AIBU to think family days out have become unaffordable?

[ThisAmpleCritic]

Half term. Trying to find things to do to keep the kids occupied. Why is everything SO expensive?! We’ve exhausted the local free activities including various walks, playgrounds, splash parks, travelled to the nearest beach. We want to do something a bit more special and have looked at more “day out” type activities, including children’s theme park, zoo, steam train, castle, national trust etc but it’s just unaffordable. It frustrates me how as a family we’re considered good earners but we just don’t have enough left over to justify £100+ for one day out, not including travel and food and the inevitable ice cream and gift shop visit.

Is anyone else struggling with the cost of family days out or AIBU?

Parenting seems to have changed.

Today parents are expected to be actively parenting and doing things with their children - perhaps a reaction to growing up in a ‘I was just left to find something to do on my own and was bored out of my mind’.

I particularly think in a world where both parents are often working full time - people really want to make sure they’re doing fun, productive, positive stuff with their kids when they do have the time (and yes I know this doesn’t need to cost money).

I can't see the issues with repeated visits to the park for example. My DC literally grew up in the local country parks. They have a decent playground, take a picnic and a friend - a few hours of bliss for me! We never took them theme park in this country, but did do a few times on holiday abroad. Similar with zoos a few memorable visits rather than the norm.

Ok for most country parks you still have to pay for parking, but a season ticket for 3 parks was £50.- so I made sure I got my moneys worth!
I understand that you want to do things that you feel are special. But one of the most special & memorable activities my DS has is actually a visit to the park with a friend were they covered themselves in mud and stuck leaves in their hair. It was to scare his sister and her friend... mine are young adults now, but this still comes up regularly at the dinner table! Mostly because I made the boys sit in the car in their underwear.... boys were 6 at the time, girls a bit older.

Have you got blue peter badges? Makes a big difference as kids get in free to a lot.

It really depends. We take our kids to the garden centre (the have lots of pets, fish, and terrapins) quite a lot. My dad used to take me and tell me we were at the “free zoo”. Take them for a meal at the cafe after occasionally but a lot of the time we do a pic nic. Sometimes we take them on the subway and get off at a “random” stop (it’s not random, I’ve pre googled it and already found the best parks) and then we go and hunt for a new park. We very rarely take them on days out if I’m 100% honest, I used to feel bad about it but I actually never went on any days out as a kid and I still had a great time.

I think proportionate to average income etc entry prices to a lot of places have come down compared to 20 plus years ago. There are also a lot more free museums and similar available.

What has changed is the expectation that every day needs to be filled with planned activities and heaven forbid children get a bit bored!

I agree with NT or English Heritage annual membership if you have primary aged DC. Initial outlay is probably less than a day out at the zoo and then you go whenever you want. Lots of properties have play areas and trails/events during school holidays.

This. Plus there's usually a deal if you look. Modern day version of more money than sense is paying full price to get into an attraction.

Anything here OP:

Things to do with the kids | MoneySavingExpert

Things To Do & Family Days Out In The UK | Day Out With The Kids

Yes, people are suggesting NT for the play areas, walking trails as well as wildlife and Gruffalo sculptures.

They're not suggesting you take them to look at 18th Century pottery and bedlinen while you pray they don't knock over priceless antiques.

I think what’s changed is the expectation that there will be lots of entertainment laid on when previously kids were pretty much left to get on with entertaining themselves. Without wishing to sound like an old bore meals out or even a trip to the cinema used to be a rare treat. I think you can apply a certain amount of creativity to your day to day activities. An assault course or camping in the garden and cook out. I’d probably look at some kind of scavenger hunt or geo caching as an activity.

That being said I think if you plan ahead and scout about you can in fact find lots of deals or vouchers codes and annual memberships can be worth it if you’ll visit more than once in a year. My local Picturehouse cinema costs £120 per year membership but I get 10 free tickets. They’ve just launched £3 tickets for children outside of that so if you take your own snacks that’s not a pricy trip out.

I agree that family days out to attractions are prohibitively expensive, but when mine were small we spent lots of time decompressing at home during the holidays. Sometimes they would have friends around and we were lucky to live in a quiet area with green spaces and recreation equipment to play on. They spent lots of days in the garden with sand, water trays, wendy house, paddling pool etc.

I didn’t have the energy myself to do what I see families doing during half terms, and I was in my 20’s/ 30’s!

I’m a big believer in allowing the boredom to set in, and letting their creativity and imagination flow. Usually we’d afford a holiday every 2/3 years and one big day out per school break.

If you have a garden what about some cheap water toys or something like swingball? Then they can play there and you can get them ice creams and drinks from the supermarket so much cheaper than at attractions.

I took 16 year old DS to York yesterday. We did the train museum which was free and only spent £7 on two (fantastic!) ice creams.

