To not understand holidays

[RandomlyChosenName]

Aibu to not understand how people choose and book holidays and what they do when they’re there. Except millionaires...

My childhood was spent self catering in the UK. I get them! And as a couple we went on short city breaks. I get them too. And we had an expensive all inclusive chill out honeymoon. Also easy! But I can’t work out how to do an abroad family holiday without being a millionaire.

All holidays seem to cost £2,500+ for the family for 2 weeks- I’m looking on First Choice, Tui etc. And the cheaper ones are a self catering room and a shared small basic pool. My children would be bored after an hour or two. Whilst they love swimming, they’d need to do something else for some of the day. Do everyoneelses children just happily swim non stop for 2 weeks? All the holidays seem to be miles from anything. Everywhere with lots of things to do is horrendously expensive.

I can’t work out where you find self catering villas abroad- I looked at AirBNB but couldn’t understand it. I thought it might be cheaper we could maybe go sightseeing or on walks or something. I cannot work out how to even start finding something!

AIBU to not be able to adult enough to even find a family summer holiday that won’t leave us bankrupt? And to not understand how everyone else does it?

@tigertooth I get cheap flights by setting up alerts. Everywhere. On Skyscanner and with the airlines themselves and on Google. You get notifications telling you what price the flights are for when you want to go, and when they get low enough, book. I got flights to Spain in August for £35 for adults, £30 for kids doing this. It is so worth it. I book accommodation separately, just browsing through what's available. I find that if you keep on looking up the same places maybe six months in advance you start getting notifications on your phone when you log into sites that the price has dropped by X amount. When it gets to a price you're happy with, again, book.

I’ve not read every post, so sorry if I’m repeating, but we use Travel Republic. It searches flights with various airlines, once you’ve picked your flights it shows accommodation available on those dates. You can then prebook your airport transfers through them as well. I guess it’s like a middle man, but I’ve saved loads by using them.

I haven't got kids but I have stayed in holiday lets in the south of France for about £500 a week in high season. Most of them slept four people. Your problem now is that a lot of the cheaper/better deals will have gone. There's loads of beach and stuff for kids to do - French people go down there on holiday with their kids. You can fly to Hyeres, Nice or Marseille.

Fab advice - I’ll do this - sounds simple enough! Thank you.

@grumpymummy123 your holidays sound much like ours - bit of culture, lots of relaxing, lots of eating out. We also go self catering, for many reasons - space, having a living area including balcony you can use in the evening when the kids are asleep, not having to eat at set times, being able to try different restaurants, not being in that weird "everyone here is on holiday" environment, things like that. I actually really like going out in the mornings and getting pastries for breakfast and nice meat, cheese and bread for lunch at a leisurely pace - completely different from shopping at home and somehow not a chore!

Hi
Which hotel was amazing? And why? DH and I want to book a very last minute for this Wednesday for a family of 6 -and guess whose job it is to find a holiday?

Two weeks is too long. Do 10 days.

Where you flying from tigertooth? Budget and ages I'll help !?

We own a property abroad so obviously we dint pay for accommodation when we go there BUT we are going in a couple of weeks and we would normally charge around £500 for the week and the flights have cost £450 so that’s £950 for a week self catering in Spain.
As for what we do there we walk to the beach or Marina, swim in the pool, go into town for lunch, visit other then was for a look around if we can be bothered, go on bike rides, play tennis, use the driving range, hire a boat etc etc etc. Never get bored

Ooh I'll look too tigertooth if you give us those details! I love a Mumsnet challenge!

I am on holiday all the time as live and work 5 mins from the beach

We've booked our holidays through 'teletext holidays' for the last few years. We're going to the canaries for our summer holiday this year, which cost £2,600 all inclusive for 2 adults and 2 kids for 10 days.

I'm often quite restricted in holiday dates so do the following ;

Set up flight alerts for days I can fly ...Good if before flights released
Keep an eye on Tui / Thomas Cook for package discounts...just booked a week all inclusive at a Greek hotel this way..heavily discounted as last room
Narrow it down a bit if I know I'm going to.do flight plus hotel package way in advance and book direct with really nice hotels
If after flights have been released/nearer the time use sites such as onthebeach , travelrepublic or loveholidays to work out best deals.
I do use Airbnb too if I've booked my flight separate.

