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?

Not really. If you take inflation into account most attractions are around the same price today as they were in the 1990s. £10 in 1990 would be about £25 today. Most attractions are still pretty much inline with that. I think what has changed is expectations about all the extras that get added on to a trip out that most people didn't indulge in but are now seen as necessary. Most places in the 1990s didn't have nearly as many retail outlets hawking refreshments and souvenirs because people just didn't buy them so much.

We used to spend most of the school holidays at home (apart from 1 week in summer when we went on a uk holiday) mum would sometimes take us on a bus ride to town or Granny's but mostly we played, rode bikes, paddling pool etc, if the weather was bad we painted, had play dough or read books (and yes sometimes watched a film on the telly 😱)
I did roughly the same with our Children although if Hubby was able to take time off we'd go for a day out to the coast.
Many museums are free these days and a national trust family membership is just over £100 for a whole year (payable monthly if that's too big a chunk of cash at once) take snacks and a picnic lunch and you've got a fairly cheap day out. Don't feel you have to fill every day with outings, it's good for kids to be bored and think out activities for themselves (if my kids complained of being bored I'd give them a list of chores they could do and surprisingly they thought of something they could do instead)

Respectfully, I think we had different experiences of the hospitality trade 30 years ago. The pub/restaurant I worked in made its money from good home-cooked food and whilst there were plenty of birthdays and anniversaries etc, we had a lot of regulars who ate frequently. I don't know what else to tell you! Personally I don't think it's correct to say that "very few people bought food outside the house at all". In the average (Midlands) rural county where I lived, there were considerably more "food pubs" than there are today.

@ClayPotaLot that's interesting - how does that fit with the current CoL rhetoric? Are we not actually any worse off?

The cost of living crisis is on a shorter time frame. We're feeling the crunch over the last 20ish years. We're forgetting that the 90s were a boom time and so even today we're better off than we were at the start of the 90s.

Lots of folk just don't go on them. Too expensive. But zoos and safari parks must have huge overheads.

Come off it with all this ‘we never ate at pubs in my day’ stuff. Pubs have been around since Roman times

Eating out used to feel special when I was a child in the 90s and early 00s. These days your average pub experience is pretty dire!

They don’t feel family friendly anymore either. You used to get a playground in the garden or the really heady days of the indoor soft play. Where have they all gone?

Many can’t afford all that. You sound rather smug.

No, you wouldn't do that with a toddler,, neither would a theme park be enjoyable. When we talk about doing stuff with the kids I'm thinking primary aged children. I did park & playground from age 4 (once they started school) onwards.
Kids need to learn to play and occupy themselves. I think that's something that many kids don't learn these days. There is much passive entertainment and instant gratification around.

We are. A lot of people try to downplay it for some reason

Not worked up, i was agreeing with @Badbadbunny that its more of a gesture or formality to make it look as if theyre doing something, when in reality its not going to influence anyone's decision to visit.

Even more pointless is when ive seen prices listed separately but everyone pays the same!

What an odd argument. Your children are now 6 years older and will experience the park in a different way and be interested in doing different things to 5-6 years ago.

Some of my favourite things are taking my children back to a place they visited when they were much younger and comparing their perspectives then and now.

I took my gds to a local scarecrow festival today followed by the village park. All free. Didnt think we would enjoy it so much but we did.

I buy an annual Castle, gardens and bird of prey ticket for a local attraction. It permits entry for five and its £97 with good free parking. It was just beautful and the gds loved the castle and extra childrens activities laid on, although the medieval fighting got a bit out of hand....

Always take a picnic as it avoids queues!

One of the happiest summer days think we had was last place we lived - picnic drinks - book for me and we did a tour of the local parks working towards large main one and local mususm before poping into iceland for ice cream and walk back via the small play parks and fields again. Took most of the day and weather was lovely.

Then we moved and the parks here are far apart and pretty crap and very basic and often broken. We have to get into next door district to find any decent play parks - they have some lovely one but it's a really long walk.

In summer hols I try and follow a formula of one day at home, one free/v.cheap activity, day at home, one paid activity, day at home, free activity, and so on per week. But this is interspersed with grandparent childcare and trips often are with just one parent as other is working. We are rural based with both parents working full time family with one DC so holidays are a mix of grandparents childcare, cinema, swimming and then things like cycling together, the beach and local skatepark in nearest town with friends. Being rural so long days out in nature are theme for us then back to the house for ice creams. Or we are in the house/garden (we invested in some good play equipment that DC and neighbours kids can play on) for a good while, and small but good local park.

