AIBU to be a bit peed off about the new all inclusive drinking rule in Spain?

[Pinkycloud]

Don’t want to come across a raging alcoholic but we’ve booked an all inclusive holiday (costing about £7.5k) for me DH and 4 DC and am peed off to see you can now only have 3 alcoholic drinks with lunch and three with dinner. I know six seems a lot but it’s more about being told when you can have them and how many you can have at a given time. We’ve been to this place before (Majorca) and used to enjoy lazy afternoons sipping a beer or three by the pool. Doesn’t seem like ‘all inclusive’ anymore and we’re paying thousands for the bloody thing!

This new rule will make me MORE likely to travel to these places.

I can see you have no knowledge of consumer law… that’s fine, not everyone does.
But the whole point is that the service you are provided must be the one you were sold. If this rule has been introduced retrospectively, then people are entitled to their consumer rights.
If it was in the terms and conditions were in place at the time of booking, then people will have to chalk it down to experience.
The terms and conditions do not say ‘your freedoms will be limited in any way we choose’.

I'd say a fair mix really. One was a 5* resort in Cyprus and the alcohol was no stronger.

Interestingly in that resort, if you wanted branded drinks like Bacardi or Smirnoff for example, you had to pay for it despite your AI bracelet, whereas the other resorts didn't stock any branded drinks - just local.

I wouldn't be bothered as I'm not a big drinker. However I'm a massive foodie fattie and would throw myself into the sea if they did the same with food
Food is my vice

I can't think of any reason that anyone would want to pay in advance to stay in one place for their entire holiday eating whatever crap food that place serves up

Not directly relevant to this thread, but I've been on several AI holidays in the Maldives, where you stay in one place for the entire holiday, sometimes on an island you can walk round in 20mins. And they most definitely didn't serve up crap food. Absolutely nothing wrong with an AI holiday at all.

And @WeCouldBeSpearows , you're just making yourself look very silly here with the fake wide-eyed 'I can't think of any reason why a family would want to go on an AI holiday' shit.

At least I hope it's fake, otherwise you're harder of thinking than most 2 year olds.

6 drinks over 10-11 hours isn't a huge amount when on holiday. It certainly wouldn't lead to 'boozed up' type behaviour.

Even less likely from your average All Inclusive Spanish holiday hotel, where the drinks never appear to be particularly strong at all.

The restaurant and bar owners we have talked to in the past say they love the British because we spend money when on holiday.
Some nationalities are very careful and drive to the resort bringing all their food with them and don’t spend money on eating out or anything much.

If we turned into a nation of people who only drank 3 drinks each day on holiday them I could see a lot of bars and restaurants shutting up

Whilst some Brits are loud and obnoxious when away on holiday and drinking all day I would say there are a lot of Brits who might have several drinks but are still very much in control of themselves and aren’t causing a problem.

Not too sure that they haven’t shot them selves in the foot with this. It may have been around since 2020 but with the pandemic I don’t think it was widely known.

Starting off with the first holiday that people have been able to have since 2019 and introducing restrictions is not going to make people feel inclined to go back to AI in Spain when for a similar price they can go to the Caribbean and get an actual all inclusive holiday

*My holidays cost a fraction of the prices I see quoted casually on threads here. A small fraction.

The point ------- 🔼

@AProperStinging----🙅

So it is "Semi Inclusive" in the resorts where they wish to clean up the image and make them nicer, more civilised and perhaps more family/ mature people friendly?

Sounds good to me and long overdue. The already well behaved areas will not be affected from what I can see.

There really cannot be anything as bad as drunken people falling around and making horrendous noise and disturbing everyone. This new approach is very good IMO.

If you don't want to go under the new rules, you can go elsewhere is their view I suppose and they are right.

Did it make you feel very happy to cut out the rest of my post in order to make your unpleasant personal dig?

I was trying to be sympathetic. I have a friend who struggles with similar issues, and it has affected almost every area of her life. I've known her for years, and know how to word things so that she understands - but it's not an easy friendship.

