How to split accommodation with big group?

[Farahto]

Hi everyone!

We are a childfree couple that will go on holiday with 7 other couples who all have children, ie. we are seriously outnumbered :-).

My question is: is it okay for us to ask that the accommodation price is split by room and not per couple? As in, that the people with children pay for the 5 extra rooms where the children will be sleeping?

Intuitively it makes sense to me and my partner strongly believes it's correct to split by room, but I also feel a bit petty to propose this? I think I feel a bit weird because it's the first time we go on holiday with such a big group and no one has proposed to split it per room. On the other hand, maybe they don't really think about this as 7 of the 8 couples have children and we are more of an exception so it should come from us to propose it that way (and we should just bite the bullet?)

Thanks for your help!

I don't you're being petty at all. You need one room, you pay for one room. It's not your job to pay for other people's accommodations.

OF COURSE the people with children should pay for the extra rooms for the children! It's not up to you to subsidise their children on holiday.

Honestly if they push back and seem to expect you to, I'd pull out. I have children by the way.

We’re off to villa and this is exactly what we have done. Childfree couple pays less as they only have 1 room. I would expect the group to think exactly the same

It's not unreasonable to suggest it, although it may get a bit complicated and I'm assuming that could be the reason no one has proposed to split the cost by room. For example if children from different families are sharing rooms and some families have one child, some have three etc.

You absolutely shouldn't pay the same as families using two rooms, but sometimes on these threads people suggest that DCs should pay less because they are DCs.
TBH unless it's family, going away with 7 other families sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Why is it complicated?

If two families have a DC each in a room they pay 50% for that room.

With 8 families and even if multiple "shares" it would take 10 mins to calculate a room split.

By room is fair and appropriate.

We did this when we shared (same number of DC's but ours took friends so we had more rooms and thus paid more).

Ok complicated is the wrong word.

By room is totally fair.

Have you also thought about food, entrance fees to any attractions, etc? With such a big group you need clear ground rules.

In our friendship group we look at each couples "deal" as it's rare you all get equal rooms even if same number of rooms.
What I mean is, if there's a huge master suite with lovely views / balcony or something then we would make sure the couple with no kids got that.

And we also adjust the shares paid on the other rooms to balance out any unfairness. So in this case you might get the nicest room and pay a few £100 less instead of an equal share.

Learned the hard way after I paid an "equal" share for a double room too small to have my son in the room so he had to sleep in the utility room, and it was the only bathroom with a bath. So had everyone's bath time and soaked floor/dirty clothes/nappies every night to content with.

I also think that the people with children should pay more than you but I do think there is a further consideration.

Assuming the villa is large with a lovely pool etc, I think you need to take into account that the villa and all the amenities would not be feasible with you only paying for 1 room. They may feel they're subsidising a luxury holiday for you. If you're only paying for 1 room out of 10, it wouldn't cost them much more to not have you there and just split the cost between them.

If they're not good friends of yours, stand your ground and if they don't agree, don't go.

Yeah, that's another hard one...
It's 'difficult' because 7 out of the 8 couples do have children. So we're the odd one out. 4 of the couples went on holiday last year and they just split everything even steven, which makes sense because they all have children. So dividing everything would require more time and effort.

But with us there this year, we'd be paying for food for 15 children. So that's another thing to bring up.

When we went on holiday last year with 2 other couples, we split the shopping costs by adding in 25% per child.