To feel frustrated so much has to be booked in advance these days?

[Teentrauma]

I'm talking mainly attractions and days out. I've found that increasingly over the last few years and certainly since Covid many places require booking online in advance taking away spontanaety as they're often full up on the day. For example, tickets for a kids Father Christmas experience locally sold out within hours of tickets going on sale the other week - in August! We also booked to go up the Snowden railway - had to do in advance as wouldn't have got on otherwise. On the day, the weather was appalling and we wouldn't have gone if we didn't have tickets. We saw nothing and it was a total waste of money!

I get it's more efficient for the businesses and also takes away the need to queue. I'm probably a dinosaur but I hanker for the days when you could just decide to do things spur of the moment!

I disagree OP, despite being a spontaneous ND type.

There’s nothing worse than deciding on a day out to discover the place you choose to visit is teeming with too many people or there are no places left. Presumably, you wouldn’t travel a fair distance to London for a particular show and rock up and queue on the off chance?

I recently took DS back to the UK for a short holiday that included several days out where I booked a couple of attractions in advance. I decided on our destination the night before and then booked the attractions I wanted to visit and it meant that we weren’t being herded like cattle around the attraction, but had time to properly wander and browse.

I hate it. As someone who isn't on any meta style social media we miss out on a lot - such as Father Christmas. It's still not enough to make me get meta style social media but I wish these places would think

Indoor stuff I don't mind booking in advance, but it's ridiculous in the UK for outdoor activities. I mean I get why in terms of managing capacity, but if you only get to go somewhere like a zoo or theme park once or twice a year, you really don't want it to be pissing down with rain!

I hate it too OP. I'm a fly by the seat of my pants type and like to see how we all feel on the day. Sure, I get booking a theme park or something a few days before but so much can depend on weather etc. A new soft play opened near me and you had to book weeks in advance. Same with a new restaurant. I did book the restaurant, 3 weeks before and on the day, one of the kids had a stinking cold and barely touched their expensive meal! If I hadn't of booked it, we'd of waited and gone the week after. I work shifts too and can often get called into work. Its very frustrating.

I especially hate the places which are free but make you book a slot anyway. There's no cost to not turning up, so loads of people book just in case. Which means a session can be officially sold out but in practice the place is half empty! It's ridiculous and means people miss out unnecessarily.

I hate it too.

Some people don’t have the money to book an activity 3 months in advance.
I like to see how we feel about going to an activity. Especially if your child is ill/in a grump etc

Yes. I ended up having to cancel and lose money when my dc were ill, it's so annoying.

Although the worst thing is that a lot of places seem to do 2 hour sessions since covid instead of being able to stay all day and the prices haven't changed (some places they have gone up). My dc don't sleep through the night unless they've had a whole day of being active so these 2 hour sessions feel like a rip off. We do a lot of free stuff, like the park etc but sometimes when it's cold and wet it's nice to go to soft play instead.

To get the Santa event we wanted for dd when she was 3, I had to book it in July (we used to go every 2nd year until she was 7)...that dd is now 17.

So it's not just a post-Covid thing.

But I know it is easier for the businesses running the attraction to do it that way, managing the money during the week and also planning for how busy it will be each weekend so planning the right amount of staff, ordering the right amount of food for cafes and stock for shops etc. Less waste. And also, as you found, probably having more people turn up on not so nice days than otherwise would, and not having to disappoint too many people on the day on really nice days who turn up on spec and it's already full.

It is definitely more of a thing since Covid - but definitely not new.

I hate it nowadays - and I have always been a planner. Used to be you booked everything a month before (sometimes even holidays etc). Now it has got ridiculous... x booking is released 8am on day1... x booking is full 3hours later.

Too bloody stressful, so we do less... or go abroad more. Short holiday in Germany last week, booked 3 weeks before. Ryanair from regional airport, so always seats midweek. No restaurant reservations needed. No attraction reservations needed. Trams, local ferries - pay on board etc. Bliss.

Had to have family look after the dog though... kennel bookings open on a rolling 6 months... full. Car park we wanted at the airport was full too... again needs booking 6 months in advance.

I agree. Even our local cafe you need to book in for a coffee. Its the biggest change post covid.

That's madness! I would never go to a café that requires me to book in advance to drink a cup of coffee.

That's an interesting perspective on neurodiversity and upbringing. My DM is super-organised, but she doesn't like booking loads of stuff in advance - tickets for the theatre fine - but not a cup of coffee or a swim. My DF is very much a 'wing it' sort of person. I remember going on summer holidays as a kid and we'd stop and find a hotel and somewhere to eat when we were ready to stop - they'd never book anything in advance. But now you'd never risk doing that unless you were travelling out of season.

