I'm so annoyed at myself, recommendations please.

[LikeEveGotBitten]

Hi all,

We have two holidays booked this year - Spain and WDW.

WDW alone has come to £11k - which is fine, whatever, but it's not exactly a culturally exciting place, and I feel like we could have done more with that budget.

We probably have a budget of £10-15K per year, so I was wondering what places would be interesting to visit?

Children are quite young, both under 5 but I also want to consider when they're older as well.

Thank you

£11k???? 😲

It's probably a bit more actually, but it's flights, accommodation, tickets, and spending money for 4, so everything's included, which is what I'd need for the recommendations .. I don't wanna spend 11k and then have spends on top of that

Wow your budget per year is mine for about 10 years.

Personally I think if both kids are under 5 then WDW is probably a waste As there will be a lot of rides they can't go on and for characters and shows it is a lot of money. I've never been myself but friends who have with under 7's have always said they would have been better being older.

If you want cultural then look at city breaks to Barcelona, Copenhagen, Rome, Madrid, if the US is your bag then Boston, New Orleans, Washington are places friends have visited.

We did Montenegro for our honeymoon last year which was beautiful. Good mix of beach/sites.

Splurge on a good city break to London/Edinburgh/York/Bath

I think 11k is about average for WDW for 4 people including everything, and my kids went a couple of times under 5 years old and they found it magical. It’s a great age.

Copenhagen was our favourite city break with young kids, if you stay at the Tivoli hotel they have a children’s mini check in and lots of activities.

Japan is great. Safe, culturally interesting, great travel infrastructure so easy to get around and see lots of places, food and attractions are very cheap, there’s loads of stuff for kids.

We went to Japan before having kids and absolutely loved it.

Definitely going to look into it for 2026, thank you.

oh in my opinion there are so many amazing places in Europe you could visit without the jet lag and CO2 emissions!

My kids absolutely loved Duinrell, Efteling, Plopsaland, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Dutch coast. Easy to reach and so family friendly!

We also loved EuropaPark and Strasbourg/Colmar and the Black Forest.

You spent 11k to take under 5s to WDW? You are mad. As previous poster said, Efteling and Dunirell would tick the boxes.

We've taken them every year and have enjoyed it (probably why I'm a bit bored of it now).

But I'm taking note of all suggestions and will look into them for our next holidays.

We did a road trip in Croatia for a week and then a week in a naice resort there in August 2023 with a 3yo and 5yo, similar budget, and it was fantastic. Dubrovnik, Split, Plitvice Lakes. Booked lovely apartments and hired a car for the first week, and then some proper R&R. Highly recommend. They still remember the salt farm we visited and the Lakes were on my bucket list, and were suitably accessible with children. Can pm a more detailed itinerary if interested!

Kids need to do Butlin/Pontins or similar UK holiday park they will love it. We took ours we hated it kids loved it, its like Blackpool every one should go at least once

Under 5s?? When ours were under 5 we did Haven/centre parcs type holidays. Kids that age are happy with a bucket and spade and a bit of sand, swimming pool if it rains.
Save the fancy long haul trips for when they're older

Thailand is always a lovely place to spend time. The husband and I have spent time travelling on the mainland, but only been to Phuket with small people. That was 2018 and people have definitely said it can feel a bit overrun with Russians at the moment, we stayed in Kamala bay and it was quite chilled. So many choices in Thailand though am sure you can find something that suits. Singapore obviously has a universal studios park, gardens by the bay and night zoo that appeals to kids, if you want to combine with that kind of thing. I've not been but I've wanted to go to Mexico for years, but it's kind of never made it to the top of the list. I think a combination of Mayan temples and beach time would be great.

Oops! Wrong thread.