We then went to Bella italia to eat because I had blue light discount so could get 20% off so for the two of us it cost about £40. We could have just taken a picnic to save more but it was a treat for him working hard at school.

it’s generally just about planning and using resources well!

I second whoever mentioned the value to boredom. Yea, my parents did take me out but were not afraid of allowing me to be bored. It forced me to be creative and now it is one of my most prized skills.

In York you can also walk around the walls and along the river to the play area at Rowntree Park and get food from the street food market. When I went a few days ago there was also a free Roman re-enactment show going on in museum gardens with activities for children too. You could have easily filled a whole day and the only outlay, which could have been reduced, would be food from the street food market. I got a big bowl of Pad Thai for £9 but there were cheaper options.

We used to do similar with my dad when we were little and it was one of my favourite days out!

I visited a zoo once as a child. No theme parks. We weren't poor but we had to be careful with money.
NT membership is totally worth it if you have several sites not crazily far away. I went with a friend and her 3 year old to Chasleton House yesterday and the little one had a grand old time.

We used to get season tickets from end start July one year to end June which then meant it felt like 2 years, then maybe swapped to somewhere different for the next year. Always set expectations re ice creams and gift shops before we went.

This!

why is it now expected that kids get entertained all the time? Has it got to the stage that kids are unable to occupy themselves? We had a weeks holiday once a year, and very very occasional days out. The rest of the time we played with mates, or entertained ourselves. Now parents seem to think kids have to have experiences every holiday.

I do think there's been an explosion of "mug pricing" where "official" prices have risen to stupid levels, in both attractions and restaurants etc., but there's always some kind of discount/deal if you look for it. Places like Bella Italia pizza chains literally always have discount codes if you google for them.

Likewise the chain owning Madame Tussaud, Blackpool Tower, etc., almost always have some kind of "deal" - I seem to remember they used to do a heavily discounted entry to some London attractions (Dungeons?) if you travelled by train, with websites like MN and MSE advising people to buy the cheapest train ticket they could find to use, even if they didn't travel by train, just to get the discount, so the discount was easily obtained by people willing to look for deals.

The point being that the attractions wanted to "milk" the people with money or who didn't care about money, and would pay full "Inflated" price, but then give the "proper" price to people more savvy about money by making the discounts/deals easy to find. A bit like modern Tesco supermarket club card "deals" where they inflate the prices and then offer discounts to card holders - again, very easy to get a card to get the deal, but Tesco can "milk" the people who don't care or don't notice the costs.

I think yabu to have such high expectations for days out with children, in terms of needing to pay for expensive activities, instead of pottering about at home or being outside.

My parents did ok financially when I was growing up in the 2000s but I went to the theme park and zoo about three times (and that was on holiday), and days out like the cinema, crazy golf, ice skating etc were reserved for birthdays or the occasional treat in the summer holidays.

I rarely got days out as a child (probably once every 2 years or so) so am determined that my children can experience that more often and honestly I like a good day out too.
But they are expensive as you say. I budget all year for our activities at the start of the year. I spread out the free activities with mid range activities then one big expensive day out a year. We do a good amount of 'being bored' at home with our children too and aren't out all the time.

This year is Paulton Park - its £182 for entry for 4 before you look at lunch and gift shop. Not sure we can do it but trying to get there in time for August. I know I can bring a picnic and not go to the shop but I do that at every other point in the year so once a year I try to make it work that we don't have to do that.

I came from a wealthy family, my parents used to do one or two days out a year (either alton towers or the zoo) the rest of the time we were expected to amuse ourselves or packed off the grandparents while they worked.
i think people only went mad on days out in the last decade. I stick to 5-7 “big” days out a year the resr of the time it’s the free museums & walks. :) mine are happy to be home playing out or in with their mates in all honesty.

It’s always been expensive, my two are late teens now and we could only occasionally do big ticket days. I had a season ticket to the local farm park and practically lived there over the holidays. Paddling pool in the garden got a lot of use too. Even going swimming was expensive if we went to the pool with the slides locally. This was 10 years ago. I’m only an hour from London but the train is so expensive even going to the free museums was pricey.

When I was a kid we’d only do things like theme parks if my grandparents took us, maybe once a year we’d do a ‘big’ day out.

Echoing the many others who said that these days out used to be a rare treat. No wonder so many children can't cope with a few minutes boredom.

Was on a train a few months back when two mums and their daughters boarded. One of the little girls sat down and immediately claimed that she was bored. Less than two minutes had passed.

I echo this and other pp making similar comments. I'm in my late 60s, so am recounting very much days of yore - but "family days out" were very rare and limited to free activities such as days at parks which had things to do and see (one run by the council a few miles from us had a paddling pool, a free museum that was very child friendly, a few animals to look at, as we'll as an excellent playground). We took a picnic and a football or cricket set.

Our annual family holiday was a week at a seaside holiday camp.

Expectations have ramped up in subsequent decades.