Feel a bit sick at how much our one week trip cost

[smacke]

We had a one week trip over Christmas to Barbados. Never been away before at that time of year but for various reasons, DP and I wanted a week just us two.

We just finished paying our holiday credit card off and realise that on one week of food and reasonable excursions like museum tickets, we spent £2,000. We knew Barbados would be expensive and we didn’t eat out every day, but even mid range meals for two were coming back at £200+.

Our 7 night trip cost over £2,000 per person. Not staying anything luxury and flying economy!

This is true, it's certainly a lot better than back in the days where you had to choose holidays from a printed catalogue with one carefully selected photo of the resort that didn't show the oil refinery/nuclear power plant in the background, etc.

Still, places are never the way you imagined them... are they? Just finding your feet and learning how to navigate it all, even armed with masses of second-hand information and advice, is like the first day at a new school (sometimes on another planet). Not always relaxing, having to trade off (say) fabulous snorkelling vs risk of being shot in the head by drug cartels!

Do you own a house? If not, I'd be pretty pissed off at spending a very big chunk of a deposit on a holiday.

Sorry where do you live where £4k is a “very big chunk of a deposit” for a house?

If you had a nice time then that is all that matters surely?

I think m £4k all in sounds pretty decent for a week in Barbados. I've never been to a destination like it but we'd pay not much less than that for the Canaries.

£4k for a week for two plus flights in the Caribbean sounds like quite good value to me? I’d expect to pay a lot more! The flights alone over Xmas surely cost most of that…!

Few people realise how expensive Barbados is. There's naff-all agriculture, the deep water harbour at Bridgetown is more interested in berthing cruise ships than freight & almost everything fresh has to be flown in. Most places you'll pay well over $3 USD for just a litre of milk. It's all but impossible to eat & drink cheaply, & the same import issues make travelling around the island pricey too.
We were all v jealous of friends who went there for work but seeing them fall on Aldi like the wolf on the fold when they got back told us a lot about how well they'd been eating over there.
Hope you had a good time though, it's pricey but it's beautiful!

Edited for fat fingers

To me it sounds a lot we were there for 2 weeks and spent between £800-1000 however it was a few years ago and we didn’t do something everyday. A lot of time was spent on the beach

A starter 2 bed house here is £250,000 - £300, 000. £4000 gets you quite a good start towards a deposit for a 95% mortgage.

Have I struck a nerve?

If you can afford it don’t stress!! Can’t put a price on memories

Mid priced meals for two are definitely not £200 per person in Barbados. Even with the top retaurants I would struggle to spend that much. I go to Barbados regularly. I like to go to nice restaurants, and I was easily able to keep under 100 USD per person which included spending the day at the beach club (hiring beds, drinks and lunch) and then going to a good restaurant followed by a few cocktails in a bar. I never cook when I am away, so every meal was in a restaurant (we had a takeaway pizza one evening).

We went to Mexico in 2023 and started the trip in Playa De Carmen, definitely has a vibe with armed police about but again thanks to the wonders of YouTube we were due on a bus to head in to the peaceful beauty of the Yucatan. Valladolid and Merida were such beautiful, colourful and quintessentially mexican cities, really safe, rustic and pretty. That's the other good thing with YouTube it's truthful, we looked at videos of people in Cairo - chaotic shit hole so that went off the list!

Oh the supermarkets are bad all over the west Indies because they get so much shipped from America! Except the rum! Thing is though I think a lot of people won't consider your rum shack type restaurants and they are places to get great food made by locals at not too bad a price.

What? Where the hell has that come from?
Why are you bitching about a house deposit? If you want to save for a deposit, go for it. Why does OP have to?

More on the house deposit. How strange.
Don't think you've struck a nerve, no.

Life is too short. If you enjoyed it let it go. Who knows what is around the corner. Life is for living.

I think we all need to get used to spending a bit more on holidays. They have become much more expensive in recent years. Those used to going to luxury places may need to cut their coats though not sure everyone needs to stay in a caravan in Skegness.

@m00rfarm i think OP said £200 for a meal for two.

DS and GF bought 18 months ago here in the north west. They put about 12 per cent down but if they’d put 5 per cent down that would have been less than £12k, so £4k would have been a significant figure to them.

Was that your first time flying and staying somewhere thousands of miles away and during one of the most expensive times of year?

You're right. However, that is still way over the top for a meal for two unless they had three bottles of wine (which is expensive over there). That is around 270USD. I stay on the west coast which tends to be more expensive than the rest of the island, and would not spend that much unless really splashing out. Notwithstanding this, all the restaurants have online menus and it really is not difficult to check these out before they went to get an idea on costs. It is NOT a cheap island, as pretty much everything is imported, but to spend £1000 each in 7 days and not eating out all the time makes me wonder which restaurants they were going to - Champers? Tides? Baia? Or more local places where you can eat excellent food for under 50 USD very easily. The very local places you can eat probably 50 USD for two, but I don't tend to go to those!

I’m so sorry, we were shocked when we went with friends. It’s an extreme example of an island economy - everything is imported and jacked up price x 10 for actually not as nice quality produce you get elsewhere. 14 USD for raspberries in the supermarket that were moulding. God forbid you drink any alcohol or cocktail that isn’t rum based. We went to one place where a glass of veuve cliqot was 50 USD. I think if you go regularly you get smart to it (like buying your drinks in the duty free on the way out). But it’s shockingly expensive I agree. I also found it quite boring… we wanted to do excursions but it’s very sun lounger oriented tourism and ran out of them quite quickly. Glad I saw it given all the hype but wouldn’t go back.

I saw an Instagram post yesterday from someone who has recently paid off their debts. To celebrate they went to Cornwall for 10 nights. 2 adults and 2 very young kids staying in a self catering cottage.
They spent £4k. That's bonkers to me. I'd rather go to Barbados

Works out at £285 per day. Sounds like a lot, but in reality it's not if you were self catering. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, excursions and miscellaneous. It would all add up to about this imo.

The most important bit, did you enjoy it?
My dh and I went to the canaries 8 for nights, 2 bed villa with private pool. Ate out mainly for dinner, fab holiday.
Spent in total about £2k overall