To be shocked at the cost of family days out?

[holidaaay]

My sister was talking to me earlier and she said she’d seen that tickets for x4 to our local zoo are £25 each. As soon as a child turns 3 you pay full price for them. £100, just to get there. I couldn’t believe it!

It got me thinking how everything is just this way now and almost feeling a bit sad about it.

Take a weekend to London. £300 return for everyone’s train tickets (that would be a very good deal, too!) easily £200 per night for the cheapest of hotel rooms a walk out of the centre. If you’re there for two nights that’s already £700, not to mention shows, food, attractions whilst there… I reckon you’re then on at least £1500. I don’t know who’s affording it.

Of course, you could limit or go without those types of activities and spend a lot of time in parks and having fun at home or finding local free things to do at the museum and library. Nothing wrong with those things at all. But nor do I think it’s far fetched to hope some of the more ‘exciting’ activities and trips would be just that little bit cheaper so families can make some memories alongside doing the everyday things. It would be nice to think the zoo and a weekend to a big city weren’t activities reserved for the rich.

We have a few years before we will be paying full price for DD. We are likely going to be one and done, finances hugely influencing this and we don’t earn badly. I just don’t know how families with 2+ children do it- school holidays must cost parents so much money especially if the weather is crap. Never mind then factoring in other costs in the year like holidays and Christmas, any childcare bills you have to pay for monthly.

Has it really always been like this or prices just steadily getting more stupid?

We are pretty comfortable and we rarely do big days out like theme parks/ zoos as it is just too expensive, even if we take our own food. I genuinely don't know how people afford it on a semi-regular basis.

There are cheaper ways to book things - but after a disastrous trip to Legoland in the torrential rain which will go down as one of the worst days out ever, I'm quite loathe to book outdoor activities too far in advance.

Agreed though that these sort of things have always been pricey - we just never did them (and rarely ate out) when I was a child.

These things are expensive but I think that people's expectations of what they 'should' be able to do in their leisure time has also changed. As a kid in the 80s we would go to the zoo or a theme park a maximum of once a year. My parents never took me up to London (I think I first went as a teenager with my theatre group but my parents certainly couldn't afford to take us as a family). Theatre was a once a year pantomime at our local theatre. One year we had English heritage membership and went to every location within a 40 mile radius multiple times!

Our days out were to the beach (40-50 minutes drive) or family dos in back gardens and a UK holiday park caravan/chalet for a week in the summer. We never went away for the weekend, never stayed in hotels and very rarely went out for dinner or got a takeaway.

I think these events have just become so normalised now. I do the same - take my kids to the zoo, on days out to cities/museums, to the theatre, to national parks, get a season ticket for something once a year. So far this year I've been away for the weekend with one DC (first time) where we visited 3 museums/attractions, we have a season ticket for a local attraction, we've been to the theatre twice and have 2 more sets of tickets booked, plus cirque de soleil. We also cycle, go the library, on walks, the cinema (crazy expensive!) but it's way beyond what my parents would ever have done with us.

Family railcard
Packed lunch and snacks/drinks
National Trust membership
Tesco vouchers
Do your research first.

There are loads of great places to go and things to do at minimal cost.

@Iloveeverycat we must live in a similar area as we have those three within quite a short driving distance. We did one a year when the dc were into it,
They all like Thorpe Park now but I refuse to go anymore - I’ll drop them and pay for them to go in but for me to make it worth it I’d have to buy all the fast passes which is further daylight robbery. Funnily enough though the thing that tipped me over the edge was when they started charging at the Merlin places for PARKING! I’m hardly parking up at Thorpe park to make the most of the pissing town centre 🤬

Ha! We live in London but couldn't afford to do most of these things when the DC were young ( in their 20s now). It was mostly free museums and parks and wandering around Covent Garden. We'd maybe manage one or 2 paid days out in a year, so Legoland or something like that, and that would be using vouchers and taking a picnic. Lunch out with children has alway been ridiculously expensive ( and not very enjoyable), whether you're in London, Cornwall or anywhere else in the UK. I remember having a real shock at the price of proper cornish pasties from a Cornish pasty shop.
Amusement parks and zoos have always been ridiculously expensive, I don't think that is a new thing. You notice it more when paying for 4 people than as a young singleton when you only have to stump up for your own entry.

zoos need to feed and care for their animals, that has always been very expensive

Indeed. I was born in 1958 and about twice a year we might go to a park for a picnic and at Easter we went to the cinema. Our annual holiday was a week in a holiday camp in the UK.

I think the idea that parents "must" be constantly taking their children to paid-for activities is relatively new.

We cannot leave the house without spending £100.

I took 2 of the kids to the lion king, £164 per ticket, then Matilda recently £121 per ticket.

6 of us at the cinema £84. Without snacks and drinks.

pizza express £165.

its all mental !

Covid and the increase in fuel prices when Russia invaded Ukraine have been exploited by many to up prices. Be it openly or through hidden charges, the latter of which could easily have been restricted by simple changes to consumer law.

