AIBU to cancel?

[totallybonafido]

We have a holiday booked in the summer. DC are 6 and 4. We'll all be sleeping together in 1 room for 10 days. DC 4 doesn't cope well with staying up late and wakes up stupidly early no matter what time he goes to bed. He's also a very light sleeper, as am I. DC6 has a fierce thumb sucking habit and it's so noisy it wakes me and DC4 up if we're in the same room. We're in hotel at the moment and DC4 has has meltdown after meltdown all day from being tired. On holiday it will also be hot, busy and over stimulating. AIBU to strongly consider cancelling? It's going to cost about 8k in total and that's a lot of money if it's going to be a total shit show.

I can't believe anyone would have considered paying £8K for a holiday with 2 small children, that involved them sleeping in the one room!

I'd never have chosen to do that, on a fraction of your budget.

Cancel, without a doubt.

I would not pay that much for one room! For that money I’d want more than that, plus a private pool…

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it's a cruise you've booked? I would cancel in your shoes as well x

OP says it All inclusive. So that's probably about £500 surcharge pp!

Most all inclusive don't charge for children, most holiday companies offer "free" children places for under 16s.

Unless it's a cruise, which would explain that amount of of money for one room.

Yes, it's a cruise. I was obviously feeling wildly over optimistic when i booked it, plenty of other people seem to go on holiday with small children and go with the flow! We avoided it totally when they were younger (it was COVID time anyway) - people would say, "oh, just take them out in the buggy in the evening and they'll sleep there". My 2 never would have!

Cancel, £8k for a cruise for little kids, utter waste of money, book something else at a fraction of cost.

If you have that money to spend, I'd cancel this one and spend it on a stay somewhere with more bedrooms. We've always had separate rooms and I've never spent that much on a holiday... in fact these days I always have to make sure there's an extra bed in one of the kids' rooms for me as my husband tends to snore!

Wow £8k for 10days and sharing a room

Def cancel

And rent a villa or 2 bed interjojning rooms and put dh who is a log in the room with the noisy thumb sucker 😂

Or kids together and white noise

We had an immense all inclusive at this 5* in Turkey last year: suite, private pool (which we didn’t use)… 2 sleeping areas, so much food choice (day and night) that it was verging on vulgar. Wonderful child friendly heated pool area etc. Such lovely staff. It wasn’t our usual holiday but I’d do it again. I can’t remember who we booked through but it was £6500 during U.K. school hols (Oct). We got a free upgrade from family room to a suite as did all the other families we met.

We don’t use kids clubs- have found ours want to be hanging out with us… but there was an active kids club with good facilities incl evening entertainment.

Only using this as an example of other options (of which there are many!) out there….

https://www.loveholidays.com/holidays/l/turkey/antalya/belek/kaya-palazzo-golf-resort-all-inclusive.html?WT.mc_id=pgo-34608713902-kwd-76190995699&ch=hn&gclid=Cj0KCQjwocShBhCOARIsAFVYq0hGI9L4i2ocI_4LRAihZLezE5o05k-qaFBnLZrkIbbne_DdFE42CtMaAqJ7EALw_wcB

We only ever book our holidays a couple of months in advance. Mainly because we are scatty.

8k yikes!

Ah, I thought it so. A cruise with smallies would be fantastic and I think it was a great choice, as you say, the kids clubs and activities are amazing but with the sleeping situation how it is at the moment, I'd take some of the PPs advice and book somewhere with a 2bed suite or similar. Losing the £400 is a bit of a balls bou weren't to know the sleeping situation would be like this though so don't feel like you've made a huge mistake or anything, it just is what it is right now and you've recognised the issue. Hope you've a great holiday wherever you guys end up x

Thanks, all, and thanks @Meggymoo777 , what a nice post 🤗
We actually have a couple of family places in Spain that we can use so I think we will hire a car and tour around a bit doing water parks, beaches etc. Won't be an exciting new place or have kids clubs or anything but it will be more low key and we will still have a nice time.

All these lovely other places that people have linked are giving me severe hotel FOMO!! 😀

That's the spirit @totallybonafido, touring around Spain and going to water parks etc sounds like a fab plan and PPs have given some great suggestions too! You've got a great budget to work with so I've no doubt you'll find somewhere perfect for your family and the stage they're currently at. The cruise in a year or two will be so much more enjoyable. Happy holiday hunting and Happy Easter 🐣 x

Glad you’ve got a plan where you can all get some sleep and enjoy yourselves!

We went here for a week with 2 teens last October half term for just over £3k including private transfers. It’s only an hour from Antalya airport too. There’s lots to do for young kids with a kids club and really child friendly pools. The family suites have a double, a twin and a living area so work really well with having separate sleeping areas. I often sleep in a room with our youngest and our oldest sleeps with DH when we’re away due to snoring issues!

Can you tackle the noisy thumb sucking though? That’s going to be an issue for sleepovers, cub camps etc.

https://www.jet2holidays.com/beach/turkey/antalya-area/side/arum-barut-collection?holiday=215&duration=7&airport=118&date=02-08-2023&occupancy=r2c4_6&board=8&iflight=938365&oflight=938362&rooms=72073&gtmsearchtype=Beach%20Search%20Results#tab-overview

We went to the holiday village in Ibiza a couple of years ago. It’s a lot cheaper than 8k even in summer hols, is all inclusive, has tons of kids clubs and entertainment and you can get rooms with a partition that might work out better. I would def recommend it for kids aged 4 and 6. Mine were 5 and 8 at the time and really loved it. There’s a water park there too.

You can still get that. It takes a lot of hunting but there are family rooms out there. We stayed at the Vasia resort on Crete which had family rooms which worked really well for us. There are others out there which do adjoining rooms.

We had a similar issue with our kids, the eldest was one of those kids who would wake at the same time whenever he went to bed, and if we kept him up late, he'd just be awful the next day. So we always did self-catering until he was about 7, then he could go to bed at normal time and we could sit on the balcony of the apartment or watch TV in the living space rather than having to sit in a darkened hotel room.

It's not all-inclusive, but it will get easier as he gets older. My bad sleeper is now a teenager and we can't get him out of bed at all in the morning.

For us a separate bedroom is vital for a decent holiday; we spend hours and hours and hours trawling through booking sites looking for the right room at the right price. But it is ALWAYS worth it. Use a booking engine that shows pictures of room (Jet2 is pretty good)

Cancel and use the remaining money to book somewhere else, with a bigger room. A one bed plus main room layout would work - put the kids together if you can get them used to each other beforehand, or else light sleepers in one room and noisy/deep sleeper in the other. You'll be able to sit on the balcony and chat in the evening.

Jet2Holidays have been fab for us over the years. All inclusive, great kids clubs, family hotels with extras and plenty of support from reps if you need them. The costs are also what they say on the website - luggage etc included. Barely anything (£12 for each seat reservation and £6 for guaranteed hand baggage) is added later.

For four of you you will get something amazing with Jet2Holidays, even if you want to go in the summer holidays. For comparison, I'm away with them at the moment in Turkey - family of 6 in a two bedroom plus sofa bed in main room, AI, kids club, private transfers, plenty of luggage and guaranteed seats and hand baggage etc for 12 nights was £4600. Hotel is great and everything you can think of, including a beach food/drink bar with toilets and showers and a shuttle golf-buggy thing to the beach is included. Kids club is informal, visible and fun. Restaurants great etc. you have plenty of budget!