please make up MrsJC's mind, shall we spend $$$$$ on a trip to the UK?

[CorpseBrideOfJohnCusack]

have been invited to close family friend's wedding in August next year, dunno where yet, prob NOrfolk though (And if not, London maybe). my mother will prob go, don't know about sister, my brother and family will go.

looked up flights, cheapest on a sensible route $10,300 . no real accomodation costs while we're there, would plan to go for 3-4 weeks (DH would prob have to do some work while we were there though). also, possibly, my Dad might offer to help with flights. we can prob just about afford it though if our released pension money ever arrives from the UK

one massive advantage would be missing a chunk out of the interminable winter. but it's shit loads of money. DH isn't really that keen either

children will be 4.8 and 2.5. eldest one may be OK (she is showing signs of rejoining the human race). youngest one could be utterly hideous (he currently does not stop)

I think we should go, I want to see my friends, I want to see my brother, I want to see all the family friends at the wedding. Annoyingly we'll have to spend a fair wodge of time at the ILs in freaking LIncolnshire (unless they sort themselves out and move here before then). but I could cope with that in return for 7-10 days living it up in Laaaaarndan town and seeing people.

and the wedding is the day after our 10th anniversary so at least we'd be doing something different for that.

oh I dunno. it's so much money and the JOURNEY with children.ugh

help meeeeeeeeeeeeee. don't have to decide right now but I need to work on DH and sort finances out so need a decision soonish

If you spent that money on something moe local.. like trip during the winter from NZ, then how much would it buy you?

could you persuade ils to fork out for a cottage in Norfolk so you could all spend some time there without having to hike up to Lincs ( I hate lincs quite irrationally !)

It's such a lot of money..

If you can afford it GO!

It is a lot of money but you can't put a value on seeing family and friends.

We spent $$$$$$ on a 3 month trip to UK last year with 3 kids. dh's parent are from over there and he had never met his aunts, uncles or cousins. We had so much fun and I don't regret it one bit.

My youngest ds had just turned 4. He loved the tv/games thingy and all the food the airline fed him. He slept for 8 hours on way over and way back on the floor under our seats. My 9yo dd and 7yo ds top/tailed on their two seats and slept for 6 or so hours. You should be able to top/tail your two over their two seats.

Your dh will probably enjoy himself once he is there.

Is it an option to go by yourself? The kids are really too young to care and if your DH isn't keen it's a lot of money to spend.

hmmmm
I could go by myself but I reallyt don't think DH will manage the children for as long as I'd go for to make it worthwhile, esp without my mother around. Also really I would like to show the children off and they love their cousins as well.

we could buy a lot of things/go on a lot of trips closer with the money, but we don't really need any of them - we have some house stuff to do but we already borrowed the money for that (just haven't got around to doing much or it, of course)

I think I'm going to talk to my mother tomorrow and see what she says. because if my dad refuses to go (most likely) I think she would like us to go too for company etc. in which case he might put his fare towards ours IYSWIM.

I think it's the trip with the children putting DH off to be honest. And it is a big consideration, but other people manage it...

dither dither

oh and I am NOT going without DH

that is NOT a holiday

I would go if you can afford it. I went for July, ds was nearly 4 and was a breeze on the flight, so much better than when he was turning 2 (journey from hell). The ds's were spoilt by family and friends, it was great catching up. We missed a month of rain.

We've just spent a week in Fiji, fantastic but tbh not much change from $8k. 3 weeks in UK with family or 1 week in Fiji, as fantatic as FIji was, you can't beat family (even if you're glad to see the back on them after a month in close confines .

Hey, come if you can and we could try to arrange a meet-up (remember who this is? Your Dsis' old school pal )

The economy is grim atm, and likely to be for a long time. I'd think twice about doing something optional that I had to 'scrape together' the funds for.

Is your dh's income/employment fairly safe and recession-proof? If yes, that is one big obstacle out of the way.

hard one
did you plan on coming over at all? how often? when would you next come? how much do you want to come over rather than just go to the wedding? how likely are the in-laws to make it over there anytime soon? where do the cousins live UK or NZ?

Not expecting an answer BTW just some thoughts to ponder!

I would definately go MrsJC.

When did you last go back? I would scrimp and save up the money personally. But then my mum and dad are over there and they are the people that I most miss.

You have a year to save don't you? So ummm lets see $1K a month to put away. Oh ok, that's quite a lot. Eeeeek.

Don't worry about the kids on the flight. The oldest one will be fine no.2 may be a bit tricky but hey ho it's only a day. Phenergan helps. And Valium for the grown ups of course .

