teenage holidays

[nonironmum]

17-year-old son wants to go on Club 18-30 holiday with friends (he will be 18 by then) to the ghastly Malia (Crete). Any advice? I am horrified...

Don't pay for it. If he wants to go, has the money and will be over 18, there is realistically nothing you can do to stop him.

My dd went to a festival last summer with friends. I'll never forget the look on her face when she entered her bank card number on the festival web site to pay for her ticket. It was a big moment.

I'm sure I didn't hear the worst of it, but she had fun and came back in one piece.

If he'll be 18 by then then you can't really stand in his way. I guess its all part of growing up, experiencing different things and making memories.Although looking back on my teenage holidays I'd be pretty horrified at the thought of my dc eventually getting to this stage....eek!

My son and daughter both went off for their boys/girls holdiay at the end of school.

Son went to Bulgaria, daughter actually went to Malia I think! Bulgaria turned out to be the worst of the two, really really seedy and the boys got into a scuffle (aka run away) or two but survived.

Daughter was sent with a long list of do's and don'ts, promises not to go anywhere by herself and a cheap mobile and told to text every day she was alive. She refused at first then after a cpl of days started, usually just 'not dead today' or something equally sarcastic.

Dd 17 off to 'Shagaluf' (Magaluf) with 3 girlfriends, enormous crowd taking over hotel and she knows loads of them. Not sure what to start worrying about first.. apparently they sleep for a week when they get back

Mine went and had an amazing time. They came back tattoo and std free with kidneys intact. I'm glad they did it , it was a fantastic end to A levels.

My dd is planning to go. They might meet....

these places are nasty shit-holes but it does keep them all together and stops them wrecking everyone else's holiday.

let him pay for everything. Remind that travel insurance doesn't pay out if drunk/stoned so it is quite a good idea to avoid ending up paralysed or dead from balcony jumping. Remind of the prevalence of chlamydia. Remind that getting tattoos there is stupid.

they won't make memories or experience much, but if it is what they want to do. Just don't pay for it!

DS went to Kavos this summer after A levels. Long lists of do's and don'ts.
He survived but would never do it again. It may depend on the young person or the group they go with. DS and his friends are all country lads with no experience of night clubs or drinking. In spite of having seen Sun Sex and Suspicious parents he was shocked by much of the behaviour and a little nervous of all the drunks.
He was also disappointed that his friends wanted to stay on bed all day and he ended up going to the pool / beach on his own.

Inclined to agree with everyone else - if he can afford it, then there's not much you can do, except keep suggesting nicer places to go!

My DS is like peastalks!
Went on the 6th form holiday to Zante. Was " an enjoyable endurance" that he wouldn't repeat but would have regretted missing. He was more annoyed with the way that they were treated as basically a money tap by the " hotel " than anything.

Eldest dd wisely went camping with a select group of friends in Wales after her A levels. She definitely had a better time.

DS1 went to Malia after his A levels a couple of years ago, with 13 mates. They got ripped off by the hotel manager who made up a cock and bull story about them having to pay a "Tax" because they had beer in their room!

The hotel was shit and things were broken but they were too scared to report it because they would have got billed, also the hotel was overbooked and the manager wanted to put them out in the mountains, but they argued the toss and managed to stay where they were.

Some of them went to strip clubs and got tattoos (DS1 didn't), I know they got drunk and most of them came back with chest infections. DS1 and another lad had pneumonia.

DS1 said he had a great laugh but it was a waste of £1000. He saved up his wages from his Saturday job to go. He will probably do another holiday like that because he is in the Army now and will go with his mates from there, also it won't take him so long to save!

DS2 is 18 at Christmas and doing his A levels in the Summer, he's not mentioned a lads holiday yet!

Yes I think DS1 regrets all the hard earned money he spent on the holiday now that he is a poor student.
One of the problems was that I had drilled into them about not going off alone at night. They were told there had been a lot of muggings in Kavos. Older men targeting young lads who were staggering drunk and alone. DS is very risk averse for an 18 year old and this worried him. One of the boys had a habit of wandering off in the early hours and DS felt duty bound to go with him.
There were some good bits. He enjoyed the music and the DJs (although they were all deaf after 2 nights of it).
It's quite telling that although they parted friends he hasn't been in touch with any of them since they got back.