To be fair, going to stay in London for the weekend to see shows etc. has always been expensive. It's not as if it used to be a budget-friendly option!

Last time we went to Alton Towers we spent around £300 for the day (tickets, fuel, food & drink etc). Same again at Blackpool Pleasure Beach!
We were going to take my daughter to London for 4 nights last year, we costed it all up including trains/hotels etc and it was less expensive to go to Spain so we went there instead.
We are not well off (at all) but we have found the money over the years to do these things, there is a lot of pressure on parents to make sure the kids have the same experiences as their peers 🤷‍♀️ I justify it to myself by keeping in mind that the 'family day out' period of our lives is relatively short, my kids are 17 & 14 now and are more interested in spending time with their friends! The best advice I can give would be do the cheaper/free things whilst they are young and the bigger/more expensive things when they are at least old enough to bloody remember it😆

I agree, expectations are a lot higher now.

I'm not that old (40s) but when I was little something like a trip to the zoo would be a once a year birthday treat. A trip to the cinema might have been twice a year.

And one week in a caravan park for a holiday (during that week the main entertainment was using the park's free facilities, like the pool).

A city break involving shows and meals out just wasn't something we would have expected to do, ever.

I think expectations have changed hugely. As a kid I only ever went to the big paid places when on actual holiday in Cornwall and the weather was bad. My own kids would have one trip to the zoo in the summer and most other outings were picnics etc.

I've noticed more and more places are doing annual passes so if it's an one off because you made a special trip, you end up paying full price but don't get the benefits of free return entry.

We used to have a annual pass for our local zoo. It's one of the best in the country and only needed to go three times for the pass to be worthwhile. It was a very good investment.

We only go to larger attractions a few times a year. Dc are 11 &13 now so 'cheaper' places farms and parks are less attractive. There are lots of places near by that are £40-£50 for a family ticket, however I know we would only pass a couple of hours or half a day at a push, so we rarely go. I much prefer to spend more for a full day out I know everyone will enjoy, eg a theme park, even though this will be less often. Other times we do cinema trips, bowling at a cheap place locally for £15 for an hour (we can fit in two games). Dc like table tennis also available at a different bowling alley £7 an hour. Then free museums, parks and walk and a picnic.

We do have blue peter cards and also use tesco vouchers so this helps with the cost.

I agree we never did anything like big days out regularly when I was a child. We live in the North West and we went to London once when I was a teenager. Went to Chester Zoo maybe twice, a theme park maybe a couple of times. We don’t do much now either because I have three DC and you are talking minimum £100. Even the cinema to see a new film is too expensive and hour at our local trampoline park is £36! We go to the £2.50 showings at Odeon and use clubcard vouchers for pizza express. We have a National Trust membership which we use regularly and we get the train into Manchester sometimes and that’s it!

It's gone up. Most things have in the last few years. Energy, food, labour, they're all more expensive in real terms than 5 or 10 years ago. But people are right, there are lots of ways to make it cheaper.

I think paid for activities, expensive days out etc are more about parents wanting to "make memories" than what the child wants.

An airbnb would be cheaper than a hotel, and so miuch easier with children.
Others have posted fab ideas too.
Not all free places inlondon are 'boring' museums! There are art trails through the City, South Bank, Chelsea, etc; you can often download a trail map and game assosciated with it.
A google search of 'free london' or cheap things to do in london will throw up some helpful sites.
😊

Yes, a day out with DC is never cheap! Well, the event ones, prices of tickets and treats when there. Important to interchange with free ones like picnics at the beach, park, visiting family and friends! Xx

But yes, days out to big attractions are expensive, and always have been.

Well, no, proportionately speaking they haven’t. I’m just glad we had our kids in the 80s. It was bad enough then, but at least it was just about affordable.

Windsor Safari Park was okay, Windsor Legoland is not.

Nowadays it’s basically just hand over you purse or wallet at the kiosk, and they’ll empty it for you…

We have annual passes to a couple of local attractions. Each one was a couple hundred for the family annual pass. We alternate between these and then add in free or cheep days as well.

Regarding London trips it depends what you do. Last trip we did to London was Hyde Park and the natural history museum. We had free accomadation with a friend and drove as it was cheeper ( even woth the 2 day ulez charge). We bought a packed lunch and had a picnic in hyde park which was lovely. Shows ect in London have always been expensive.

Yeah, it recently cost us £127 for three adults, one child and a toddler to go to Chester zoo.

I've just come back from Switzerland, and this country looks incredibly cheap in comparison now.

Best part of 10 quid to buy a sandwich or go on a 3 mile bus journey or get 6 chicken nuggets (not the meal, just the nugs).

Cheapest hotel in the location we needed was £250 a night, most are double that.

2 course meal for two with no alcohol was £200.

Average house price starts at £3m, most people are 50+ before they get on the property ladder.

Friends and Family Railcards make a massive difference to rail costs. I couldn’t believe it when we first got one.