Good Lord MrsJC. Is that outrageous flight cost because you're flying from NZ? I got DD and I a return fare at Christmas for half of that, flying out of Sydney. Are you sure you can't get it cheaper? I managed to shave quite a bit off by doing a slightly tortuous return trip via Finland.

Anyhoo, I've done the trip a few times on my own with DD between the ages of 2.5 () and 5. When we fly out this Dec DD will be turning 6. Huzzah! It will be so easy!! Nintendo DS, ipod touch loaded with games, portable DVD player and in flight entertainment. The flight was almost the best bit - 24 hours of sitting on my arse watching TV and not cooking while I let DD play with electronic entertainment and the television with NO GUILT. It was fabbo.

When DD and I fly back this time we're also going straight up to Lincoln (do you think this common theme is why we're both expats now?). I have bought an overseas rail pass thingy that will give me and DD unlimited first class rail travel across the UK for about what it would have cost us to get to Lincoln.

I'm not hiring a car and am letting the train take the strain and have asked mum to buy DD travel games as little presents that we can use.

We're going to do Heathrow->Lincoln->Dorset->London->Day trip to Paris->London->Sydney (via Helsinki and Tokyo for a day), arriving back on Christmas Day.

I am SO looking forward to it. It's not a holiday per se as it'll just be me and DD, but I'll get to see the crumblies and my best friends, a load of shopping, take DD to see all sorts of great things (and hopefully snow) and Paris, as she's learning French.

So, back to you . If there are two adults I don't see why not. Doing it on my own with a 2.5 year old was nasty, no sleep for about 3 days and jet lag from hell for all concerned. There's always phenergan for the flight/jetlag for the littlest one. Your eldest will be fine. At 5 mine was so thrilled to be able to watch tv for so long I barely got a peep out of her.

It is $$$$ but if you can get some contributions and something back from your UK pensions that will help. Plus it's August so you won't freeze to death [in theory].

It will be nice to have photos of them with the relatives at that age, and at nearly 5 your eldest will really remember. Mine has lots of lovely memories of friends and family from our trip when she was 4 and a half. And she loved the double decker buses!

That is a lot of $$$$$ for 2 adults and 1 child. We paid that for 2 adults and 3 children in October. We flew Virgin Atlantic and they were great. I am a bad flyer and will only fly with airlines who have NEVER crashed. Only leaves four .

Is it because it is August?

Forgot to add - we got cheaper flight going onto the airline's website directly. Much, much cheaper than travel agents or sites like webjet.

I got a dodgy flight combo with BA (who I hate), Finnair (don't read the reviews) and Qantas, who a doing a great job at falling out of the sky at the moment.

Great

ooooh thanks for all answers

that was direct on the Singapore air website. I don't whether the price will go up or down closer to the time (but the 'early bird' offers seem to be coming out at the mo). Is for 2 adults and 2 children. I expect August/July is molto expensivo because of people fleeing the interminable, CHristmas-free, rainy non centrally heated NZ winter.

I'd rather not fly anyone who doesn't do ChCh-ASia-Lon if at all possible, so that only really means Singapore Airlines or Air NZ. I don't really want to go via the US, or via Sydney, or even Auckland, or any of that narlarkey. BA - NO. the trip is going to be vile enough with the children anyway without hideous flight combos. I reckon DD will be fine, glued to the TV, but DS grim.

solidgold, I know who you are . Would love to meet up, so would sis I'm sure if she came over too. We have been enjoying that show about la Llewelyn-BOwen (It's just been showing here) and remiscing about Blackheath days.

we were thinking about coming over at some point anyway, by then we'll have been here 3 years and that seems a reasonable amount of time to have NOT travelled back IYSWIM.

on balance, I think I need to ring our financial advisor (ooooh, get me!) and see what's happening with the money we're trying to release from our tiny pension pots (with regards to paying us anything when we retire) - we want to release it all now, whilst the exchange rate is good, and start again here. we get 50% after 3 months or something and the rest after 2 years, which we'd prob then put into investments here (do I sound like I know what I'm doing? Cos I don't). IF it's all happening and coming then I think we'll plan the trip. If it's not (i.e. we can't actually release it) then I think we won't.

DH's job is NOT recession proof and he is freelance too so that does bother me. however we don't ahve a mortgage so things aren't that bad.
and I will look for better flight deals

thanks all for making me think about it properly. I really do want to go and see family and friends, this wedding is a useful kick to make me get round to actually planning it - it seemed quite serendipitous really

the flight is only x hours with dc and such a small proportion of the whole time. Sounds like it could be a very special holiday for you all.

MrsJC - have a look at webjet.com.au. It will give you a grid of airlines and dates and colour code them to show you the cheapest combinations.