Once or twice a month we will stay with grandparent in a city over the weekend and use my historic scotland pass or visit trampoline parks, farm parks or zoos. Sometimes it’s all of us or just me and DC, but just even going into a ‘big city’ near grandparents and walking around actual big shops, going on train etc is exciting in itself as it’s so out the norm for us as our nearest population centre is a small town. We live walking/cycling distance to a beach on cycle path/quiet road or a 5 min drive in car so often meet friends there and chill while kids run about.

I find as DC gets more hobbies and can do more like biking, scooting, swimming and skating more competently, our outings are centred around this stuff which currently isn’t too expensive once equipment like bike is already bought. I’d probably only do the big zoo once a year, or safari park once a year, adventure park once a year which works out to be one big ‘event’ thing a school holiday.

But yes, even this is becoming a stretch for the 3 of us, and we have a decent income due to both full time working. It’s a bit depressing and hope the weather is good in summer as we aren’t going abroad until later in the (cheaper) year. Being stuck at home is always nicer when the sun is shining

Okay, you have issues getting to a decent park.

But when you do take a picnic to a decent park do your kids enjoy it or do they find it boring?

They are expensive however I have 1 child and my DH works and rarely has time off, so it’s often just the 2 of us. Totally get how it’s not affordable for a family of 4+ on the same income.

@Wafflesss - mine enjoys the park. But he goes maybe every other day to the ones nearby. So it’s just normal after school activity rather than something special

But if he enjoys it why does it need to be changed up to something special just because it’s the school holidays if the cost is prohibitive (as this thread was about in the first place)?

The loved them but there were three of them close in age so they had each other to play with - and we did find some great parks round the country - days out and IL.

The parks were rarely full of kids they knew - though bar few exceptions other kids were friendly and that day I mentioned the smaller ones were all empty till we got to the large main one in center - which was great giant sand pit towers and great kit.

The eldest was starting to out grow them around time we moved here - and it was a shock how bad the parks were for younger two.

I can easily see how a poor park selection and fewer kids who perhaps don't play well together and few other kids about and can see how easily it may not be a great an experince as we had.

Just to stress I have pointed out more than once that I have taken mine to more exciting places this half term. But it’s all been very affordable largely thanks to viewing it as ‘going to the park, but with a bit of an upgrade’. I’m struggling that people considering dropping £150 on a single day out would find the monthly NT fee prohibitively expensive for example.

The PP I was responding to lives 15 minutes from two of the best parks in the country. I absolutely agree that if you live in an extremely rough area with lots of deprivation that finding a decent park may be challenging. That is different to finding parks boring.

@Wafflesss - he enjoys park, but not alone every time. I usually arrange for friends to meet us there most the time. But in the holidays most are busy with family/ other schedules. And afternoons term Time it’s like 45mins at park around 3/4pm, not all day.

we don’t spend loads either. But I have to take him off somewhere new for bike ride, or to bike park, or we go hiking to a new hut. we go strawberry picking, or garden at home, or swimming in lake, or I find free activities out on locally for holidays.

It’s not just him, I would be bored as hell going to the same three parks for 6 years.

Depends on the kids as well - like adults they tend to be varaible in personalities and likes.

DH hated parks as younger kid his love was reading MIL used to force him outside as she thought it was better for him - he used to sneak an umbrella and a book outside. He have been happier in his room reading.

Kids and families differ - what avaliable differs in different area - yet MN it's often taken as some kind of personal attack when someone points that out they are different to another poster.

That poster family don't like parks and pincic in them - well we're all different. When parks here were out we switched to swimming events as they were free easily accesible one were as previous location getting to a pool was expesnive and difficult.

I agree with all the previous posters who say that 'big' days out were a rare treat in the past (I am 50) and children were expected to make their own fun much more. Parents are more risk averse these days and then there is the Instagram factor and FOMO. I only had one, so more affordable, but would often pay for a friend to join us.

We live in a city so had more available on our doorstep, often low cost or free but I did a lot of driving to swimming pools with slides etc which seemed to have jumped in cost. My DC is now at uni, so those days are behind me. However, what I have noticed is that now everything has to be booked in advance and lots of places are crammed and offer really poor value for money. We had a Merlin pass for a while, but recent reviews suggest that it is really not worth it. Even with the better passes, the number of people admitted means that it is basically just a day of queuing. There is no spontianty, Xmas events have to be booked in March, even a swim session at the local pool needs booking.