To refuse to go on days out in the UK anymore ?

[Heswall]

I have spent half the day mumsnetting from my phone because we have been bored rigid on a "day out" at a local national trust event.
The egg hunt clues were crap or missing, I ended up offering lunch at Frankie and Benny's if we could get the hell out of there and warm up.
I am sick of having to buy tons of layers of warm clothing that get taken off and then lost - if anyone finds an age 11-12 Joules Aire bodywarmer can I have it back please ? - I am sick of paying £60 in petrol and entrance fees for an hours entertainment at best.
For the price of Alton Towers I can fly two people to Spain, I feel I have done every farm, theme park, old house in the half of the country I live in.
AIBU to stay shove the staycation and save up for warm sunny weather and pastures new instead ?

Will run over bridge in morning to make sure and report back.

I visited Woburn "Abbey" last week.

An Abbey, is it? Not since the Abbott was conveniently found guilty of treason and it was stolen and willed to yet another entitled cunt.

I spent the entire time seething.

In the vaults:

And here is some of the family silver and porcelain

The buildings, the furniture, the paintings... tens if not hundreds of millions, not to mention the going concern that Woburn safari park and the hotel is. And that anything and everything bought for the estate or restored at great expense is a tax write-off.

, and we went the whole way round, DH, DD and I.

Didn't help that the present Duke reminds me of our Beloved Chancellor.

We were the only ones there. It was like the time we went to a deserted bird sanctuary / petting zoo at the height of the avian 'flu scare

We have English heritage membership rather than national trust. Got it using tesco club card vouchers so effectively free.

Joint adult membership means that you can take up to 6 children in with you. They tend to be castles rather than country houses and more robust in terms of dcs being able to run around without wrecking priceless furniture.

Lots of properties have free audio tours and some that we have been to have special children's audio tours. Dcs age 7 & 9 really like the audio tours and it keeps their interest a lot longer.

yanbu there are some great places to go on a day out but the best free ones rely on the weather and we don't mind it being cold/cloudy etc but I hate being outdoors when raining. Its just not fun getting wetter and wetter and everything you have on you soaked.

The indoor attractions are usually too expensive for us and in regards to national trust properties there are no doubt some great ones but I still feel traumatised from my youth being dragged round these houses every Sunday for hours then the feeling of total INJUSTICE at there being no adventure playground at the end.

Have also had annual membership for legoland using tesco vouchers when they were younger and Wellington country park for a couple of years too.

YABU, I love days out in the UK but I am a history nerd so take dd (2.11) to lots of free museums (Royal Armouries in Leeds, National Railway Museum are firm faves) or if the weather is nice then perhaps to YSP or get the train to the coast or visit the caves in Castleton. It is the impromptu days out that are the best and they don't have to cost the earth! my dd always behaves and isn't bored as there are lots of things to see and do and we always wear layers so if the weather changes we can warm up/cool down!

I also refuse to go out on days out in uk, you pay a fortune & it's usually rubbish, badly organised, the places to eat are disgusting, as are the toilets & what is the fascination with animals almost anything you can go to involves seeing some kind of animal. There are plenty of national trust outdoors type outings but the weather usually spoils those & again overpriced for what they offer.

This thread has brought back many fine memories from my youth of great places in the UK. All I can remember of our trip to Spain is coconut ice cream and sand.

YABU ;)

I really want to go to some caves. Not sure about DCs though (DD sensitive, DS still in buggy)

I used to live near the Chislehurst Caves - used as a shelter in the war - I went about 15 times. But we moved. :(

I love caves! Wookey Hole and Cheddar Gorge are within hailing distance of my grandma's house so we used to go there quite a lot as kids. The best ones I've ever been in were at the top of Mt Timpanogas in Utah - completely unexpected and freezing after a long hike in 40 degree temperatures. Beautiful. The 'caves' at a shopping centre in Nottingham were such a disappointment

I had a lovely day. Visited friends an hour outside London. Went for a stomp around the countryside with their two kids and a couple of other people and then went back to their place for tea and homemade cake. It was lovely and other than some petrol money and the price of some ingredients was completely free.

YANBU overpriced and dull. That is all.

Fuzzpig The caves at Cheddar Gorge are all lit up and not in the least bit scary, just beautiful. Plus they are wheelchair friendly so a buggy would be no problem.

YABU Some people had to work today. Would have loved a day out! Miserable Bugger!

We have NT membership & find it really good value - we mostly go for the gardens/woods/walks & find their kids activities fun for our dc. We always take our own food & drink though. We had a lovely time doing the egg hunt & crafts so YABU!

We get our NT through a cashback website, cost us £45 for four of us this year!

Ds1 loves Quarry Bank mill so we go there lots, the new play park at Lyme park is amazing, we go on holiday to Cornwall an a lot of the carparks are nt sonit pays for itself. Ds1 loves mount st. Michael when we are down in the west country. We take picnics with us though because the restaurants are generally crap.

AIBU to stay shove the staycation and save up for warm sunny weather and pastures new instead ?

Had a holiday once in the UK 25 years ago. Never again. Rest of Europe is generally cheaper and nicer.

If you want free, indoors and no animals, somewhere like the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester should suit. (and should be doable by public transport)

Rest of Europe is generally cheaper and nicer.
our last foreign hol was Paris. Very nice but so expensive. Bookended with the science museum and British museum as we went via london - free and brilliant and the coffee less eyewateringly expensive.

ooooooooooh Grimma that is what I am planning to do with dd next year!!london-paris-london!

Its a good combo for an older child.

Bookended with the science museum and British museum as we went via london - free and brilliant and the coffee less eyewateringly expensive

Just don't stay in London :)

(Paris and London are much of a muchness cost wise, but IMO you can get a better meal or coffee for less in Paris, just keep off the tourist trail)

I can see the point of going abroad if you want to lounge around on a beach and swim in hot weather; the UK is not great for that.

But for everything else, we do the same kind of things on foreign holidays as we do on ones in the UK. Museums, historic sites, walking and so on.

You get out what you put in. Manchester is setting up a new football museum and we will not be going because I don't know anything about football, don't have any interest in it and so the museum would have to do something really impressive for my family to get anything out of it.

I suspect it is the same for other museums, NT properties, areas of the countryside and so on. If you are bringing something to it, something you and your kids are interested in and want to know more about, then you go and find it. But if you turn up with no particular interest, then it is unlikely your interest is going to be much sparked just because they have put together a colouring in table, an overpriced cafe and a couple of information signs with some tactile kids' display.

I found it easier when the kids were younger and we were engaging it with it at a more basic level - teaching them how to read maps or basics of history. I'm trying to work out how to approach it all from a different angle with secondary school children with diverging interests. As DS has moved more into art, I'm thinking of going around stuff with sketch books and getting them to pick themes - birds, clothing, the supernatural or whatever, and getting them to sketch from one theme at different locations - outdoors, museums, different historic sites and so on. But you have to bring something to it, even at theme parks we love the theming and how people go about imagining it all and developing it around roller coasters.

fuzzpug before DD and a wee back we didn't have a car and took public transport everywhere. We managed to do many of the national trails around the south coast and the new forest. It took a bit of planning, but we got to pretty remote places. Obviously we are walking a fair bit but you can just walk to a nice place for a picnic and back! But it's a nice way to travel as you aren't forced to do circular routes to go back to the car. I still remember how beautiful the south coast of the isle of wight is, outside of the tourist trap (we did the coastal path).