It certainly wasn't intended as a dig.

But it isn't 'free' alcohol! That's the whole point. It just means it has been pre-paid and the alcohol (and other things like food/activities) are included in the total price paid.

I'm hoping you've tagged the wrong person worra!

If this rule was in place at the time you booked and you did not do your research, no sympathy. Seems reasonable and the explanation given as to why the local Spanish government did this seems fair enough.

I wouldn't want 6 drinks either. I wouldn't normally want any drinks during the day but I would probably like to go for a cocktail at the end of the day, have a glass of wine with dinner, and a couple of drinks over the evening, so 4 drinks over 6 hours+. I think the laws are a good idea but I would be pretty miffed by the new rules if I had booked and paid for AI before the laws were announced or if the tour operator hadn't made it clear that AI meant 3 drinks at lunch and 3 drinks at dinner.

I think the rules could actually encourage people to drink more or, at least, drink more in a short space of time. If I had paid for 3 drinks with lunch and 3 drinks with dinner, I would probably have at least 1 drink with lunch and instead of having 3 or 4 drinks over the course of an evening, I would be tempted to take advantage of the 3 free drinks over dinner, squeezing them all into an hour or so when I would have normally have had just 1 glass of wine, and then I would probably end up buying more drinks later in the 4 hours post dinner. I mean, who is going to spend their evenings sitting watching some anodyne resort entertainment drinking tea or go to the bar after dinner and drink Coke? A maximum limit per day/per hour would make more sense.

Six drinks per day is a lot.

I can see why they want to stop heavy drinkers going tbh, is expensive for them to provide unlimited alcohol.

I never knew AI included booze. Drunk me would have LOVED it. Did they really just let you have as many as you like?? 😄 yes i am an alcoholic

The last AI holiday I went on only served ice cream for 30 minutes a day. Outside that you had to pay for it. That was a bigger issue.

I am the boring type and always insisted that either myself or Husband was stone cold sober when we had our children, why don't you take it in turns, that way one can have 6 at lunch and one have 6 at dinner.

this isn't the point though?

I haven't read every post but the point people are making is that ideally you can drink when you want eg if you want a drink by the pool in the afternoon, you could normally get one included, if you are at an AI resort (spoiler you would very likely be capable of looking after a child at the same time) ...not that they want to have 6 drinks or more in 1 go.

Based on what other people have said, it's two pints of beer. One at lunch and one at dinner.

I don't think that's excessive.

@Kennykenkencat But AI holidaymakers don't typically have much impact on local restaurant and bar income anyway so yours is a bit of a moot point.

This method may actually benefit them. You've had your 3 drinks with dinner, you fancy another, it's €4 in the hotel or €2 in the bar next door; so you go next door.

It was like this when I went with my mates last year. You could only have the free stuff with lunch and dinner. It was beer or wine.

You could buy drinks at the poolside bar. They were fairly cheap and usually large measures... but in plastic glasses.

May I recommend a bottle of your tipple of choice in a slushy? But not rhubarb gin. It might be good to start with, but you will regret it.

Thank christ its balearics only.Off to one of the Costas in December and 3 just wouldn't cut it I'm afraid

I’m one of the very few who actually thinks it’s a good idea 😬, I get embarrassed seeing uk holiday makers on tv acting like drunken twats in foreign countries. One of the reasons I would go to a holiday resort is because I don’t like being around people that are pissed (there are also many other reasons). I rarely drink and if I do it’s a couple drinks whilst eating out so I’m not someone who has 6 drinks a day whilst on holiday, then I’m not one to relax by a pool or book and all inclusive holiday. I can see why some people are upset about it as they have paid a lot of money for what they thought was a free bar.

That's great @Waxonwaxoff0 if you want to eat mass produced over processed rubbish and pay 7.5k for the privilege. It's not snobby to not want to do that it's not cheap but the food certainly is.