Last minute holidays

[Inyourhippyhat]

Whar is your experience? If you have found a last minute bargain, happened? Was your holiday enjoyable? What kind of discount did you manage to get? DD and her BF want to go away to the sun for a beach holiday in August. Tell me your last minute experiences - how last minute was your holiday? Where did you go? Which company did you use?

My dp's mum goes on last minute hols regularly she packs a suitcase then goes to the travel agent and often has to go straight to the airport!

She sometimes doesn't know which hotel she's going to until she gets there but don't think any have been really terrible.

I booked holidays to 2 different places in the Dominican Republic with Thomsons about 5 weeks before I went and got 50% of both times. One was for May half term and the other Feb half term, so good times of the year for the Caribbean. Both holidays were amazing.
I would say look at package holiday websites such as Thomas Cook and Thomsons as no nasty extras like suitcase charges and transfers. Just really think about flight times as often just awful night flights are left, especially to Greece and Turkey.

I've late booking holidays a few times over the past 6 years and have always been very happy - I'd recommend it. As long as you're realistic in your expectations (of both price and type of holiday!) you'll be totally fine. We went to Zante last month. Booked about 12 days in advance, into a self-catering apartment. Got flights, accom and tranfer for 7 nights for £890 for the three of us on lastminute.com. Was hoping for cheap, clean & cheerful by the beach and that was what we got. We had a lovely time! One note though, if you want to go from a regoinal airport you might need to book further in advance. We had wanted to go from Bristol originally but had trouble finding availability. We ended up flying from Gatwick.

Slightly different in that we booked last minute to go to a campsite in the South of France. Very definitely the last turkey in the shop. Disappointing all round.

This year's holiday was booked last August because we wanted somewhere specific.

There's the lesson I think. If you want something specific and it matters to you that you get it then book in advance. If it is possible to be more open then you can book last minute.

A lot of my new parent friends are surprised the first time they try to book family accomodation during the school holidays last minute and discover there is nothing left.