Travelling night before, or on the day...

[spukalili]

This isn't really a huge deal, I'm just looking for opinions on the best way to move forward, as this is probably the longest drive we've ever done since having children.

We've booked a very affordable caravan holiday just outside St Ives, at the very end of June. No half term, so traffic will probably be fairly bad, and it should take us around 7 hours (with a break) from where we live, which is just outside Manchester. We have an almost 2 year old (who still naps) and a 4 year old (who does not). Both kids are good travellers.

I've had recommendations of booking a hotel close to our destination the night before we're due to check in, and set off at the kids bedtime. With any luck, they will fall asleep, then when we arrive at the hotel we can have a trouble free transfer, grab some sleep ourselves, then wake up in the morning around 10 mins drive from the caravan site. We can grab some breakfast (kids eat free) to set us up for the day, then explore the local area before checking in.

Husband thinks we should set off at 6am on the day of check in, drive half way and have a break, at which point one of the kids should be ready for a nap, then aim to arrive there early afternoon for check in at 3pm.

I think both options have their advantages, but reckon the hotel option works best for us. It's only £31 for the night, and it means we're there on the morning and not spending all day driving, then ending up knackered for the first day.

Husband is adamant that it's a riskier option, and has read horror stories about children waking up during car transfer, then jumping around the hotel room until the early hours, leaving everybody grumpy and tired on the first official day of the holiday.

I could convince him, but I thought I'd reach out to some experienced mums who might have other suggestions, or have first hand experience of either way.

I am being unreasonable - drive down on the day, leaving early morning

I am not being unreasonable - hotel the night before, drive through the night (from 6pm)

I’m with DH. The excitement of going on holiday, they will wake up and then there’s the excitement of a hotel room - which you are then basically trapped in for a sleepless night.

It depends on your kids I think. Mine have never and would never car transfer and would be bouncing around the room, and that's if they even slept in the car, they would probably have napped at bedtime and then woken up. I have friends who have kids who absolutely would have fallen asleep, and stayed asleep no matter how many times you transferred them (and did, regularly).

You both know your kids and how easily moved they are, if they fell asleep on the car ride home after a late night would you be able to get them into bed without waking them up, for example? Of those scenarios I would absolutely wake up early and go down on check in day but if I had kids I thought would move into a hotel room without issue I could see the appeal to that!

He'll be glad to read this 😂

I do agree it's definitely a risk, and one that I'd be incredibly frustrated about if it happened. Both children are fairly good sleepers (my oldest would sleep through a rave) but there's always the chance they will wake up, and I can't see us being able to get them back down if a room they're completely unfamiliar with.

More so, I'm not sure I could deal with the potential "I told you so's" for the rest of the week!

Yeah I second DH's idea.

We are doing a similar trip in August from the East Midlands. I am planning on leaving at 5am and getting as far as we can before taking a break then travelling the rest of the way to the accommodation for check in.

if the cost is as low as £31 I'd do that - otherwise it's a whole day of your holiday spent in the car. Only needs a traffic jam, plus a break or two to leave you not getting there until the evening - and exhausted.
What is the gap between check out and check in times? - although you can checkout and have a few hours on the beach/lunch...
Another option would be to stay part way, so you only had an hour or so travel on the day.

Agree with the above poster. I've had way too many nights in hotels thinking it'll be a good idea, and haven't slept well due to the unfamiliar surroundings ect.

Now I'd rather grab as much sleep as I can at home, and be up early and do it in one go.

Just do it in one go with plenty of coffee and toilet breaks .

I'd just do what your DH suggests. I only tend to do hotel when we have an early flight so we can relax and know we are at the airport to make the flight, one of the perks of a UK hol is not having that worry.

Plus kids rarely sleep on cue, especially when excited, so hoping they'll sleep at bedtime is a risk! At least by the pm they should be tired to nap.

If going for a hotel, I would get one half way... leave at 7ish, drive until 10/11, get a good night's sleep then do the rest the next day.

I went to St Ives for half term just gone, did a thread about it! Travelled with DD7 who is usually a can't sit still type of child! It took 6.5 hours on the way there and 7 hours on way back. I did 3 stop off first journey and 2 on the return. I wouldn't waste money on a hotel. DD was so excited to get to our caravan, we went to bed at 9pm and she fell straight asleep and slept till 8am!
It's really worth just getting the journey done in a day.

Have a wonderful time!

Ahh, how lovely! Will definitely try and find your thread for inspiration!

I think we may even be staying at the same place...did you go to Haven?

Any other tips?

