Holiday with autistic kids

[MyEdgyOliveTraybake]

We have severely autistic, non verbal 8 year old ds twins. They have no sense of danger and enjoy running away from us. We have other children who are neurotypical.

we struggle going on holidays. We would need somewhere that we could lock the doors and windows to stop elopement during the day or at night.

we enquired about center parcs but understand that the door isn’t lockable. This is the same with many air bnb and hotels.

any thoughts, please? Have you made center parcs work?

Found this on a search. Not used it or heard first hand reports. Worth a look.

https://www.thethomascentre.co.uk/holidaysforfamilieswithautisticchildren/

So hard with the lack of awareness of danger and new environment isn’t it. Good luck with your search.

Have a look at the Calvert Trust.

I believe the fire regulations for holiday lets now mean exiting the property from the inside needs to be keyless so they can only have, e.g. a thumb lock. To get round this, we have used a pressure mat alarm.

Have a look at Searles in Hunstanton, North Norfolk. They're family owned and disabled friendly. I think they'd certainly try to meet your requirements and be honest if they couldn't.

I highly recommend the thomas centre. The bungalow we usually stay in with them has a front door that is lockable from the inside and a lockable door separating the bedrooms from the living area. Windows are all restricted. Bathroom is a large wet room. You get 1 hour private pool use per day as well as use of all other facilities. There are only a small number of properties, we rarely see others families. We started staying here a number of years ago as we couldn't make anything else work safely, this actually feels like a holiday.

The owner Jan is more than happy to chat through any requirements and make what ammendments they can. For example we ask for items to be removed such as breakables. They are more than happy to do this for us. They also provide everything you could possible need from washing up sponges to washing machine capsules.

Depending on which centre parks it can be quite a pain especially if you have bolters. Pretty much nearly everyone was on mountain bikes and going at super speed so I didn’t like it

Everything you have to pay for apart from swimming. Lots of things booked up. It was just chain food places Costa / pizza chains etc

Honestly I reckon if you got an air b and b next to a common / fields you would enjoy it as much. I didn’t rate centre parks at all and cost several thousand.

However, butlins 😬 my kids have had a blast there cheap and all included. Get like a mini flat there and lockable doors. Bognor we have been twice and they all love it there 🤣 5 mins from a pepple beach free access to use all park rides.

Super cheap compared to centre parks and they give you more free things to do in the day.

It wouldn’t be my first pick but honestly the kids have a blast and quite a few sen kids there so you feel comfortable……

Thanks, everyone. Will look at those.

yes. - center parcs is a fortune. It’d be good to get somewhere that gives peace of mind that they can’t escape.