4 kids holiday logistics

[Honeydewmelon123]

We are planning our 4th baby - for those with 4 kids under 6 I’m interested to hear how you travel on holidays.
Do you bring grandparents or nanny along or do you go solo/ as a couple?
Do you restrict where you go away? Do you mostly do Airbnb/ villas? Ever go to hotels? If so where?

I have 4 kids although they are older than yours now, you can get package holidays with large family rooms/apartments but you have to book at least 12 months in advance and they are very expensive, so I have usually always either booked a package holiday with 2 rooms (1 parent and two children in each) or flights and house (without a pool as I learnt you need to have eyes in the back of your head if you book somewhere with a pool and it’s not very relaxing) through air b and b or booking.com ensuring a short flight, short distance from airport to house - I went to Kalamaki in Zakynthos for many years as it’s 5 mins from airport (always cheap taxis available outside the airport), everywhere is child friendly and the beach is sandy with shallow warm sea water for very far out

Thank you, that’s helpful.

and did you opt not to book a car hire? Or do you struggle to find a car big enough?

Do you have any help on holidays?

Also how do you get through via airport? Double buggy? Sling and single buggy? Some walking?

We’ve driven from Northern England to the South of France with four under 10 and it is flippin hard work! But do-able with the magic bag of games, puzzles, snacks, music etc.
Also flown to Italy & stayed in a large static caravan on a site with a couple of pools including for kids. That was brilliant! Crepes & pizzas made on site, and a shop for the basics. Great fun all round.

We have four kids and have taken lots of different holidays.

When the kids were very small we tried to set up luggage/buggy etc so that one person managed two large wheelie bags (plus a large rucksack on one holiday!) plus travel documents, and the other person managed all of the kids. Kids over 4ish had a small backpack for the aeroplane which they carried themselves.

When travelling abroad with baby/toddler twins we found two single buggiesstrapped together to be the best combo. I bought some adapters to connect two umbrella strollers together, but actually Velcro straps connected them better. That way we could have single buggies or strap them to be a double buggy for airport/solo parent time. If the kids are small, make sure the strollers lie flat so the kids can sleep in them during the day and evening.

When abroad, we have stayed all inclusive (no cooking, minimal cleaning, minimal washing etc) and also taken our caravan. Both worked well, but were different levels of hard work!

We have never hired a car abroad since having kids. We have used busses, trains, ferries and trams!

Jet2Holidays have been brilliant for family rooms. Service always excellent, and rooms have always been exactly as described. We normally have a two-bed apartment; double bedroom, twin bedroom and two littlest on the sofa bed in the lounge. We would sit in our bedroom or on the balcony when the smalls were in bed (or go to sleep ourselves, more often).

I have taken the kids to AirBnBs by myself, and taken them camping in our caravan (many many times) and (once!) in a tent. Takes a bit more organisation than home+day out, but gets easy pretty quickly.

Don’t be put off travelling with lots of small kids; it really is fine. If you can manage a day out in the U.K. then you can manage a holiday abroad!

Never went abroad always had holidays in the UK at holiday parks half board the kids loved it.

I think a Centre Parcs four bedroom villa sounds perfect for this

We go on lots of holidays, best ones by far have been when we have embraced the fact that we are outnumbered by kids and do Disneyland, Center Parcs, Butlins, Port Aventura etc. We simply didn't go abroad until our eldest was about 9 and our youngest nearly 3, partly due to Covid but also just to avoid the stress.

We really love the Eurostar and are going to Holland this year. Way easier than flying and only £400 return for us all in August.

We have 4 kids 8 and under. We’ve done long haul to Australia when they were 7 and under (because DH’s family are there). We carried the littlest (9 months) but the others walked in the airport (no 3 was just 3). It was fine - not nearly as stressful as we’d anticipated. We usually do self catering Airbnb in the UK for holidays or house swaps. Haven’t done hotels.

We only have three but do holidays by car to reduce costs- can’t figure out how you would do multiple car seats in a hire car apart from anything else.

We book apartments, often on holiday parks with pool. Yelloh village and Landal Parks are good.

For hotels en route it’s two rooms. Accor group (Novotel, mercure, ibis) have good offers including free breakfast for the kids and second room 50% off, some of these are hard to find in their website (eg for the second room offer, you need to search for one room, not two, with one adult and one child in it, then the deal pops up)

Once they are all out of car seats or down to booster cushions, we may dare a trip by plane.