To leave holiday a day early?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Booked a mega cheap week away about 4 hours drive from home, two younger dc and dh. SIL and her dh are kindly staying at ours to pet sit. Due to leave sat, but I want to go a day early.

There's little to nothing to do here, one reasonable beach in amongst a load of muddy land, and one day out type place an hours drive away. One pub which looks half falling down. A small play park which we have visited daily.

Weather reasonable today but v.windy. revisiting Attraction and will do another trip to the beach (if it stays dry) but the weather is meant to be hideous tomorrow. Its been crap most of the week.

Leaving a day early would give us all an extra day at home before school 're starts and work comes round again. Kids can be back in their own beds and we can spend an eve with SIL and BIL.

Dh is very much a "we will just crack on, it's a week away" and won't recognise the benefits of that extra day at home.

If we want to do anything else "nearby" it's about a 2h drive away. Which is halfway home anyways.

Definitely do it – I’m a big believer in having that time at home before everybody goes back to school/work. You will only spend the last day of the holiday worrying about everything you have to do when you get home. Try and sell it to DH as you both doing the in packing/washing etc on Saturday and then doing something really nice together on Sunday?

You knew the day you'd be returning on OP, so seems a little odd to claim that you need an extra day at this stage. Just leave first thing Saturday and call into a park or similar on the way back.

Where on earth is it OP?

It can't be 1hr 20 to the nearest pool! No one will be offended if you say where you are- someone might have some insider tips.

Why not compromise - pack up and have a last duvet day indoors with games, DVDs and snacks and then head home late with DC in their pjs?

I can't imagine where you are either - the UK isn't that big that you can be so isolated, and if you are in the wilds of Scotland where you can go an hour or more along a single track road it wouldn't be industrial. Come on, tell us where you are and we'll help.

We have always come home the night before.

We tend to do a shorter day trip, and then pack up the car have dinner and then drive home, it's always seemed pointless to sleep and then rush around in the morning to leave at 10am at the latest and then sit in traffic most of the day.

When the children were younger we put them in 'soft clothes' leggings, jogging bottoms and a t shirt so we could just transfer from the car to their bed when we got home.

Children won't mind going to the same play park every day. A bit of rain won't harm you. I'd stick it out.

I wonder how this actually happens. Do people not thoroughly research where they are going before they go? Fair enough if things happened beyond your control, and unexpectedly rubbish weather can ruin a place if it is only set up for fair weather activities.

Where is it OP?

The location is probably why the holiday was “mega cheap”
Have a family vote with coin toss if need a tie breaker.

I can co-miserate though as I am the holiday planner for our family and it is a lot of pressure to research, plan and book one. Sometimes you run out of time and wing it. I booked a cruise one time because friends raves about how much fun they were and we were ALL miserable just floating around in cramped conditions, eating and looking at docks shimmering in the sun, every city looking much like the other. But hey, you don’t know unless you try.

We've done it twice.
The first time we were on a city break and DS got ill. We'd taken him to the local walk in centre but didn't respond well to the medication given, so we made the decision to come home. We got refunded a nights stay from premier Inn because we'd used their Flexi booking option when we'd originally made the booking.
Second time was when we had taken our caravan away. We'd had a few nice days in North Devon when the weather turned nasty. We were spending money hand over fist on indoor activities. The caravan and was surrounded by a sea of mud and it kept getting walked inside. Eventually we packed up the gear and headed home (only to get in a traffic jam on the motorway which turned a 3 hour journey into an 6 hour one).

If you're really not enjoying it then I think it's fine to leave a day early but go somewhere the kids will really love on the way home, if you can, or do something really special on your extra day back home. I can sort of see your DH's point about cracking on and making the best of it, but appreciate it's difficult if the weather is going to be absolutely dire.

I'm staggered that a location which had holiday accommodation and a beach has nothing to do within the surrounding area.

Well, to be fair I can think of countless locations in the north of Scotland that would be like that if you were a family who wanted child-friendly visitor attractions with play facilities etc (rather than mountains, walks, wildlife and ruined castles). Lots of people actively choose to go on holidays in remote areas because they don't want to be surrounded by commercial visitor attractions and like walking, birdwatching, deserted beaches or whatever. So it depends what you mean by 'nothing to do.'

