Holidays: Sharing room with kids?

[phoneissue]

I’ve been looking at holidays… on the jet2holidays site and similar.

I realise that not everyone can afford a holiday.

But I am wondering if sharing a room with your teenagers for 2 weeks means it’s not so much of a holiday…?!

The set up looks to be about minimum £4K for 2 weeks… Self catering and in the school holidays. Majorca or Turkey etc.

Is this normal? Am I looking in the wrong place or just out of touch with the cost of an overseas package and need to spend more to get a separate room?

We usually book an Airbnb by the English coast or something similar so I’m a bit lost.

You’re looking too late for much choice / bargains if it’s for this summer. You’ll get better prices if you book much earlier - the tour operators will release their 2025 summer hols in November.

Eaayjet packages tend to be cheaper than jet2.

and try aparthotels - definitely do not share a room with teens.

Personally, I wouldn't. We tend to do a Europarcs type thing and stay in a lodge with 3 bedrooms and living space. Air con and porch. We pay for flights separately.

This suits us. We tend to choose a location near a city we'd like to explore so we get the best of both worlds.

We go as a four - Ds aged 11, dd aged 20 and dh and I - and we book a year ahead. We always go for the biggest 2 bed room we can in a 4/5 star resort. If you book ahead you can get good rooms. Dd and Ds don’t mind sharing, even though she’s an adult she still loves to come! If anyone needs space there’s always the sofa / living area. We don’t really spend much time in the room apart from sleeping so no one minds. I guess it depends how well you all get on really! We are very close and enjoy spending all our time together (when dd isn’t at university)!

I should add we always go in mid June. Ds has autism and is in complex needs school so missing a week of school doesn’t bother us, the school signs it off. But even when dd was little we still went during term time.

No way would I do that.

What about all the lovely holiday sex?!

We used to get a one or two bed apartment when we went on self catering holidays with the children. That way you’ve got 2 separate sleeping areas, albeit one might be in the living space if you go for a one bed. It didn’t matter to us, though, because we were never really in the room in the day.

Where are you looking to go and where from? Someone might have some recommendations.

I think you have left it too late to book now and your budget may be too small for 2 weeks to get a 1 bed apartment. I've paid only a little less for one week all inclusive in August and it's not particularly fancy(!) My kids are younger but I hate sharing for a week and there's no way I'd do two weeks sharing with teenagers.

Sharing for two weeks with teenagers?! Don't do it! How will you have sex?!!

Nope. It's either a 2 bedroom apartment or a 2 bed family room for us. I'm not even keen on 1 bedroom apartments cause some of the sofa beds aren't fit for purpose. The choice does seem really limited though but rather that than having all 4 of us in 1 room cause it would not be a holiday.

Me and DH have stayed here before. We went on a bargain, last minute holiday. It was clean, cheap and cheerful. It’s within walking distance of everything, including beautiful beaches and a water park. There’s, also, a Lidl a short taxi ride away, where you could stock up on essentials. We had a car so used to go there, it was so cheap. You could catch the bus and taxi back. It’s, also, very near to Ciutadella which is the old Menorcan capital.

If I was after a cheap, cheerful holiday with a couple of teens I’d go there, tbh. We’re going back to the resort this September, different hotel, for the 5th time.

Having four of us all lumped in the same room with no privacy is not a holiday, no. We usually book two separate rooms for this reason when staying in hotels, or look for accommodation where there is a bedroom and separate sleeping space in the lounge area or something.

If you go on loveholidays and type in 'anywhere' as destination, you can usually find some much much cheaper self catering holidays for families (Portugal and Spain cheapest but Majorca and turkey probably also cheap), and then you might have a wee bit spare to pay for any extra room or at least a partition! We've taken 2 DCs on holidays for last few years. Sharing with them (even though they r sweet and easy and sleep well) is far less relaxing than seperate rooms (which is usually kids on a sofa bed thing in the lounge and us in a proper bed :)!)

When we used to take teen DS we generally got a self catering apartment and DS slept on the bed settee in the living/kitchen area.

Surely you can forfeit a week or two of sex?! I’ve been with dh for over 15 years, we don’t really care if we don’t have sex for a week or two!

We did when we went to Florida a few years back. DC were 17 and 20. It was fine! We managed without sex for 2 weeks too...

Nothing wrong with sharing a room as long as the room is big enough so you're not all piled on each other.

Sometimes its cheaper to book a suite than 1 double and a twin. You also get a sitting area with a suite too which is a nice bonus.

It's no more cramped or unbearable than a caravan on a wet weekend! If your children are teens, the rooms are only ever used for sleeping in and you don't really spend huge amounts of time in them

The advantage of teens is that they can go out together during the day, leaving an empty hotel room. Use your imagination, sex isn't only a night time bed activity!

We used to take DS away in our touring caravan until he was 16 and old enough to stay at home, not much space there.