Family Summer Holiday - What a rip off!

[Bobbaz]

I just can't belive what a lot of rubbish is available during the school holidays and how much it costs! Just looked at pretty standard hotels in the balearics and you're looking at ?5,500 for 2 adults, a 2 and 5 year old. If anyone has any good recommendations I'm all ears (anywhere in Europe/3 hour flight time except Portugal as been there last 2 years).

[womanofdulwich]

Welcome to parent hood of school aged children. Bettter to self cater-stay in the uk and rent a cottage. Or take them out of school in term time.If you team up with family / friends you can get a place with a pool. ps I hope that is for 2 weeks?

[ludoscotts]

hi I can recommend the hi hotels bouganvilla hotel in sa come mallorca. We just booked last night to go back there. 2hr 20 flight and approx 1hr20 transfer. Amazing pool, lovely accommodation, train down to beach. Quiet resort. Entertainment in the evenings in the bigtop, kids would love it.

for august its 107 euro per night for all of you then you would need flights.

[prickle]

Ouch! ?5,500!

We have taken up camping (in France in the main) as a cost saving measure, and have to say really enjoy it now. I drew the line at sleeping on the floor for 2 weeks so invested ?5,500 on a trailer tent so whole family can sleep in comfort.

[prickle]

Womanofdulwich; "Welcome to parent hood of school aged children. Bettter to self cater-stay in the uk and rent a cottage. Or take them out of school in term time."

We found rental prices in the UK are usually more than abroad (although you don't have flight/ferry expenses). Having hols in term time is a no-no, particularly for secondary schools and you shouldn't bank on being able to do that on a regular basis!

[dulwichgirl2]

We too find our summer holiday a big investment (3 ch). We generally go to Turkey as the Euro has/had made other more traditional destinations (France etc) too dear. My parents used to try to take us somewhere new every year to show us a little bit of the world - or, at least, the bits they too could afford - but we aren't able to ring the changes as much as we would like for our ch. PLaces that are a long way off end up being reasonable relative value but of course the long flight is a depressing start to any trip with ch.

[womanofdulwich]

Of course you should not take secondary school children out of school but age 5 is fine IMO as a one off-especially if for one week. This assumes you will read to them / make them read to you etc.

[prickle]

Our kid's primary has clamped down on term time holiday as the head is v. keen on attendance and takes a dim view of absences. I think attendance is one of the ofsted criteria.

ETA We are looking at flights for summer half term. About 1/3 dearer during half term week compared to week before. :(

[mima08]

HIya, we went to south Italy last year during the summer holidays - you can fly easyjet or thomsons to Naples and hire a selfcatering appartment. We stayed in a lovely place, called Domus Cliento, about 1.5 hrs south of Naples, great appartments with a pool, nice little town about 5-10min walk. Small beach but larger ones easily accessible by car, lots of yummy italian food. We were 2 adults, 1 teenager and a baby and paid about ?2k to ?2.5k all in for 10 days.... PM me if you'd like details of the accommodation.

mx

[Tanza]

We do home exchanges via this website and it's worked very well for us. We do it partly because it's cheap but also because it's interesting to see another country from a local's perspective. They generally leave tips on where to go and what to do in the vicinity.

We get offers from all over the world from all sorts ofhomesforexchange houses for our not-very-special house in East Dulwich. We've only had good experiences of this so far.