To think this is the fairest way to share center parcs cost?

[needabreak5]

Am I right that this is the best way to split the cost of £1500 for a 4 bed lodge:

Room 1 - family 1: 2 adults and 1 DC (18 months) pays £375
Room 2 and 3 - family 2: 2 adults and 2 DC (age 4 and 6) pays £750
Room 4 - family 3 (parents/in-laws of adults and grandparents of all DC) pays £375

please let me know if you’d split differently?

Why wouldn't the other adults (grandparents) pay for any food though? At 4 and 6 my kids barely ate anything.

There aren't any tony babies involved though - there's a toddler.

As pointed out already it'd cost grandparents plus family of 3 with toddler £1000 (£500 per room) to holiday without the family of 4.

Exactly!

"As pointed out already it'd cost grandparents plus family of 3 with toddler £1000 (£500 per room) to holiday without the family of 4."

As it would the family with 2 DC.

Exactly!
So it's only fair that each family saves a bit of money by all sharing, compared to if they booked alone or in a smaller group.
Otherwise family 1 and 3 would end up paying the same as if they got a smaller lodge, but having to share their communal space with more people

When I go away it tends to be divided equally amongst the adults who are paying either by room or per adult. This could be seen as a bit unfair on those without kids but it does seem particularly unfair for the family of 4 to be paying double compared to everyone else

That’s why we do it as a child counts as half.

It means those with kids do pay more, but it’s not the same as charging each child as an adult. It seems a good compromise, so those with more people pay a bit more. They expect that, and those with no kids pay a bit less. However, given kids still occupy beds and bedrooms, the kids are basically being subsidised…..but not fully.

So in that scenario if a DC counts as half:

Family 1 x 2 adults + 1 DC ( toddler sharing DPs room) £500
Family 2 x 2 adults + 2 DC (2 rooms) £600
Family 3 - 2 adults £400

Family 1 are paying the same split as they if they were in a 2 bed lodge, whereas family 2 gets a £400 discount. Hardly seems fair to me.

We use the system if a child being charged as a half adult.

All the kids are in their own beds and take up same space as adult. It works well for us when we go with 2 or 3 families with older kids.

Families with a baby/toddler in a travel cot who doesn’t need a bed….yep, take up less room, so might not work as a system.

Personally I don’t think it has to be worked out to the penny.

If this were us, the Grandparents would probably sub us all. They’d certainly pay 1/3 even without kids. The people with a baby could just accept that once you have kids, things start costing a bit more and pay a child share. The people with 2 kids could offer to pay half, given they need 2 rooms, but often you don’t really want a child place to count the same as an adult place. It’s best if everyone is at least willing to pay a bit more than what they consider ‘fair’ because funnily enough, most people work it out to favour themselves - ie childless want those with kids to pay more and those with several kids wants it worked out per adult!

And I’d suggest that if one family will get aggrieved about paying £100 more, shared holidays like this probably aren’t going to work. Are they going to start calculating to the penny the share of supermarket shopping or eating out? if you want to pay exactly for what you have, it’s best to have your own accommodation and costs for simplicity.

Split sounds right but having 6 adults plus kids in a tiny house sounds my idea of hell and not a holiday.

I have been reading with interest as we have a similar scenario except the other people are friends rather than family.

Do thoughts change when it's friend's rather than family and what are thought's on a single adult having a double room?

Our group is

1 family - 2 adults 3 children,
1 family - 2 adults 1 child
1 adult.

We tend to get a 4 bedroon place with the children all sharing one room.

@LookingforMaryPoppins I think in that Senario I'd split the price between the adults 2/5s, 2/5s and 1/5.
Which kind of reflects the extra room the families are taking up and I'll assume the single adult gets the smallest room.

@LookingforMaryPoppins I'd probably go Family 1&2 37.5% or possibly Family 1 - 40%, Family 2 - 35% and single adult 25%.

@LookingforMaryPoppins how do 4 kids fit in 1 room? I assume you aren’t going to center parcs.
If you’re restricted to trying to find places with a large 4th bedroom to accommodate 4 kids, and that comes at a premium, I think splitting by room might not be fair on the single person.

No, not Center Parcs.