Snorkelling, sight seeing, boat trips and eating out are our fave holiday activities...appreciate some kids more demanding than others though

you can still take kids out without a fine, we recently took a 10 year old and 14 year old. Just requested permission from the school beforehand.

I’m jealous. They’ve fined for funerals in my area and also lay enormous guilt trips on the kids and keep them out of rewards for attendance (don’t get me started). We’ve never done a term time holiday and never will because I’d worry too much about the impact on my kids in that way.

@RandomlyChosenName, given the number of posters on here who relish finding bargains, how about you give us rough dates, departure point and preferences, and we can be travel agents for you?

Frazzledstar1 you can easily go abroad for £1k in the summer hols. Lots of eurocamp type holidays (granted in caravan accommodation but who cares when it's 30+° and you're in the pool/on beach all day 😊) or airb&b available.

Exactly @laurieleigh caravans are great as long as weather is too!

Loads of brilliant ideas

I was shocked once ours started school as two weeks, overseas, was suddenly £4K. We paid this a couple of times.

A couple of years on and the same all inclusive holidays with kids clubs etc seem to be even more expensive. £6/£7k!

Fortunately, the price increase coincided with our kids (or rather us!!) not ‘needing’ clubs and entertainment.

We now book cheap flights and explore, hire a car, book different nights on booking.com etc. It’s exciting. It probably still costs £4K once all food etc is paid for but we work hard all year, and otherwise (it would seem) we can’t get away.

@OhMyDarling where are you going on holiday that is £150 for three people, pay on arrival?

YABU. There are plenty of deals and discounts.

I completely empathise with the OP! I just booked a week in Europe, just me, to join family. It’s costing me £1500 purely for the hotel and flight, it’s not anywhere exotic. I seriously dunno how a family member with 3 children can afford double the time there. She’s in the same job as me.

We did similar to you pre kids. We did Haven in the UK and camping until the kids were about 7 and 5, then we did hiring a villa in France and driving over a few times, we liked Lot, beautiful, far enough south to be reliably warm but cheaper than the coast. We’ve also done Center Parcs in Belgium, even with travel cheaper than the UK parcs.

We have done WDW, we had an inheritance to pay for it though!

School holidays make everything twice the price, I’m a teacher so no respite from that even after the kids leave.

Some friends got a great deal on a good french caravan park via Brittany Ferries last year.

I don’t get holidays full stop.
Love spending time with my family.
But I worry, all the getting sorted, getting someone to feed the animals. Leaving the house, being burgled, I Worry about getting back, unpacking sorting it all out.

I’d much sooner have days out. But I realise there’s a whole world to explore and I am missing out.

We go to Sitges a lot. Flights to Barcelona on easyJet. Transfer by bus is a hassle and costs about the same as the train with one change (€4-5 pp). About 30 mins or so once on your chosen mode of transport.

You can get a 2 bed apartment near the train station within a complex that has a pool, 6-7 mins walk from the best beach by the church for about £1k or less a week, or closer to the beach with no pool for about the same. If you go further from the station along the loooong stretch of beach to the right of the church (facing the ocean), some places are cheaper. Over the hill from the main stretch by the church is Playa San Sebastián which is a tiny more crowded beach with its own promenade but has LOADS of holiday apartments that are quite affordable too. There is a camping / caravan park close to the far end that appears even more affordable, but I've not been down that far.

If you get bored of pottering around the town, checking out any of the 17 beaches, the myriad of food places (that serve ALL day not just at tourist family or Spanish times), then you can hop a train to Barcelona for a days sightseeing, or up to Friexnet for a winery tour or to Montserrat for sightseeing and I think a few of the adventure parks are also readily accessible for day trips.

Once you've paid flights and booked accommodation, the rest can be really quite cheap. You definitely don't need a car unless you're planning lots of touring the outskirts.