Summer Holidays

[mhvp]

Has anyone any great ideas on somewhere easy and good for Mum and Dad to go on holiday with 1 year old?

My DS is getting married this month and he and his DW-to-be are having a short honeymoon in Amsterdam, courtesy of Ryanair. It's cheaper than any holiday deal in Scotland, because they'd have to hire a car to go anywhere here.

Thoroughly recommend Ryanair - going to Genoa in half term for 2 pence!

Just looked at the Suns website for details, you can't go in the Summer Holidays or easter. Shame.

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Ems - they do have summer holiday offers, but they don't usually come until nearer the time, slightly more expensive, £15 per person (+ elec etc). In the last two summer holidays we've put together two or three offers to make up a full week (and a bit) and managed to get August Bank Holiday week. In July 2000 (last week of school year and first week of summer hols) we put a few offers together and had a fortnight at Haggerston Castle.

Thanks Ailsa, you sound an incredibly organised person! Sounds like a good system.

Me, Organised?!? That depends on who you ask - Me - Not too bad, Work Colleagues - Yes, MIL - NO NO NO, I'm so disorganised it sometimes makes her angry! (that's what she told me this morning, when I took the kids round).

Just to let you all know, I gave some of my (well dh's!) money to the 'reptile' and sent off for one of the offers. We had confirmation arrive today of the offer we have been allocated, we have to pay an extra £24.50 for club passes and Gas & Electric, but it still only comes to £62.50, not bad for a bank holiday weekend in May for 2 Adults & 2 Kids.

Haven Holidays - We've just booked for the fourth year running. Our 3 year old thinks Rory Tiger is the business. Plenty of activities all day and night even when its raining. We recommend Devon Cliffs in Exmouth, has its own sandy beach and plenty of other childrens parks round about so not stuck to Haven 100% of the time. For cheaper than brochure prices try Newmans hols www.newhols.com - half the Haven brochure price excellent accomodation and polite service (This is the 2nd year with them!).

We've tried almost every All Action site but keep going back to Devon Cliffs.

mhvp, last September, after consulting the mumsnet list, we went to Hotel Hermitage in Castellabate, Italy. Staff were very child friendly, but hotel is not as child-orientated as reviews suggest. We had to ask specially for early suppers for children (ds 3, dd 1 - I hope I'm getting these abbreviations right, this is my first time!) and there were only two high chairs (one baby already in residence). Flew with go from Stansted, which was fine. Only difficulty was car hire to include child seats - v expensive and not readily available.

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robinw, have a good look at your form as i'm sure when we booked these holidays it said you don't need to take their linen at the extra charge you can actually take your own sheets etc,thats what we usually do,you'll find duvets and pillows in the caravans but no covers for them.Oh and just before you get another surprise you will also be asked to pay up front for your electricity and entertainment passes,but let me give you a little tip no-one ever asks to see these so called passes at any of the parks we went to,and you can buy the passes at the parks so you could leave out the passes and then if you were asked for them you could always purchase them at the park.Suppose i shouldn't really be saying this but last year we didn't buy the passes and saved about £35 as there were six of us and we never had any problems.Enjoy your holiday they really are huge fun,just waiting on my confirmation coming through.

robinw - you can definately take your own bed linen, we take our own all the time.

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We went to Devon Cliffs in June with DS 22 months.
We found nothing (except for the set times of the 'Paws Club' to do during the day. We wrote a letter on return home to say how disappointed we were that there was no Play Area for kiddies of this age. We received a letter back saying, That there was a soft play area, which is not noted on any of their literature, but had we asked a member of staff, they would have gladly shown us where it was. I don't know if it's just me being abit thick, but we didn't ask where it was because we didn't know it was there as none of there literature says so. I'm going for a lie down!

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Hi lisalisa

Sorry I have no experience of the actual holidays, but did see this link on another site:

Sun £9.50 Holidays

It is their online newspaper and gives the details.

HTH

butterfly

It is abit misleading really as you pay £9.50 for the holiday, then whichever site you go to you have to pay on average £5 per person per night so if three of you went for a week thats £105 then you have to pay per person for the entertainment pass which is about anoth fiver per person per week. So its not all it seems but still a cheap holiday.

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