It's a ski chalet, the children have a room with two sets of bunk beds. All the rooms are of a similar size and none have en suite bathrooms. The bathrooms are all shared.

Chalets often have a bunk room intended for children.

I am part of the family of 5 and have historically split it 50% us on the basis we have two bedrooms. I've generally split the other 50% as 30% the other family and 20% the single adult.

@LookingforMaryPoppins I think you’re possibly being a bit unfair on yourself. Although you are using 2 rooms, so is the family of 3.
If you’re happy with the split though, I certainly don’t think anyone else going would complain and sometimes it’s worth paying the extra to save any hassle

I think you may be right having read this thread!

I have always felt this was fair as there are 5 of us and 4 of the others - splitting 9 ways ie shared per person felt unfair to us so this was the formula and justification I came up with.

Its awkward when you are the larger familiar and person organising. You want to be fair and would hate anyone to think otherwise hence potentially being unfair to yourself 🤦‍♀️

Splitting meals is a headache too! The children being classed as 1/2 generally works quite well other than where there is alcohol involved!

Thankfully we are all good friends who have holidayed together for a number of years, there is nobody that tots up their exact spend and everyone is generous.

Your issue is it will be hard to change the precedent. But I think it's wrong to charge the kids at the same rate as an adult.

How does this sound

25% for each adult room.
25% for the kids room

Family 1 = 25 + 18.75 = 43.75
Family 2 = 25 + 6.25 = 31.25
Family 3 = 25

Or keeping the single person 20%, couples 30% each and the kids divided proportion 5% each
Family 1 = 30 + 15 = 45
Family 2 = 30 + 5 = 35
Family 3 = 20 + 0 = 20

I definitely think you are short changing yourself. You also have to think of the sexes of the children there may come a point when it's not appropriate for them to share.

YANBU and are spot on in my opinion OP.

I've had this exact situation several times before and in my opinion the way you have calculated it is perfectly fair and makes 100% sense financially. The larger family would always pay more for their holiday if they went on their own or stayed in their own lodge, compared to a family of 2 (2 bedrooms instead of 1).

With Center Parcs, the core way they base price each and every accommodation up is per person/per berth/per head/2 per room). The 18 month old will not count in this case of course as they will not take a bed.

It's the same result, whether you calculate it as splitting £1500 by number of rooms (1500/4 = 375 per room), or by head count (1500/8 = £187.50 per head; each family in 1 room pays 2x187.5 = £375 and the family of 4 pay 4x187.5 = £750. If the family of 4 just booked a smaller 2 bed lodge for themselves it would be in the similar ball park. By head count is fairer financially, especially if there is an odd numbered family.

I really do not understand why 40% of people on here disagree. It's simple maths. Of course some families think split per family, which is fine if everyone is 100% happy, but the reality is the smaller families would be subsidising the larger familes holiday and paying more than their fair share. If you were booking to go abroad, 4 people costs more than 3 people as you pay per person. It is as simple as that. If Center Parcs simply advertised the accommodations as per head/berth, then this question would never get asked and even the 40% on here who disagree would no longer wish to split the bill evenly per family.

Because your family 2 and taking 2 rooms, then if your ok with swallowing the fact your paying double and getting it back with everyone paying for a meal, yep it sounds fine. I would also say this to everyone.... So they see it is them gaining on the deal. You can even laugh and say about a different split when the baby grows bigger.... ie. You get a 2 bed and your parents and sibling can share the cost of a 3 bed..

We go to centre parks as a large family group twice a year. We always split by number of adults. This was suggested by the lowest paid, childless adult. I get a much better deal than some of the others as we have kids, but everyone is happy with this arrangement.

In cases like this, there is always someone that is unhappy but this is the most unfair split I’ve come across 🤨.

We tried to arrange a trip with a family of 2 adults and 2 kids, a family of 1 adult and 1 kid and us who are 2 adults and 1 kid.

The family of 4 thought it should be split per family despite their children refusing to share rooms. The family of 2 thought it should be per person as they were happy to share 1 room and we didn’t really mind as it would work out about the same either way for us and DS will sleep anywhere. We didn’t end up going in the end but to be fair I agreed with the single dad.

Unless money was very tight for family one I would just split it three ways. The suggested split is harsh on family 2.

This thread is 6 months old now ...