NOW CLOSED: UK MNers: Talk to us about holidays - you could win £500 to spend on Travelzoo, a night in the Birchover Hotel Apartments in Derby or Palmer's Cocoa Butter goodies

[AnnMumsnet]

We want to know about you and your family and holidays - tell us what you love and loathe by completing our survey and you could win one of many fab prizes.

This includes up to £500 to spend on the holiday of your choice worth from the Travelzoo Top 20 travel deals, a bundle of Palmer's Cocoa Butter goodies worth £50.00 and a one night family stay in the Birchover Hotel Apartments in Derby. More info: here

The survey is open to all Mumsnetters who ever go on holiday (UK or abroad) with their family.

Please take a few minutes to complete the survey - add your details at the end and you will be entered into the prize draw for one of the prizes up for grabs.

Thanks
MNHQ

Done

I think it is done After I clicked "done" it took me to this page: www.mumsnet.com/online-surveys-product-tests

Done. But there wasn't a space to moan about the cost of passports. None of my family have got one so as much as I would like to take them abroad the coat of 5 passports makes me just think twice about going out of this country.

milk - yep that's fine! thanks.

good point stinkymice...

Done, but my internet connection went down as I submitted, so hoping it was received.

Done.

One of my biggest gripes wasn't on there

When I was looking this year it seemed like ALL the 'family' holidays I was looking at (things like FC Holiday Villages and Thomson Superfamilies) had ridiculously un-child-friendly flights.

I know that the holiday companies just get told what the flights are - but ohhhh the angst after finding yet another "perfect" holiday for us, only to discover the outbound flight didn't get in until 2 am was soul destroying .

A ONE night stay. Oh how great. I must rush off, and go all the way to Derby to sleep ONE night in a luxurious flat, and then pack and be off by 10 am and scoot off to another more reasonably priced B&B for a second night, for this to be worth my time travelling to Derby..... I rather have the Palmers Cocoa butter.....

But I am a spoilt biatch.

Gripes welcome on this thread...we will include in report!

Done but please could you add an NA option for question 21 :).

Ive stayed at the Birchover apartments and they are fab! Really luxurious and with the benefit of your own kitchen etc I really hope I win

Done.
Agree about the cost of passports, especially children's having to be renewed every five years. DS1 is only 10 and I'm applying for his third one. Ridiculous.

Just an observation about the survey: nothing in the survey about children going on holiday by themselves - eg school or club or cubs/scouts/brownie/guide trips, or indeed other family members going away by themselves.

ChippyMinton thanks for the feedback - such a big topic holidays we hardly knew where to begin! We wanted to focus on family holidays for this one...

Ann I did this and it was REALLY long and then the site went down when I sent it as you all went to the pub for lunch I presume you didn't receive it but thought I'd better check before I do it again

Did this yesterday, meant to come back on here and add that although it asked questions about whether or not you agreed with taking kids out of school, the options were fairly meaningless given that for most people this is not a simple yes or no question, it has a whole set of shades of grey lurking in-between.

So, whilst I don't think that taking kids out of school is a good idea in general, the age of the kids makes a difference (doing exam work then no, primary education not quite as difficult to make up), as well as the time of year (ds1 -7- missed 10 days at the start of Y1, albeit due to chickenpox and it really ended up screwing up most of that year's schooling as it meant he started off on the back foot) - missing start of term would be out, missing end of term or half term when chances are they will be stuck in front of videos then it's not as bad.

There's more too - depends on when parents can get time off (lots of people don't get to choose their own holidays, be it due to the employers saying you can't have xxx off because we are busy/it's the Olympics/other people have already got that date off/etc or because you're a farmer that has busy times - you can't go away and leave the sheep to lamb themselves or the crops to harvest themselves). Or if illness is involved, distance of the journey, what you'll do on the holiday (time visiting the pyramids or 1st world war battlefields etc different to sitting by a pool), visiting relatives or other people/places that have specific time constraints (a wedding, avoiding monsoon season etc). And I bet that's only just the start of it!!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is one of those instances that having an 'it depends on' option that people could add comments to would actually provide a much more accurate and interesting result...

I filled it out but then the site went down, do you know if it worked?

The link is not working to do it again now either, it just goes back to this page.

Just worked fine for me :-)

YouveCatToBeKittenMe and MelodyPondering - your form is in - thanks (that's why the link doesn't work for you Youvecat....

zipzap - cheers for the feedback. What we are after is some general info on attitudes to this from the full spectrum of opinions we have on MN. As you mentioned it is a complicated issue with many 'buts'! thanks again

Completed it - hopefully received. Agree with the earlier post about flight times. The hardest bit about booking is finding decent flight times for both flights.

A huge assumption in there that we all have young children

And some very leading questions ...

I can't seem to download the survey - I just keep getting linked back to this page

Opps just realised I've already done the survey via an email link.

Done

Hi, I have never taken a holiday with the children for all sorts of reasons, and I clicked on this because I thought that you might be interested in why not. From reading the responses I gather that this is exactly the sort of thing that this is about, but the survey is not open to people who never go on holiday.
Just sayin'...