I don't like eating a lot at breakfast, so it's either a bowl of cereal or a slice of toast, which isn't "cooking" and doesn't create much washing up.

We eat out rather than cook because we are on holiday so, self catering for us really isn't self catering, but just having more room than just a hotel room, and being able to make a cup of tea whenever we want.

It's not all about food. I like self-catering because I like my privacy and I like space. Food-wise it works better for us because one DC is a very limited eater and it would be stressful hoping there would be something she would eat other than bread and chips.

We mostly go to France. They don't really do AI anyway. There's a lot of pretty reasonably-priced SC property available there so even with having to buy food it always seems much cheaper than an AI holiday.

The only time I eat breakfast is on holiday! The breakfast buffet makes me so happy 😂embarrassingly perhaps but its actually a big part of the holiday experience for me.

So what's a hotdog?

I enjoy an AI stay as I don’t want to be cooking and cleaning on holiday. Do enough of that at home. There are huge differences in AI though and we go to ones where we eat a la carte for breakfast lunch and dinner. No need to visit a buffet at all.

@FancyBiscuitsLevel wnat do your kids eat? Genuine question. As I loved crusty bread and cheese growing up…it was a real treat.

Massive*

Self catering. Eat out loads and assemble rather than cook food consumed in the accommodation. Breads, cheeses, salads, cold cuts, pre-bought roast chicken or quiche etc. Always choose somewhere with a dishwasher and a good sized balcony with a nice view for eating, relaxing and drinking wine on. Each to their own really 🤷🏻‍♀️

Another cheese and ham sandwich SC holiday 😂

The cheese, ham and crusty bread brigade...what do you think a buffet serves? Because our last holiday, the buffet had all of that. Every type of bread you can imagine...baguettes, rolls, rye bread, wholemeal, seeded, traditional Mallorcan bread...then huge platters of every cheese you know, platters of various hams, salamis. Big bowls of various olives. I don't understand what you think they serve.

Yes….but sometimes I want to just sprawl on a balcony with wine and not eat till 9pm. Or get up at 10 and drink tea in my pjs looking at a view with a bit of toast.

Ah but in AI you only get baguettes. When you buy it yourself it's a ficelle

What’s the difference between full board and all inclusive?

All inclusive you normally get unlimited drinks throughout the day/evening, snack bars and all meals.

Full Board in Normally just Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner.

Full board is meals only, AI includes drinks and snacks.

As an aside, we went HB once and I wasn't even allowed a cup of water from a fountain with my meal, all drinks had to be paid for.

I don't like AI because I don't like buffet meals or cold food being served fridge cold like it is on a buffet. The sort of AI where you can have a la carte meals served to you at a table outside is extremely expensive so it's better value to us to self cater and eat out most of the time, then buy drinks and snacks from the supermarket.

I also actually prefer self catering where there isn't any room service because it saves me the bother of unmaking a hotel bed so I can get in it after they've made it in the stupid way that hotels do.

Plus why do they always want to service the room during the exact 10 minute slot that you pop back to drop something off/pick something up/quickly change despite being out for most of the day?

It’s not about the bread and ham (or whatever food you choose). I just like having space, I prefer eating out in restaurants in different places and I like choosing a location and accommodation type that suits my holiday style. I think it costs more overall because eating out is often expensive and we buy plenty of wine for lazy evenings on the balcony. I’m not in it for the baguette and cold cuts and I’m pretty well acquainted with buffets 😂 I also hammer the local crisp selection, but again, I wouldn’t base my choice of holiday accommodation around that.

What puts me off all inclusive is the communal thing. Plus the rigidity. It all feels a bit prescribed. Reminds me of cafeterias, school dinner halls, going up with your tray at a set time, etc.

I appreciate that the majority of AI holidays are a much cheaper option to self-catering; eating meals out, a bit of local food in for light breakfast/lunch/snacks, paying for your own drinks + ice creams (in or out).

I also appreciate some people like the prescribed nature - fewer choices to make - just like on a cruise! Also can see it's probably great for hungry kids.

Interesting thread and the cheese-ham-bread wars made me laugh.

I have to say I agree with this. Last time we went all inclusive DH and I worked out that the extra money it cost to upgrade to AI was worth it for the drinks alone. Similarly, it was around £100 a day for us to go AI and we could easily spend that on a few rounds of drinks for DH and I/juices for the children plus breakfast each day.

I like the convenience and knowing that meals are covered but we can also go out to other restaurants if we want to.

I also like the flexibility of a self catering villa with a private pool but it is much more expensive in my experience. We tend to alternate.....best of both worlds then!

Well it's not really. Or at least on the one occasion we've done it it wasn't. We were kind of accidental AIers in that I'd intended to book half board but there were free child places on the AI package but not the half board for some reason so the AI ended up a lot cheaper.
The meals were the same as they were on any of the other packages and you could go for your evening meal any time between about 5 and 9pm so it wasn't rigid at all. I think we did stay in the hotel a bit more than we might have done on half board because we knew that lunch was paid for and the kids liked the unlimited ice cream, but we still went on excursions and hired a car for a few days to explore for ourself just as we would have done if we'd stayed in the same place on a different basis. Of course you can spend your holiday without leaving your AI hotel but you don't have to - it's not like they lock you in!
We generally prefer self catering for lots of reasons but I'm not averse to the occssional hotel stay and there are pros and cons to either. But some of the posts on this thread about AI don't fit with my experience I must say. No doubt it varies from place to place but for us it wasn't that different to any other hotel stay we've had and we had a perfectly nice holiday in a decent hotel. Nothing school dinner- ish about it at all.

It's not the what they serve, it's how they serve it and the restaurant itself.

I hate it. It's loud, busy, people poking with fingers at food, it doesn't look appetising or fresh. Small children running around and bumping into people carrying hot food.

The back and forth for more food (I hate filling up my plate to the rim) is annoying.

Waiters are too busy clearing up to get me a second drink.

We often chose food which was grilled in front of us and tried to go early so it the place was still decent looking and the noise level down.

At a villa I can eat when I want, have food fresh from the fridge and only prep as much as we think we want. I can eat in peace and not have too many people around me.
We actually eat together instead of one of us always gone to get more food.

Saying that - we had amazing AI buffet in the Caribbean. Less choice but the quality was amazing. Staff actually serving you from the hot dishes so you don't had to use spoons clearly mixed up between serving pans. Enough staff to provide drinks and less of a canteen feeling.