How should this holiday bill be split?

[aibuuname]

AIBU to think we are being short changed in this set up? As a disclaimer I don't think I will kick up a fuss this time as its a pretty good deal regardless but interested to see what would be considered normal for such a situation incase it arises again.
4 couples, 2 couples have 2 young children each between 3-7, one couple has a small baby and myself and DH are childless. We are all going away for 4 nights booked for September. Now I love my friends children and am excited to spend time with them all as we all live spread out and its been hard to see each other often due to covid etc. However its been assumed the villa bill will be split 4 ways is this normal? all my previous trips where pre-children with this group or with other childless couples. It feels a bit like us and the couple with the baby are subsidizing the cost of the older children as they will be sharing 2 rooms between them and therefore it would be fairer if the bill was split by room. Particularly as a 4 bed villa would cost quite a bit less than a 6 bed one.
As I say I don't plan to cause a fuss over this as its a good deal, i'm excited to go and we can afford it but I'm wondering if this is normal and cautious about setting up a precedent for any future trips.

Definitely this

I would definitely not expect you to pay the same as the couples with 2 kids. I would send a message saying, shall we split the costs as we would normally split the cost of meals? About half for a child place? So the costs would be divided by 12. Couples with kids pay 3/12 per family, childless couple and couple with baby pay 2/12 per family. This would be the fairest split.

I've always split cost by rooms not adults attending as I have 3DCs so invariably need 3 rooms where as my (late) sister much as she used to live my children shouldn't have to subsidise them holiday costs. That especially applies or all the rooms are equal. Only time I'd do it differently is or there were larger better rooms with balcony and ensuites etc then we'd discuss and maybe do a slightly different arrangement

I think, split by room, but with a caveat.
The rooms for the children probably are not as nice/large/view etc.
So I'd count the couple with no child and the couple with the baby as "1" each.
I'd count the couples with children as "1.5" each.

So 20% of the cost each, for the couples with no kids/baby.
And 30% of the cost each, for the couples with kids.

So the couples with kids pay a "half" extra to get another whole room (since the whole extra room they get it probably not equal to the master suite).

I'd probably spit it 20:20:30:30 with the 20 for the childless couple and couple with a baby and 30 for the ones with children & would expect the food bill to be split this way too. Alcohol amongst the drinkers!

We went away with my SIL and her family, so two couples and their two children. We had a 3 bedroom house with SIL and her family using 2 out of the 3 bedrooms.

We just offered to split it 50:50 (they were happy to pay 67:33) as, if we'd been going on our own we'd have still rented the same size house, so it was still costing us less and the difference between 1/3 and 1/2 of the cost would have cost SIL another £250 they could have used for spending money elsewhere.

In OP's case though, the difference to them is much greater and if they'd been going alone they definitely wouldn't have needed something that size/expense.

Sorry meant 2 rooms to her one room unless she got the best room with far better facilities then we'd divide it slightly differently but still with me paying more

Yep split by room. The only time we haven't is when 3 families went. One had kids, one had a dog and one had mobility needs. All increasing the cost of the accommodation. So we split it 3 ways.

8 adults
2 children
1 baby

I'd be tempted to split the cost into 9 and allocate 1 portion per adult, half a portion per child and the baby goes free.

So each couple will pay 2/9, but the couple with the children will pay another 1/9 on top of that.

e.g. Total cost £900
2 x adults = £200
2 x children = £100

I've only done this once - I think we worked out the cost of the accomodation per person. So there were 12 of us altogether, say it cost £600, it was £50 per person.

So the families of four paid £200, and a couple £100. There were three couples with either one or two kids and one child free couple. The child free couple said they wouldn't have minded if we had split it four ways, but divided by 12 and x by the number of people in each party seemed fairer to me.

Split by room, but everyone buy their own food or split the adult food and parents source their dc food.

Sorry, I see now it's 4 children. In which case the division is by 10

Couples wihout children pay 2/10 of the total
Couple with children pay 3/10 of the total

By room as that is what adds rhe cost, so if the couple have their baby in a cot in their room then they have not increased costs and just pay their room.

Yes, it doesn't sound very fair, would expect the ones with kids to be paying a bit more. Maybe not twice as much as you though, because the other facilities will still be shared, kitchen etc.

However, the bigger issue for me would be a childless couple going away with three young families. I'm a parent, but that sounds hell for the child free couple. You'll probably be woken at night by a crying baby, woken at 6am by the young kids being up, have to share the facilities with messy kids. If you cook together you'll end up with child friendly meals. If you go out together you'll end up doing child orientated activities. You won't be able to go out for an evening meal with the other adults, as they'll have kids' bed times to deal with.

If they’re good friends and you can can afford it, I’d just go with it. If I trusted that it just hadn’t been thought about, rather than cheeky fuckery, I’d not raise it.

It's pretty normal to split the bill 4 ways even if some couples have children and some have not. The thinking behind it is that the bill is split between adults and the children are subsidised by the adults.

If I had a problem with this, I would say so from the beginning and book my own accommodation.

I think splitting equally is not fair but by room goes too much the other way.

We find the price of a similar ish 4 bed. Split that cost equally by number of adults. Then calculate the difference and split that between people who have children in extra rooms.

Personally I think splitting by adults is fairer than splitting by rooms. Many people are single by circumstances rather than as a lifestyle choice and it's much easier for a married person to share with their partner than a single person to share with a random friend. It's just treating others as you'd wish to be treated if your husband died or walked out on you. Single people paying double just doesn't feel right to me.

Have you looked to see how much the 4 bed and the 6 bed costs?
If they got a deal and your quids in I would suck it up.
Really it should be split per room and you all pay that much, so if a single person takes a whole room then they pay that price.
That is the fairest way to do this.
But if your paying £1200 for a 6 bed that would be £200 per room.
your saying there are .
So your would be paying £300 if you split it 4 ways.
So per room would be £200 for you and £400 for the families with 2 older children.
If you split it per person, either a child counts as a 1/2. Then your paying for 10 parts, so you would be £240 per person. and the couples paying £360. This might be the fairest way to and looking at it this way your only paying £60 extra or £7.50 each a night extra.
Also when it comes to needing more room because you all have children then it will all equal out.

I'm pretty sure the op isn't thick and can work out what a holiday with children would be like. Why can't a childless couple enjoy the fun of having children around??

Although I agree I don't think the people with children should be paying twice the amount. Having a bigger villa normally means the shared facilities are better.

How are you paying for the food?

I'd split by room or make it so they at least pay more. For example if it was £1000 you and 1 child couple pay £200 and couples with 2 children £300, so they pay a 1/3 more. I have children and wouldn't expect to pay the same and have 2 rooms to everyone else's 1.

I would look at the difference in price so if a 4 bed would be £500 and a 6 bed is £600 I would spilt the original by 4 so £125 each and then the extra £100 difference would be split between to 2 couples needing an extra room

so couple 1- no kids pays £125
couple 2- baby pays £125
couples with kids pay £175 each

if eating out etc you all pay for your own

It's so complicated! Split by rooms seems easiest.
I'd watch splitting bills when you go out to eat. The kids might not be having kids meals anymore.

Split by bedrooms.

It's like buying drinks where there are two couples and two singles, it should be my round every sixth round but the two couples are each classed as a single unit so it works out as every fourth round. Not a massive amount but still annoying.