Self catering isn't a holiday. It's the same rubbish in a different location.

[wintersdawn]

We are currently 3 days into a 10 day self catering holiday and I'm sick of it already. My DH loves self catering holidays as they are a break from work and a different location and he can spend the whole time winding down from work and enjoying the break from the commuting routine.

But for me it's just the same shit in a different place, DD6 and DS4 still wake up early no matter how late we let them stay up. We either head off somewhere for the day which seems to always cost a fortune or involve lots of driving or stay in the house but without all their normal toys and entertainment options. We aren't near a beach this time which would normally give the children hours of entertainment, as we are staying in a relations house whilst they are away to save money. We don't have the budget to eat out each night and so the same cleaning, cooking, washing crap happens as it would at home.

I know we needed a cheap holiday this year as we've just had to replace the car and we did the kitchen at the start of the year but this is the 4th year in a row of self catering and I'm over them.

I can't be the only one who gets dragged down by self catering? Can I?

I love self-catering! We are off to the south of France next week and will be staying in a mobile home on a nice campsite. My DH and DC live to go to the bread shop in the morning to buy the bread/croissants etc. We can then have a leisurely brekkie outside. We can then make up some yummy baguette sandwiches for lunch (Roquefort - yum) and head off for a day out with a picnic. In the evening we will either eat out or make something easy/have a BBQ and relax on the deck with plenty of wine. We all love going to the foreign supermarkets to see what is different to home. Can't wait!

We do sc every year, kids are 3 and 5. It is really good value which leaves money to be spent on days out or meals out. We keep meals simple and I like cooking so that side doesn't bother me. It is much more relaxed than usual busy life of nursery, school, and both of us working.

I hate self catering too. Will do it sometimes but only I we agree to have dinner out most nights. It's not just all the cooking and cleaning - I just don't get a break from that mental meal planning crap (an I quite like cooking).
Kick back in the cleaning and then you (or dh) can blitz it on the last day while the other takes the kids out. Share the cooking though just cause he's a man doesn't mean he can't throw a meal together!

I don't think you need so much food planning when you are on holiday. Have fish one day, fish the next and repeat, add some vegetables, fruits and ice cream and you are done.

There is no reason he can't pull his weight.

Perhaps you should suggest that if he can't manage to cook all by himself that he does all the washing up.

4 and 6 year old can help him. Should be entertaining.

1 night of that and I reckon he will be keen to show off his culinary skills.

Does the house have a BBQ? Apparently men that can't cook suddenly become genius chefs at the thought of fire.

I'm lucky, DH loves to cook.

I love self catering mainly because I like space and a fridge so I can have a cold drink or a snack in the evening without going out, the thought of the 4 of us being stuck in 1 room for a fortnight and having to take 2 young kids to a restaurant 3x a day is my worst nightmare.

I like to get up open the door so they can run in and out and flake out on the sofa with a bacon butty, even better if dh has cooked it on the bbq, there's something lovely about breakfast outside on a summers day.

Maybe the DH wants to kick back and relax on holiday? I know I do. This isn't a DH problem, it is a type of holiday problem. If neither of you like cooking and cleaning on holiday, don't go self catering. Problem magically solved

I much prefer the idea of a self catering hol with young dc rather than staying in a hotel because you have separate rooms, a kitchen, a washer etc and it is a home from home so things like bedtimes and mornings are easier.

I agree with others though that you have to work as a team for it to be more like a holiday. My husband does do his fair share rather than just sitting on his arse watching me do all the shit work and I am training my dc (5&6) to get their own cereals, make their own sandwiches and wash their dishes after use as well as basic tidying up so that I'm not having to do it all.

We love self-catering holidays, our boys who are now 9 and 15 have grew up like this, tend to drive to France every year and stay somewhere in the middle of nowhere with a pool. Love all the french supermarkets and cheap French wine. And I dont mind cooking when we can sit outside with the food and wine at the pool and relax. But then again my DH does all the clearing up and cleaning up.

Well I love self catering holidays.

But it doesn't sound to me as though you're on a self catering holiday. It sounds like you are house sitting only with an extra child to look after (your husband).

Why do people think SC means you have to cook? We do only because one of the dc has sever allergies otherwise we'd eat out. As a child we always went self catering. We only had breakfast at "home" but ate out somewhere different for lunch/dinner.

We tried self-catering a few times. It stopped when I started demanding that dh pull his weight. We campe for years, which in some ways is worse but at least I loved camping and there were always other children for dd to wander off and play with.

It sounds like this is not a holiday for the ops dh.

I imagine staying in someone's house, or house sitting, involves more work than staying g at home.
All that cleaning, organising everything g, cooking, washing up, cleaning all the rooms.

Hello, I'd rather stay at home than do that.

The last few times I've been all inclusive, the rooms s have been huge.
Private terrace/ balcony. Kitchen facilities too.
Gardens.
Absolutely no cleaning, cooking, meal p!anning and everything provided.
Of course you have to research where to go as you do with self catering.

I think you need to insist that next time it's either a holiday for you or you are not going.

Typos!
Should say only a holiday for the ops dh.

"Sorry, but no matter what, women always do the bulk of the work on a SC trip."

Not in our family.

It's OH that does the bulk. And he enjoys cooking.
But then that means someone has to watch the kids alone.
And he deserves a holiday too.
Even those people who hardly cook on holiday - "just a BBQ" well to me that involves handling and maybe marinating raw meats, chopping boards for salad and bread, at the very least there will be a receiving and serving platter, plates, knives, forks, tables to wipe down, floors to sweep, dishwashers to load and empty. Chopping boards are usually inadequate, knives small and blunt.
And as much as shopping in local markets is delightful there are still cases of water, fruit juice or fizzy drinks, milk, beer, wine etc to be bought.Coffee, tea, bread, all has to be brought back to a SC apartment.
Then there is waste to dispose of, empty bottles, cans, food waste.