Not read all the replies. How about setting off at 6pm and staying at hotel on the way? Say 4 hours away?

Have a good night's rest and shorter drive in the morning.

Who's driving and whoever it is decides! My husband hates driving in the evening
We would get up early like 4 and drive! The kids would sleep and we'd stop for breakfast and still be in Cornwall for late morning
The faff of packing bags for just one night and then having to hang around for a day waiting to get into a caravan is a pain in the bum
Also if it's self catering are you taking all your food with you? Because you're not going to want to leave milk and other fridge things in a cool bag for over 24 hours inside a car!

We were just going to do a big shop once we arrived (or do a click and collect!).

I think your suggestion has won, and we'll be setting off early morning.

Are you staying in a haven caravan type style holiday?

There's lots of tips in my thread, it's in the UK Travel section.

We stayed at the away resorts site, St Ives Bay, it's in Hayle. I've booked to go back next February half term!

Check out Eden Project, Paradise Park, Cornwall Gold, the beaches are where I wanted to spend most of our time, they were spectacular! We ventured into Truro and Redruth, Carbis Bay, Roche. If you're driving, there's lots of places to explore. I was on a very limited budget and packed an awful lot in to 5 days!

I would get up and head off the morning that you're due to book into the caravan.

Drive as far as Bristol, as its roughly half way. Have a break and a run around. I would suggest coming off at M5 Junction 17 and going to Asda if you want fuel.

There's a big Tesco, Asda and Lidl all near by.

@spukalili I’m in 2 minds about this. I’m in Scotland and we had to drive down to Southampton and left home (just outside Glasgow) to drive to Birmingham/Oldbury to reach our hotel as we planned an overnight stay to break the trip up.

Nothing could have prepared me for the traffic around Birmingham mid -late afternoon on a “normal” day!!

We had planned to be maybe a 6 hour drive - it took nearly 9!!! We left at 10am and didn’t get to hotel until after 7pm - no stops on the way down and no hold ups between Glasgow and Manchester.

I specifically said to DH if we ever do this again, we are leaving 6pm at night (ish) and just getting to hotel later. If you are Manchester - you’d probably be before the really busy period if you left at 6am - so I’d probably do that.

I'd much rather leave at 4-5pm the day before, drive 3-4 hours and stay in a hotel half way there. Then spend the morning in that town and get the kids to run about or go swimming, have lunch and then set off to Cornwall to arrive at check-in. The 2 year old would then probably nap in the car.

I never want to drive at night if I can avoid it and I would never choose to drive through the night as it seems too risky when it comes to nodding off.

Do it in one go. We leave at 4am for a 14 hour drive to France and have done for years, since kids wee one. They're great road trippers. Breaking it up just prolongs the agony imo.

I would split the journey rather than trying to do it all in one day. We always do this when we drive up to Scotland from South Wales, it’s all part of the holiday.

We did the hotel stop thing when we had young kids. It was ridiculous.
Like pp said they were too excited to sleep then away early anyway so we had time to kill before we could check in to where we were going. I would just set off early on the day.

We did this after a holiday once when our youngest 2 were a similar age (slept at airport hotel instead of travelling home immediately after flight)
Kids were shattered so should have slept, but it was a nightmare and it was bed swapping for most of the night until they settled!

100% leave early, 5am if you have to. Even leave the DCs in their PJs until you stop at services. Take plenty of snacks and things to keep them entertained.

There's a great services on the M5 around Gloucester way where you can stop, it's nicer than most. gloucesterservices.com/explore-gloucester/

Also, we've done the return journey from Cornwall the night before we were supposed to leave, eg 7pm, kids in pjs, etc. It was a late night but DCs slept all the way and it just meant a bit more time at home before we went back to work and we beat the Saturday traffic.

We often booked a premier inn or travel lodge before a caravan holiday, in part to maximise the Monday to Friday so the first day was a proper day.

Sunday is the cheapest night for booking hotels and you don't need to factor in rush hour etc.

But I wouldn't travel just for the night. We looked for somewhere to cover most of the journey (but maybe with an hour or so to cover on Monday). Still set off fairly early and maybe stop part way at a park, soft play, little petting farm. Something to make it more than just traveling.

Basic hotels but again checked if they have a park nearby or other things for us to do.

Then Monday perhaps go to a beach, splash park, whatever looks good (and cheap) and not far out of our way.

One of us would run into a supermarket to pick up bits on final leg of journey and arrive at park for 3ish when you can get into caravan. No one is knackered from a long drive and we can go swimming, take them to the kids disco etc.