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?

You can in some cases get a cinema discount if you have AA membership for your car.

Oh yes, I think it’s 2-for-1 on a lot of attraction tickets if you’ve travelled by train which is really good! It’s not valid during school holidays but pretty sure it’s valid on weekends so will save you a lot of £££

I do too. The best way to visit legoland is when they’re under school age. You can get a toddler pass for about £45 now and it covers a toddler for an entire year plus any adult.

When my eldest was 1-4,(about 8/9 years ago) they also had a really good deal for annual passes. It was only £40 for an adult, and she was free until she got to a certain height/age. So at one point we were going to legoland most weeks as parking was also included! It was the best value pass I’ve ever had.

But what annoys me is they racked up their Xmas prices. We took her when she was about 3, and paid something like £15pp and the child got a Lego toy included and a Santa visit. Now it’s £29pp upwards and an extra £20 odd to see Santa!

We've stopped going out for meals as a family as it's £60+ and so quickly spent.

We have annual membership for national trust as a Christmas present, annual parking pass for nice country park near us and annual pass for a museum which does good events (both together come to under £80).

We go to a farm/zoo attraction once a year on holiday and that's about it.

I follow the two local cheap things to do with kids Facebook mum accounts.

5 of us so we drive to london and park in an out edge tube station for £5 or so so costs a tank of petrol - much cheaper than trains.
hotel rooms have managed to get a family room in Paddington for £100 or so a night.
we always do some museums that are free and if we do a paid attraction we do 2-4-1 tickets or Tesco Clubcard points etc.

I feel your pain OP! A trip to our local 'attractions' (theme parks, zoos etc) is £20-25 per person including for children over 2/3.Crazy money, especially if you have to then buy lunch etc.

But I am of the opinion that such things should be 'occasional treats' though anyway, afew times a year.Not somewhere kids go all the time.I think it loses its novelty then.

People talking about how in the 70s and 80s they could not afford to go many attractions - you do realise that was 40 to 50 years ago? Why should we accept going back to that kind of life?

Because there was nothing wrong with not going on expensive days out regularly? We all survived, and believe it or not enjoyed doing free things such as playing in the park with our friends, or building forts in each others garden/living room. We were not breaking rocks in the desert.

I played in the streets and enjoyed it. But life has changed. Most of us have much larger personal worlds than people did in the 70s.

For zoos it’s worth keeping an eye out on deals where you pay for one day and can return as many times you like for a year.

Some offer it all year round, but some mainly offer it in winter when numbers are lower

I don't think children's outcomes are improving because they are going more frequently to zoos and theme parks, it doesn't make our world any larger. We know that this current generation of adolescents have increased obesity, levels of anxiety/depression and overall mental health issues. No one is saying that we shouldn't go at all, more that is isn't an indicator of poverty if you aren't spending every weekend in a paid activity. It's like now a holiday in the UK is frequently referred to as a 'staycation' as it's not a 'proper' holiday if you aren't going abroad.
My 6 year old neice went to a birthday party recently, where the grandfather did very traditional party games (which cost nothing) in the garden. Things like Simon says, hiding certain objects with a 20p taped on, and a memory game where objects were put on a tray, covered with a towel and then each person had a turn trying to remember what had been removed. The children all came out saying it had been the best party ever, as it was nothing they had done before. It was very refreshing that they really enjoyed something that wasn't the usual very overpriced identikit soft play/ceramic painting birthday party.

@ARichtGoodDram that only works if you live pretty close. We do not live close to any really good zoo, it is always a long trip away.

@poshsnobtwit I grew up on an estate that lots of kids had never left during their childhood. How is that a good thing? You are left as a young adult without basic experiences middle class children have had.

No one is saying it's a good thing to never have these experiences? You said we shouldn't have to accept the way of the 70s/80s where children didn't do these things regularly. I'm saying it's fine to not think you need to be doing this regularly. There is definitely now this expectation IME, and it's wrong.
And I think there's a big difference between not ever leaving your housing estate, to visiting paid attractions every weekend.

We've been to a number of zoos and it's the one thing I would say is a waste of money. Most of them you don't get much proximity to the animals, you get a far better view watching the TV programmes!

@poshsnobtwit it is the well off famiies visiting paid attractions every weekend. That is not normal for a lot of people, hence this thread about how attractions are too expensive to visit.

@poshsnobtwit I totally disagree. I have visited Chester zoo and London zoo both once in my life. I would love to go back to them.