All stuff I really don't want to do on holiday. It certainly wouldn't all fall to me, but I want to escape from all that stuff when I go on holiday.

I

The last few times I've been all inclusive, the rooms s have been huge.
Private terrace/ balcony. Kitchen facilities too.
Gardens.

emily- ditto.

We have been 10 or 12 AI holidays when the kids were young. Always villa or ground floor apartments. Good outdoor space and verandah, beautiful gardens.
Small family run, low key activities.
Great variety of local food and snack available all day.
So great for little ones too excited to finish a meal at 12.30, no problem - go for another meal 2 hours later. Or sit and have a freshly cooked pide- freshly cooked all day. Help yourself to unlimited ice cream. ice cream Peckish at 4pm? Kids can have poolside pizza ir gyros or take it back to the apartment. Freshly baked cakes and coffee served late afternoon. Or go out for the day and the hotel will provide a packed lunch.
See what is for dinner that night- seafood BBQ? Just stay at the hotel. Or go out for a meal.
AI even with eating out every other day has actually worked out cheaper than SC holidays.
If only for the number of drinks the kids have , coffees and alcoholic drinks ice creams ( that usually get only half eaten and then left as kids are eager to get back into the pool.

Meanwhile adults are left to do the important things like planning an excursion, drinking coffee, reading.
Only housework involved is stirring a teaspoon around in a coffee cup.

I do sc a lot and the key is planning. Don't eat as if you're at home. A picnic out is 2 baguettes sliced horizontally, filled and sliced in situ. A bag of fruit, multipack of snacks and pack of biscuits/ something treaty.
Dinner will be a bought in or home made one pot or bake (risotto, fishpie, stew, cassoulet) + salad, yogurts or little posh pots of something. If DH doesn't like it he can order in or cook without suoervision. You need to spell out that all this wife work is not a holiday for you.

We did a Mark Warner thing once, all inclusive. We had to wear wristbands and have tokens. It was like being caged. It involved queuing for food and set mealtimes. It was 20 years ago so perhaps things have changed.

A short break with a couple of nights in a hotel is fine but we prefer more freedom, more space and being able to eat in our scruffs. Our day to day lives are smart and formal and we don't want that on holiday.

It takes me five minutes to load and unload a dishwasher, five mins to wipe a kitchen counter. Five mins to put together French bread and charcuterie. Breakfast and usually either lunch or dinner by the pool, just us surrounded by peace, the him of cicadas and birdsong. 25 minutes of kitchen pottering is worth that and the absence of the him of other people's children and chatter. That to us is what a break is about.

I'm a bit surprised by the " just a BBQ and salad" thing too. In my experience that means shopping, preparation, then the clean up, inc cleaning the BBQ unless it's disposable, all a pita I'd rather avoid to be honest.

We go self catering in Spain.

We fill the fridge with meats, cheese, tomatoes, onions, fruit and also wine, beer and pop.

The above covers breakfast and if we have still failed to mobilise it doubles as lunch.

We eat out practically every night, the other nights we BBQ and sit on the balcony and watch the world go by.

We had chunk of time when DS was younger where we couldn't afford to breathe, never mind have a holiday.

But when we could cobble a holiday together I always insisted of a one week holiday of eating out as oppossed to two weeks of watching the pennies.

Surely it comes down to what you can afford? SC is generally much cheaper.

For example looking at the French Belambra chain recommended by @kalidasa , booking for a week starting tomorrow at their site in southern Brittany, it's €608 self-catering or €1704 all-inclusive. That's for two adults and two children aged 9+11.

Perhaps my French isn't up to scratch, and the all-inclusive option includes something else (kids clubs? sports?); but if not that's a huge difference in affordability.

I'm a bit surprised by the " just a BBQ and salad" thing too.

really not an issue for us. There are 2 of us preparing and chatting drinking wine instead of one adult rushing in the evening to cook/homework/bath/iron clothes etc.., and 2 adults doing a bit of cleaning.
On a couple holidays, I would go to all inclusive - or dine out - everytime, but when I can leave my kids play freely, the BBQ is a much easier and relax alternative than a sit-down diner somewhere.

Since becoming a family of 5 we've only done sc holidays. Currently lieing by the pool in south of France. I love sc. Pastries for breakfast, baguettes for lunch, bbq for dinner. Yes there's some housework involved but as a full time worker, a bit of sweeping and washing dishes at a slow pace doesn't bother me at all. I'm just happy I'm not waking up at 6am, commuting and replying to emails for 2 weeks. It's all relative I suppose

I have to say I agree with you OP. I got back from a SC holiday in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago and it was one of the hardest weeks of my life. DH has a tendency to be a lazy git at home anyway, he is a serial offender when it comes to making a thousand pots and pans dirty just for one lunch and leaves them to soak in greasy water. He gets short shrift but I feel like a bloody shrill fish wife.
DS1 is 11 and struggling massively with the idea of transferring to secondary school (he's potentially ASD) and his behaviour was incredibly bad for the whole time. It coloured the whole holiday really and I came back very down and very stressed.
How I miss all inclusive holidays! Can only afford them in October when everything is closing down!

PianoThirty France is expensive for AI.

I wouldn't consider it.
Always Greece or Turkey if you want good value.