To think nobody spends THIS MUCH on holidays with kids?

[GrahameSylvia]

Scouting around for September holiday ideas for us and our 18 month old and came across this in today’s Times.

25 cool family resorts in Europe, the cheapest is about £4k for a week, the priciest £32k but on average about £7k. Admittedly they are mostly all inclusive but REALLY?!?!? Is this the kind of silly money people spend on holidays are once they have kids?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/25-cool-family-resorts-in-europe-g9knl5n7l

On a side note, if anyone has a great hotel or self catering recommendation for somewhere sunny in Europe that will work well with a young toddler do share, finding places that don’t cost the kind of money we can - but are not willing on principle - to pay is a nightmare.

Of course people need holidays! Do you think people should work every week of the year? It’s healthy to switch off, relax, take time for hobbies and self care and time for family.
if you need holidays abroad is a different question. Personally I absolutely do, I am not English and I love going back to my home country for food, weather, different scenery, culture, warm beaches etc I get a lot of enjoyment of traveling to other countries too and I spend a lot of time and money on holidays. I work in a stressful job, I enjoy switching off and not having to do daily chores.
For me it’s worth it, others might prefer to spend the money on different things.

For us it’s like our religion! After ensuring we have decent standard of living / savings paying for holidays / travel absolutely top of the discretionary spend list. The view I am looking at now will get me through the winter!

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Times travel articles. They seem to be obsessed with ‘cool’, ‘hip’, or ‘boutique’, not with plain good value plus the facilities you want.

TBH I often wonder whether their travel writers are mostly single early 20s.

@AdriannaP I didn't think I need to be explicit and say no needs to travel for a holiday. People could take their annual leave and stay at home (many do, by choice or by circumstance)

I definitely wasn't suggesting people should work 365 days of the year!

The prices quoted are in school holidays though, and this is what they cost. There is absolutely no
chance you would find £200 flights to a Mediterranean resort in the summer holidays. Flights are almost half the booking costs on some holidays at the minute, as the airlines cut routes in lockdown, so the planes are full.

What's the point of saying these places would be cheaper outside of the school holidays? Of course they would. Everyone knows that. But the prices quoted in the article are for the summer and are entirely typical. Of course you could pay less by a) staying at home b) going to a self catering apartment. But that is not the kind of holiday they are talking about and not what a lot of people want.

Also I've taken my family of 5 to a SC apartment in Portugal many times and it's not much cheaper than anything advertised in the article. By the time I've paid for 5 summer easyJet flights (minimum £1500, then another few hundred on top if you want to take luggage), hired a car for a week - a five seater with space for 5 cases so ££££, paid the accomodation cost for a 3 bed apartment or big 2 bed with a sofabed and then fed 3 hungry children, 2 or 3 going through puberty so constantly ravenous, 3 meals a day plus ice creams, it's still a 6K holiday MINIMUM. Food bill alone is at least £1000.

I think many of the people expressing shock and outrage here that people have to spend this amount to go on holiday are comparing it to the price of taking 1 or 2 babies or toddlers to a 1 bed apartment outside of school holidays. Vastly, vastly different for bigger families in school holidays.

If you look at the Telegraph traveler tips, all the same places are mentioned.id also heard of or been to near all of them, mainly from MN family holiday recommendations. That being said I do think some of the places mentioned are taking the piss a bit now with the captured audience eg the IKOS places in Greece, much like center parks and bedruthan steps etc do here. But that's easy for me to say, I've aged out of the stage where it's really beneficial for a family with young kids to have luxury, AI and kids club in one holiday.

That sounds cool... similar to what we do and I honestly couldnt spend £7k if I tried lol.

In fact I would only spend over £1k for longhaul (like the USA etc...)

We are a family of 5, 2 kids in school and have travelled during the holidays several time and its never cost anywhere NEAR £6k, we frankly couldnt afford that.

In fact we combined one of these holidays with doing IVF in the country (cheaper than the high UK rates) and a family holiday, all the meds and IVF cost under £4k.

£3.5k of that was the IVF and meds though so I dont count that when talking about past holiday costs as obviously its not something most people do on holiday.

"a family holiday, all the meds and IVF cost under £4k. £3.5k of that was the IVF and meds"

You travelled 5 people abroad for £500 incl accomodation and travel ? A week?

I love the look of some of these holidays. The one in Sardinia looks awesome - I’d need to wait until my youngest is 10 though as she would want to do the more active stuff and that’s the cut off age.

The best family holiday we had was a few years ago on a Landal site in Germany. Flew then hired a car to drive there and get us around for a week. We had a nice lodge, great site and plenty to do around. We went at the end of the summer holidays so they were back on school which kept the price down. Accomodation, flights and car came on at under £1000 for 4 of us. Yes people do pay silly amounts but you don't have to.

We are in Barcelona right now and our flights were under £100, it's totally possible

Barcelona is not a resort type place

but yes, great for city break! Took my kids there, booked a hotel, and we had a fab time

but it’s not an AI resort city at all, different type of holiday

@badbaduncle

Love this

You wanted more kids? Environmental impact of flying yourself and your 5 kids for you to have IVF, bizarre.

Family of five means 3 kids @Embarras83 I think

@Embarras83 fitting username. She has 3 children; they’re a family of 5.

We have travelled around a lot pre kids, and still do to an extent with our DS. We have done one European summer holiday since having him... same style as elsewhere as we like to move around a lot with different hotels/ air bnbs to see the most of our destinations... and I was shocked at how much it cost at about 4k for 2 weeks. And it was rubbish compared to other places. Food was boring too despite having the choice of going almost anywhere (reasonably priced). It was literally only pizza, sea food, chips and salad wherever we went.

Since having our DS we have gone to more exotic locations like Bali, Thailand, Malaysia... and for the same money had much better holidays. Even Florida for 2 weeks over October pre-school cost about 5.5k for two weeks all in for 3 of us.

I've truly never understood all inclusive holidays though. Far too expensive, boring food and sitting in the same place for 2 weeks would drive us mad.

Well why have. 4th then? And traipse your other 3 abroad to have another?

We enjoyed villa los pinos in nerja, booked direct through bernadette y mendez (all on google) and saved us quite a bit of money. Nice little 2/3 bed houses on small gated complex. close to centre but out of it enough and a shared pool. only 21 houses on complex. House no 19 was lovely corner one quite big and back patio with bbq to use.

Yes, of course they do 🤷🏼‍♀️

£32k for a week is a lot! I don’t know anyone who would spend this.

My cousin works in a five star family hotel in a European country and people spend easily 20-30k a week on accommodation, spa treatments, good wines, etc. it’s not an AI resort. They are fully booked 90% of the time and open ten months a year. One family spent 100k in one holiday 😱😱😱