My cultural child - first holiday

[pinkbubblebath]

We're lucky enough to be on holiday. It’s such a beautiful place by the sea and amazing pool with loads of entertainment for the kids. Big restaurant with lovely local food on offer.

So far my one year old has played with rocks, and eaten baked beans.

My then 9YO was in one of the Young Voices concerts. Thousands of children, amazing lights, celebrity singer etc. The best bit of the day? "Eating my packed lunch with my friends."

Some 10 years ago -

Me: Look DS! A lemur! It's on Daddy's shoulder!

DS: [fascinated by a stick on the ground]

Lovely holiday in France a few years ago. Did all the nice things you do in France. DD’s main memory (she was about 6/7 at the time) was that she fell out of bed and both her wobbly teeth came out, and there was blood everywhere. And DH & I only noticed in the morning.

And that the local fire brigade came to the house next door to remove a hornets’ nest. Although tbh that was pretty cool.

@Larryyourwaiter - at the wasp being the best animal in the zoo!!

@Carboncheque

My mother’s a retired teacher. She went with a yr4 class on a school visit to the safari park. It was followed by the usual writing exercise about what they’d seen and done. Almost every account was about how ‘when we were eating our lunch a pigeon pooed on Claire.’

My first ever school trip was to Twycross zoo in year 1. One of the gorillas was sick and started eating it. Guess what we all wrote about the next day!

Thought of another one - took other DD (maybe aged 5 or 6?) to a really nice butterfly place/ pretty gardens, with exotic butterflies in hot buildings, near home for her birthday. Invited her friend to come along. Her only memory? Running across the car park to see her friend when we spotted her friend’s car.

When I was in Year 4 we went on a school trip and did loads of exciting stuff. We wrote about it the next day at school. The only thing any of us wrote about was that Katie fell in the pond when we were pond dipping. We are all 41 and it is still talked about now!

When I was about 11, my Mum and Dad spent probably the best part of £10k on a once in a lifetime trip to Disney, Florida. We did everything, every park, trip, gift shop, restaurant. They had saved for years. Our villa had its own pool. On the last night they asked us if it was our best holiday...

No. We preferred Cornwall apparently. We spent 6 days in Looe in the pouring rain, 5 kids (my cousins came with us) and 2 adults in a trailer tent, it pissed down so much that we didn't stay for the rest of the planned 2 week break. The reason we liked it better... we got to warm up tins of spaghetti hoops on the bbq with Dad.

I think my dad nearly cried 😂

@Peanutsandchilli

My child would have eaten rocks and played with beans, so I guess you're doing ok so far.

This made me laugh out loud. A fair amount of attempted rock eating went on too I can assure you!

I found a write up I'd done of a school trip when I was about 6/7

I had described in great detail everything we'd had to do in the run up to getting on the coach (going to the toilet! Putting our costs on!) and how we all got on the coach...

There is no mention at all about where we went or what happened there 🤣

I remember dd about 6/7 being asked about our holiday abroad, and dd gave a very detailed account of how the McDonald's by the beach was better than the one at home... we'd nipped in the McDonald's, starving, after a dolphin boat trip.. sigh..

I’ve found it’s always the little things that kids find memorable like the ice cream cone they had or a swing in the local park rather than the main attractions we take them to holiday for

This is know as a “bloody fish” moment in my family. When I wad aged very small, DDad used to take us (I’m one of 4) out on Sundays so DM could study, a d sometimes had trouble dealing with the idea that riddler girls didn’t quite have the same interest in some of the more esoteric museums he enjoyed. DBros ran into the house after one of these trips out and excitedly told DM “Daddy told Bike to “look at the bloody fish”!!!

Yorkshire wildlife park. Saw so many animals. Dd's favourite was the pigeons.

Snap @toomuchlaundry

Took our kids on a month-long trip to Singapore and Australia. Their best bit was the pancake machine at the breakfast buffet in the hotel in Singapore.

We had a close second this year with the all you can eat breakfast buffet at Premier Inn.

I remember when we took my son, aged about six, up the Eiffel Tower. He did look at the view much because he was too busy checking out the contents of the bin. A couple of years later we took him to New York and up the One World Tower. He was sulking about something and sat with his back to the windows refusing to look at the view.

I have taken many, many kids to all sorts of interesting places on school trips. I honestly think most of them would be happy to just have an hour or so on the coach with their mates, stop at the motorway services to go to the loo and get and McDonald's and then get back on the coach home

Went the US with DDad’s work for 6 months. DSis a d I returned to our primary school in the UK after Easter break. We had to do an assembly about it., DM helped.

Bear in mind that this was the very early 80s and the main fast food place in the UK was Wimpy (and tgst was still mostly waitress service).

Headteacher asked “So girls, what whas the best but about America”.
(DM thinks - NASA, oil rig, Alamo, day trip to Mexico, American school, baseball match…)

DSis and I replied in unison “breakfast at McDonalds”.

Years ago we took (then) 2 year old DS to a steam railway which was having a Thomas the Tank Engjne weekend. There was a chap dressed as the Fat Controller. DS stood on the front of the train to pose for a photo with the FC and just as we are about to take the photo he spots the car park below and points at it declaring "car". I forget what we paid for those tickets plus the copy of the Thomas book which was signed by the author 's nephew but we might as well have taken DS to a local car park.

We took our DS on a safari in South Africa a few years back and he still regularly talks about how the best bit was seeing a donkey!

Years ago we took the DC to Costa Rica. Their abiding memory? The tomato sauce came in packets and not bottles.

I took a class of kids of a trip to one of those immersive historical experiences where you spend the day pretending you're in that period. It was intended to inspire some creative writing (as well as cementing a sense of the era we were studying) they all just wrote about the cat that jumped in through the window and was literally nothing to do with the trip.

Took dd (3) to longleat safari Park. Her favourite animal was a chicken

In fairness, when I think back to my first form school trip, the main things I recall are that I had a pack of salted peanuts in my clothkits bag, and the coach seats were red leatherette.

I think we might have gone to the zoo, but I have no memory of that. I can clearly remember that my packet of nuts had Mr Peanut on it though.

We stayed in a beautiful Yorkshire Dales holiday cottage and had so many fun days out - museum trips, hikes, lovely food, saw friends and family.

DD’s favourite memory was playing with a local cat that lived near the cottage.

@TheWayTheLightFalls

I give you… the pigeons in the Legoland car park. Thank fuck we used vouchers.

When I was taken to London zoo as a small child, the thing I really enjoyed was... a duck and some ducklings. Not a special zoo duck, just a random ordinary one that had taken up residence there. I also enjoyed running up and down a small slope.