He will be 18, and will be going with three school friends. I am not happy about this at all - from what I have read tonight, it is full of teenage Brits, getting off their skulls on cheap alcohol (buy 1 drink for 3€, get two, or even 5 free), having lots of sex, and racing round on cheaply hired quad bikes.
But I know there is not a lot I can do about this - he's worked, labouring for a friend of mine and has saved enough for the deposit, and earns £25 a week from a paper round, so he could afford the holiday (they've found a deal costing £300-ish for a week) and save up spends - so he's not going to be relying on us to finance the holiday - which means we won't really have much say.
Has anyone been to Malia? Or have your teens been - and how was it?
I am going to show ds3 the news stories I've found, and see what he says.
He does go out and party with friends, but has only been drunk enough to need us to go and get him twice. He and his friends seem to look out for each other when they are drinking, and none of them have ever got into serious trouble - throwing up seems to be the worst they have got up to - we haven't had to go and bail him out or collect him from A&E. I think he is reasonably trustworthy, but would that hold, when he's in a party town, surrounded by loads of other drunken teens, behaving recklessly? He did go to T in the Park this summer, and came home none the worse - should that reassure me? I don't know.
I want to trust him. I know that he will be 18 and would be able to go with or without our permission - and that in a few years, he'll be living independently, and won't even have to discuss his holiday plans with us - but I am worried about this holiday.
Dh is away until Wednesday night, and I have said ds3 can't book the holiday without first talking it over with him, but ds3 and his friends want to book on because they have found a good deal.
Arghhhh - why can't they stay little.
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Teenagers
17-year-old ds wants to book lads' holiday to Malia next summer.
SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 11/08/2014 23:21
My mistake 
I should know that as I've got one! Sentiments the same though.
YY specialsubject. I assume by scooters you mean moped type things?
A friend of mine ended up with severe leg injuries due a moped accident while working in Mallorca and she still has scarring nearly 30 years later.
However OP, I'm sure that 90/95/99% of teens that go on a foreign piss up holiday suffer no more than a week of dreadful hangovers 
.
I'm trying to, AnyFucker! 
I'm also trying to get dh to chill - which is a much bigger challenge. It is reassuring to read about teenagers going on these holidays and coming home fine - that's what I needed to see, to balance out the news stories.
When he went to T in the Park, he took my old Samsung Galaxy with him, and left his iPhone at home - I will hang onto the Samsung and its charger so he can do the same next summer.
Id be more scared at y dds going to t in the park than on holiday dd1 worked a stage last year she said god it is scary
My kid brother [big age gap] did this about 3 yrs back except he was going for the summer with the intention of getting a job in the first two weeks. He didn't take out travel insurance and had all his spending money, circa 1200 in cash, stolen on day 1. Parents had to bail him out, which they did with the bare minimum, and he was on his return flight in two weeks to work off his debt to them for the remainder of the summer.
They were livid he hadn't taken out travel insurance, but I suspect secretly quite pleased that he hadn't been able to spend the summer out there.
Their relationship was v poor at the time though so I'd try to avoid getting yourselves into a position where everyone gets entrenched though.
I think you have to trust that your kids are going to be vaguely sensible. If you are pretty sure that they are too stupid not to follow the pack drunk onto mopeds etc, then I'd be trying everything in my power to limit the holiday.
Jumbo box of condoms, huge bottle of factor 50, travel insurance and E111 is about as much as you can do.
A friend's daughter booked a girls holiday last year which her father [a colleague] was dreading as it was an 18-30 type holiday. He got her into diving over the previous year which she was dead keen to do on holiday and severely curtailed her drinking as you can't do it 12 hours before or something. Plus the dive boats left at 7-8am
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All of mine have done it and they do all come back in one piece. I've been a wreck but you can't lock them up!
I have a collection of tea towels from trashy teenage holiday islands...
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