I think the problem with this kind of thing is that

a) it greatly increases stress levels across the whole of society (people are either experiencing more stress from higher prices or more stress from having to effing plan everything they do)

b) it reduces competition among competitors by making it harder to directly compare prices from one company to another. And also because it means that “other consumers” do not benefit from the price-pushing-down actions of the minority of consumers who are very cost-conscious.

See this good article discussing the problem:

https://www.tomforth.co.uk/oneprice/

Most of us don't care that much about prices. We don't drive around looking for the cheapest petrol station before we fill up our cars. We don't go to three shops before we buy the milk to put in our tea. We don't check the price of a pint in a pub before we order one. Once we're in a shop we probably care which tea is on offer and we can be tempted to switch brand by a discount, but that's only because it takes a few seconds to decide.

But that's not what everyone is like. A small but important percentage of us are very price conscious. We do all of the things I just listed to find the best price, and more. A retailer that offers a good price or a big discount will quickly find themselves making lots more sales as these people find and reward them. And this is the cool part. If there's one price, we all benefit from these heroes of capitalism incentivising shops to lower their prices. Attracting the 10, 20, or 30 percent of the most price conscious customers is worth it for a shop because of all the extra sales they deliver, even if the profit they make off the rest of us is slightly lower.

But what if the price conscious shoppers don't pay the same price as we do? What if they always pay the lower price? The incentive for shops to lower the prices that the rest of us pay is much lower, and we can expect higher prices than otherwise.

My concerns are not ridiculous. There is sound economic theory behind them, and good economic work to show that both in theory and in practice a single posted price delivers the best outcome for consumers. Of course the economics are loyalty cards that are free to sign up for is slightly more complex and nuanced than bartering vs. listed price systems — but the basic property of the system is importantly the same.

My point was that it was never normal for even wealthy families to go regularly to these places - they were always expensive and cost prohibitive for many. We need to treat them as a treat, we are not depriving our dc if they don't go regularly. You've been to two great zoos, no need to disappoint yourself by going to others!

@poshsnobtwit I am in my early sixties and have been to both of these zoos once. I hardly think wishing we could go more is unrealistic. A treat should be every few months, not once every 30 years.

We live in London so luckily don't have the expense of travelling and overnight stays here. We've had to compromise on housing and lifestyle etc to be able to afford to live here, so to compensate we try to max out the free days out here every weekend - the museums, galleries, big parks, festivals, family fun days.

We have a zoo annual membership (I take my preschooler at least once a week) and my dcs both have disabilities so for paid attractions and theatre/concerts we usually just pay 2 child prices and DH and I get in free as carers. I wince at the cost of full price entry even though we're on a comfortable income.

I agree that prices have become extortionate.
We have Annual Passes for a few local attractions but even with them we spend a fortune while there - £50 on lunch, £20 on ice cream and drinks, £20 on fair rides, then the gift shop!! It's never under £100 for a day out and we do something at least every month, plus cheaper days out other weekends like swimming, soft play, park. We always do something.

We did Alton Towers at Easter which involved hotel stay. Then May half term we did 2nts Legoland, 2nts Paultons Park so 5 days away and the cost probably exceeded a thousand.

We're going to London for the day on Sunday (we live North East) couldn't justify accommodation in the budget but £164 return train, £199 theatre tickets, then with a HoHo bus, plus food/drinks we'll probably be at £6-700 for a single day out.

A treat doesn't have to be an expensive thing , it doesn't have to mean spending lots of money

I love a good picnic with good people , an impromptu party , jamming together

I think people have forgotten how to make their own fun in this commercialised society which is such a shame - not just for your pockets

We never went to any of the attractions until we were teens and could go with school. Which used to get a large discounted price.

My own family we use schemes to reduce the cost because no one likes paying full price when you can get it using reward points. We have a vast amount of points build up because we use the Tesco credit card for all our spending. Many LEGOLAND trips, pizza express lunches to be had.

We get all the benefits and Tesco get zero interest as it’s always paid off.

We went to Whipsnade a few years ago (pre-pandemic) and for two adults and one child, plus taking the car into the park, was £101. We only stayed a couple of hours, as it rained so heavily, so really didn't get our money's worth.

We live very close to Whipsnade, so we then got annual passes. Three visits, and the pass has paid for itself.

I bought Alton Towers fast pass tickets for my daughter and granddaughter a couple of months ago, which were £350. I paid for fast pass so they didn't have to spend most of the day standing in queues.

But yes, I completely agree that the cost attractions are keeping families away.