trivial! AIBU to think a villa holiday abroad can be as good or better than all inclusive?

[autumnlights12]

We've done both. A friend recently commented that her kids would be very bored on a villa holidays cos they love to mix with other kids and make friends. But I do love the peace and the privacy and the sense of really getting away from it all, which you don't get in a big hotel. Am I being unreasonable to think that children can enjoy a villa holiday as much as a big hotel holiday? Do kids really need 24/7 entertainment on tap to enjoy themselves?

We have had fabulous holidays in both but the DC much prefered a hotel with water sports, tennis courts etc once past around ten years old.

Hotel is my kind of hell. I cannot be doing with other peoples kids and parents that scream at their kids from loungers to stop doing whatever allday rather than getting off their arses to actually deal with their kids. Spent a few spoilt holidays in hotels. Now prefer the calm of the villa. Unless you literally do nothing than stay at the villa everyday children do get the chance to mix with other children - park, beach, beer gardens, lido etc.

I like both . But have just done a v. luxurious AI which was great as I wanted to relax with my family. Loads of AI snobbery on MN , if you haven't knitted your own plane out of authentic local hessian then it's not a holiday.

Hell is other people.

We're having our first foreign holiday with the DSSs and new baby next summer and I'm looking forward to choosing fish at the market, being able to BBQ every day and a pool to ourselves.

Agree with Sirzy.

Avoiding all inclusive doesn't mean you have to spend the whole holiday cooking and cleaning; there's probably a restaurant somewhere and you may even be able to pay the owners to do the cleaning after you've left.

As for children being bored- we've always seen our holidays as an opportunity to have fun together, as a family. If your friend's children would be bored just because they have to spend time with her, perhaps she is a more boring person than you are, OP.

Our last holiday was spent in a gite in the Loire valley. Chateaux, museums, cathedrals- all the things our then 11yo most loathes. But he thoroughly enjoyed the meals together in restaurants, the time together in the car, the evenings in front of the fire (which he spent performing little raps about how tired your feet get going round boring chateaux)- just the sense that for once his whole family was relaxed and together and had all the time in the world for each other. He speaks of it as a good holiday.

YANBU, ours usually prefer villa holidays as long as there is a pool. We've also done all inclusive massive hotel once and they loved that too but generally prefer villa for more personal living space and not sharing pool.

Yes, our AI experience was probably helped by the fact the one we booked went bust so they upgraded us to a really posh 5* one at no extra cost. Free waterskiing anyone??

It also depends how old your kids are and what there is to do in the area. If they're fairly close in age and play together well, then the need for other kid around is less than if you've got, say, two with a 6 year age gap. Also, if you're mainly going to be out and about anyway (visiting chateaux etc), then that's a different prospect to a remote villa where all there is to do is sunbathe.

The thing I like about villas with small kids is that when they're napping/ want to be inside for a bit, you're not sitting in a hotel room with them. You can sit outside and they can sit in the living room or nap in the bedroom.

My kids are very young atm (2yo and 3mo) and we've been doing catered villas with other families with similar aged kids as a good compromise, but they are a lot cheaper in Asia (where we live) than in Europe I think.

When I was very young, we did villa holidays but we always 'did' things - went out every day, saw things so it wasn't 'same routine, different house' because we were busy all the time. When I got to about 10 we went to an AI for about 2 years. On the whole, it was ok but it didn't really suit us as a family - don't know why, just not our 'thing' I guess.
Then we went back to villas, but by then we always hired a villa with a pool. Those holidays, all through my teens, were some of the best I've ever had. We always went to the library and stocked up on books, and then spent two weeks lazing by our own pool, often in the middle of nowhere so free to make as much noise as we liked without disturbing anyone, inventing and holding all manner of weird swimming and lilo races (with no-one else to get in our way in the pool!), reading, reading, reading, pottering round local markets trying to learn bits of the language and then use it, seeing local sights etc. Every evening, we played games as a family (usually card games, sometimes board games). But, as a family, we were bookish (still are) and all of us read intensively so the chance to do it for days on end was great. We liked to explore too, so those holidays suited us.
I've done one AI since. I felt trapped and hemmed in by other people - clearly it's not my thing!

baby That sounds awesome. Can I come on holiday with you? I promise not to talk ....

I think if you have an only child a hotel can appeal more than a secluded villa.
Or, like richmanpoorman said, a large age gap.

baby that sounds like my kind of holiday too.

I have had many hotel holidays, and have just had my fill of being surrounded by people. I am very much into having my own space - which is possible when staying in a villa with enough rooms/garden space etc to escape to.

Recent summers have been spent in France, in various regions, renting a nice house with pool. DSs are now mid teens, so don't need entertaining. One willl swim and read mags, the other will play with a ds/computer and just hang out.

I think that DC need to be able to entertain themselves - obviously that depends on age, but it is a good skill to learn.

We have shared with extended family for some of the time too, which works to a point also. i.e. last year we had a house for two weeks, my parents and dsis came for one week of that. It was nice to have more of a party atmosphere, play different games etc. But then it was back to totally calm and relaxed when it was back to just us again.

So YANBU.

I love villa holidays. I like to cook and I like privacy and my own pool. We often go with family so we can share the jobs. And out of season it can be cheap as chips. DS will be in school soon though so no more luxury bargains.

Baby we had family holidays like that - I read so many books and lived it!

*loved

We go all inclusive every other year. Fabulous - no thinking about what or where to eat, no bloody cooking, no bored children. A villa holiday is my idea of hell.

I've never done all inclusive so I can't compare but for some reason I don't really mind cooking and cleaning in a different house to mine - it certainly doesn't detract from that 'holiday' feeling plus someone else takes care of the towels/bedding side of things. We eat out most nights anyway. For me the big draw with self-catering is that you have more space than just the one room so can sit and watch telly at night while the kids are in bed (when they're younger) and if you want a leisurely start to the day or if the weather's not so great you can just mooch around for a bit without feeling hemmed in.

You don't really have to "clean" villas anyway- in the sense that you only have to clean up after meals/load dishwasher etc, not actually do proper cleaning/ washing/hoovering etc.

In my young single days a group of us would get a villa in South of France or Spain and just BBQ every night. It was great (thinks wistfully to when she had abs and spent holidays floating between the beer fridge and a sun lounger)

A villa doesn't have an understairs cupboard that you've been meaning to tidy for the past two years or a living room that needs decorating, or a bathroom with three months' soapy grime you need to sort out. Being away in a villa means you just relax and do the bare essentials (some cooking and putting dirty clothes in the pile of dirty clothes to take home and wash).

I love being away from everything in the holidays. I feel I have my DCs captive and we can do lots of lovely things together. We've had some lovely times playing cards in a tent whilst it's bucketing it down outside.

We recently did a two week villa holiday, it was fab. The cleaner came 3 times a week, fresh towels every other day and change of bedding twice a week. Heated pool to ourselves, dh did a couple of bbq's, ate out on other nights. the best bit was that i got to have a sleep in most days. Whilst I'm still asleep everyone else was up, had breakfast and were enjoying the pool......what's not to love. (DD's 5 & 8 fight like mad at home, but love each other on holiday!)

We do ground floor apartments with a private garden and shared pool or a villa on a complex with a shared pool. It gives us our privacy and gives the dc a chance to meet other children. We do not like AI as sitting in a restarant 3 times a day is a pain, we like to shop in the local markets and eat out in different places at night. Having a washing machine is a good enough reason alone to stay in a villa.

I must admit we have only been AI in places other than Europe (Cuba, Antigua etc etc)
And have only done villas in Europe.