Like others we usually go home on the evening before we have to be out. I find it far less stressful to do that rather than dashing around to be out for 10am (not a morning person).

Well, to be fair I can think of countless locations in the north of Scotland that would be like that if you were a family who wanted child-friendly visitor attractions with play facilities etc

So can I but not industrial and muddy. That's what's confusing me.

When ds was small we had a holiday in Northern Ireland and the weather was shocking. Had we been somewhere in mainland GB ad could have driven home, we probably would have cut our losses and gone, but we'd flown and hired a car so didn't want to spend £££££ rebooking flights.

The last day and a half were glorious. Had we left early we would have completely missed both Donegal and the Antrim coast.

As for leaving the night before you are due to be out, I would never do that because I don't like driving in the dark.

I think being able to go home early is one of the great benefits of holidaying in your own country. There's no waiting because you have to catch a flight or ferry so you can do what you want to.

I do it sometimes, we holiday about 3 hrs drive from home and it's very rural, like 40 mins drive to a supermarket rural, so if it's raining buckets and the forecast is for more of the same we just pack up and go home.

We're leaving early tomorrow too. I'm not sleeping well and bedroom is too hot. It's fine to say I've had enough.

Do what works best for you and makes you all happiest. Do not succumb to the sunk costs fallacy (that having spent money already means you must throw good money, or in this case time and effort, after bad). Booking the holiday is in the past and cannot be changed, whatever you now do. You are here, now. Looking forwards, what will make you all happiest?

Having said that, how old are the dc? If toddlers, I can understand not wanting to be stuck in a small house with them for an extra day. But you talk about return to school.

With school-age dc I'd expect to be able to enjoy a rainy day indoors (and would have planned for at least one); watching a film, playing board or cards games together, making things, drawing, baking etc. In fact some of my most vivid and happy childhood holiday memories are of just this kind of thing - forced proximity and making the best of things ending up being the most fun, because it's a rare chance to spend time together as a family, totally focused on a simple task and on each other, without all the usual everyday distractions.

To me, that 'holiday bubble' of simplicity, lack of distractions and time spent together, is the valuable thing that you'd lose by going home and doing laundry or whatever.

You can't really have thought it was going to be sunny every day. Surely you have wet weather gear and/or indoor things to do?

If as you have said, there is something nice to do that is on your way home, I say go for it. Especially if the weather is going to be hideous. Enjoy the trip home by going to the attraction, have a nice lunch somewhere, and potter on home. Sounds good to me.

We've done It before, when the weather was forecast to turn.

The thing is you are actually only staying another night, because usually check out of places is around 10am, then you get to sit in loads of traffic along side everyone else on change over day.

if we leave a day early we do something that day, then pack up and set off home after, so sometimes it was just after lunch, another time it was 4pm ish.

It was always good to be home in our beds, and appreciate the following day when we're back to normal relaxing at home looking at the rain pouring, thinking we'd had been rushing about packing and sitting in traffic if we'd stayed.

I know that one of the best things about holidays for my DD is that she gets more quality time with me. When we're at home I'm always rushing around getting through the endless list of jobs.

On holiday on a rainy day we can do lots of activities indoors together: baking, colouring, puzzles, games, books, playing with toys. It sounds dull but because we don't get much time to sit and do these things together at home it's great for both of us.

Is there a supermarket/Argos/Service Station nearby where you could go and buy a new game to play?

No one will be offended, it's a cheap holiday place.
Had some great tv/board game marathons in rainy holiday cottages.
There's usually an animal sanctuary or rescue.
Also nice to get home in a leisurely way

We once went to Scarborough the first week of the summer hols. All nice until we actually woke up the next morning to howling winds and rain...we had to go to the nearest Sainsbury's to buy warm clothes. The castle was closed due to the high winds and downpours. We stuck it out 3 days and then drove home.

We once went to the south of France, it was more than hot it was absolutely hell on earth so during the night whilst wide awake I booked a hotel in Paris with aircon and we packed up first thing the next day and drove to Paris and all had cold showers to cool off.

We once went to Edinburgh in the camper van. It rained solid for 2 days so we thought we would drove south until it stopped raining and find a campsite and just pitch up there. It stopped raining a mile from our house so we went home.

It's not a failure if you go home. I view it very much a success if you can escape a bad holiday and get some relief even if it is just an extra duvet day at home.

Go home!