I’m like you hanging octopus (except the parents - it’s my ex who was like that)

I absolutely hate queuing, or having to get somewhere early to secure a place. I much prefer to know I have my ticket booked, and that’s that.

I do agree there’s a limit though, and I wouldn’t like having to book to go for a coffee

From the pov of a volunteer organising community events - we largely rely on pre-booked tickets as we just don’t have the volunteers in place to be able to take in person payments/bookings on the day.

perhaps the lack of staff/volunteers to perform this task is a contributing factor?

I'm also not a fan in some circumstances. I understand the practicalities but I like the spontaneity of not having a day structured around fixed times especially when on holiday.

Mega attractions I would always assume need pre booking. I wouldn't just rock up to a theme park although I remember the pre internet days when that's all you could do!

I visited a city a while back and found a museum which wasn't packed by any stretch of the imagination but you couldn't just pay on the door. Cue 20 minutes stood on the steps of the museum faffing about on the website to purchase tickets then accessing email account to get the QR codes.

Utterly infuriating. I suppose they would argue we should have booked in advance but we didn't know this specific place existed until we were there. I do research places before I go but not to a microscopic degree.

I get the frustration because my rota is about 3 days in advance so I can't really plan anything in advance and then often miss out because something is sold out or booked up. Booking anything in advance is always a gamble because I might have to work.

However, I think if you're going to be spontaneous then you have to accept that places might be full, or you have to wait to get in, or in the case of restaurants etc, service might be a bit slower because a lot of other people have decided to be spontaneous as well.

Many people aren't willing to accept that though, they expect to rock up and get straight in, not have to queue or wait, or expect to be 'squeezed' in and still get the same service as if they were pre booked, or complain bitterly if they get turned away and call it poor service. If you pre book a party of 10 and get slow service or wait for 2 hours that's one thing, but to turn up and expect the same service as you would if you'd pre booked, I think that's a risk you've taken by not pre booking.

I'm on the fence with this one. As a typical type A personality I like planning ahead and having some kind of order to my life. This is particularly important as i work Saturdays, sometimes a half day, sometimes a full day so can book my shifts accordingly.

I do find that companies use this as a means of making more money, so buy your tickets in advance but book ticket protection (a few quid per ticket) in case you are ill and can't turn up. It's also hard in that many places will offer an early bird type offer/inventive where tickets are slightly cheaper for a week and then back to a standard price. If you haven't got the money sat there there and then you miss out. Its also difficult to know what the weather will be like. I had booked pick your own at a farm and then had to pay twice to ammend the date as it was awful weather and I knew my young kids would not enjoy it at all. I do understand that businesses use it as a means of gauging interest, managing numbers and after covid need to recoup money but it would be good if a certain number of tickets were available on the door.

I booked a Halloween event in August as well as a light up show that we go to at Christmas. There is another event that the kid's would like to do at Christmas that I have to book at the end of this week. Panto, I booked in February.

I don't mind pre booking things, but I do hate the need to book a specific 15min time slot.
I went to London last week. The train journey is 1.5-2.5 hours then tube then walk to the venue.

There was no way I could predict exactly what time i would get there, or what time I would finish and want to move on to the next attraction, which also needed a15 min time slot.

It's frustrating and stoped me doing what I wanted, as I was not prepared to pay £45 for something that I might miss due to train delays.

Its people buying concert tickets more than a year in advance I don't get!

I dont mind most of the time but then like pp says the 15 minute slots can be problematic-could be traffic or train delays that you cant account for

One of the few things that has improved. When you decide 'I'll go this afternoon' if you book there and then, even on a BH Monday, there's a slot within 2 hours. When you get there, there's rarely more than a couple of cars in front of you.

To be fair, our Tip booking system is good and means no more queueing round the block. You have to book for busy days (Sat, Sun, Mon) but can just turn up on other days. Win/win.

In a lot of cases it will be. So many organisations simply don't have the manpower they used to.

I can’t guarantee I’ll be physically capable and well enough from one week to the next, let alone booking months in advance. I’ve lost so much money doing this and then not being able to go when the time comes. It really doesn’t suit people with chronic health conditions for whom time well enough is limited and spur of the moment.

I totally agree, on laid-back weekends I don't want to book. I used to go to our local major museum regularly, give a donation every time. Now I never go because I have to book. I suppose I could book when I get there, because it is rarely full (it is huge) but somehow it just makes it less relaxed.

I go to other places that have reverted to walk in tickets.

YANBU - I wouldn't mind if booking things in advance meant it wasn't crowded and made the whole thing less stressful. Theme parks are so greedy and let too many in and quite often you can't download the ticket or take a screen shot, has to be on their shitty app, and then there is no phone signal at the gate as everyone is on their phone. So quite the reverse. Awful.