Too late to book for 15 August - 10 days - 2 adults & 2 teenagers?

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Hi.
DH is still waiting to hear if his job can be covered in August so we can go away during school holidays.
Our children are 13 and 18 and we don't need adjoining rooms or a block of 4 seats on the plane.
Also, we are wary of flying due to the wait at passport control - an extra hour of standing would be a major pain (literally) due to physical weakness.

Have we left it too late to book?
Husband wants Tenerife but I think anywhere we can get in, with good TripAdvisor reviews, will do.

Any suggestions for where to look? Websites & destinations.

Greece has suspended the EES so maybe onem of the smaller islands. Crete airport is very busy at times and their new one doesn't open until late next year. Go on Jet2 or TUI or easyJet holiday sites and see what's available

Of course there will be holidays. What’s your budget?

Budget about £6k.
Greek islands sound good!
Mediterranean fish, fresh bread & fruit - yes pls!!

I'll check on Govt website just to make sure.

Don't worry too much about the EES. In the past week 2 of my kids have travelled to Europe on seperate occasions and sailed straight through with no issues

It was just an extra queue in Italy before passport control. More annoying because people didn’t understand what to do. Added 30 mins to our exit from the airport.

See Italy is where on of mine went today. 5 mins to get the fingerprint done

Portugal?

Avoid Lisbon!!! It is an absolute NIGHTMARE. We queued both in and out for over 90 mins.

City is wonderful, totally let down by the airport.

The 90 minute wait is exactly what we want to avoid!!

We’re just back from Ibiza absolutely no issues with airport. Very very hot but gorgeous - Santa Eluria

There’ll always be holidays to be booked!

You will just get less choice, less choice of rooms in particular, and it will cost a bit more. But you can defo get a fab holiday.

That’s great! We had to join a uk queue to do fingerprints and photo and then join the second passport queue to either use egates or manned booth. (We were given a ticket for this).

If you have problems standing in long queues at airports then book special assistance. It’s usually for the person who needs it, plus one. Just tell the airline/tour operator when you book.

There’s loads of holidays still available on Tui’s website .

We arrived in Rome 24 hours after the BBC ran an article saying how long the waits at border control were and we were through in 20 min.

Berlin in May though - 2 hours!

I dunno he didn't mention anything about that but was outside the airport on a bus within half hour of landing

That's some really good info!
I'm feeling a bit more optimistic about a holiday if dh can get cover in his job.

We had a 2 hr wait for fingerprints at Palma, 2 weeks ago! No queues on way home

In answer to the original question i reckon they'll be deals to be had

2 hours on arrival?! Ouch!

Suprisingly, Germany seems very bad for queues both in and out. OTOH, I've been through at least 4 different Spanish airports in the last 6 months with hardly any queuing.

For the actual holiday, I'd do a search on the deals section of package holiday providers, eg Jet2, Tui, Easyjet and be as flexible as possible, you'll get something and it will be fine. Might even open your eyes to somewhere you've previously not considered. If availability or price isn't looking great, perhaps compromise with 7/8 days within your availability window, at least you'll have a holiday and you'll have extra time to relax at home either side.

Suprisingly, Germany seems very bad for queues both in and out.

I wonder if their airports are just not that efficient? I used to fly into Frankfurt pretty regularly pre-Brexit and it always seemed to take me ages to get through even then.

Possibly, I've only been twice, once a couple of years ago and a couple of weeks ago and it took ages both times, some of the longest queues I've been in, also really badly organised as in no-one really knew which queue they should be in. But I've seen a lot of comments about long queues in German airports on threads like this.

And despite all the worries about Spain, where I go a few times a year, I've mostly sailed straight through.