2 adults, 4 children, £5k to spend on a holiday. Where?

Rolandtheroadie

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

This is another of our dilemmas.
My wife thinks that all inclusive must be the best value.
But as neither of us really drink any more my thinking is that by paying for all inclusive we'll be paying over the odds.

Any opinions on all inclusive for non-drinkers?

My wife was pregnant at the time so she wasnt drinking at all. I had a couple by the pool during the day and perhaps a couple at night.
With the pregnancy, we were always bedded down by around 10:30 as well.

I see I said drinks, I really meant soft drinks for the kids lol.

zagfles

LilacPixie wrote: »

Well I can maybe answer some of that. I have 3 kids, 5 3 and 7 months. We are not big drinkers but we go abroad 1-2 times a year. Personally i find AI to be good value for us, in many cases soft drinks actually cost more than alcohol in a bar or restaurant. We are off to Majorca in July for under £1600 for us 5 AI. Self catering holidays for same time on same flight was coming in at over £1300. We would be spending more than 300 in 10 days on juice, ice cream and meals for all 5 plus IMO a holiday is a holiday for me too, i don't fancy wandering around a Spanish supermarket looking for meal ideas to go back to apartment to cook.

£1600 AI for 5 people is a good deal! A PP mentioned £4600 for 5 people, though for 2 weeks rather than 10 days.

But as well as cost, the choice between AI/SC/DIY depends what you want to do on your holiday. For us eating the local food is part of the holiday and eating a different restaurant every night (perhaps with the occasional BBQ) is part of the experience. So we'd never go AI for that reason. As well as not wanting to return 3 stone heavier than when we left, as an all you can eat buffet every night plus free ice creams would inevitably lead to (in my case anyway )

Also we like to travel around and see the country we're staying in rather than stay in the hotel complex the whole time, and maybe have a meal in the place we've travelled to rather than rush back to the hotel for dinner. If you want to travel around remember to add the cost of trips, hire car etc, to the cost of the holiday. AI doesn't include everything!

We tend to DIY, occasionally SC, we budget about £50 a day for eating out, snacks, ice creams etc, and maybe another £40 average to do touristy things (some days it'll be nothing eg beach days, other days a lot more eg theme parks, city sightseeing, watersports etc).

Last few holidays have been driving and total cost has been in the region of £3k for 4 of us for about 16-18 days, including everything (crossings/petrol/tolls/accomodation/eating out/trips out theme parks etc).

Flying and hiring a car would have been a bit more, but you can get bargain flights even in August. We went to Lake Garda in Italy a couple of years ago and got flights with EasyJet for £50 each return.

Mr_Wang

Sri Lanka.

Might as well shut the thread now.

Or Thailand.

**Patty**

zagfles wrote: »

£1600 AI for 5 people is a good deal! A PP mentioned £4600 for 5 people, though for 2 weeks rather than 10 days.
QUOTE]


That was me! lol

Sorry, i should have clarified........ Our party of 5 is 2 adults & 3 children but aged 15, 13 and 9.......so i strongly suspect the price was due to the older 2 children being over 12 (usual cut off for AI)

JimmyTheWig

LilacPixie wrote: »

Personally i find AI to be good value for us, in many cases soft drinks actually cost more than alcohol in a bar or restaurant.

I agree on cost per drink, but a non-drinker may have one or two soft drinks while a drinker may have 6 or 7 alcoholic drinks.

It definitely sounds worth looking at, but we're veering towards a villa in Europe at the moment. Maybe Italy or Croatia or Spain.

zagfles

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I agree on cost per drink, but a non-drinker may have one or two soft drinks while a drinker may have 6 or 7 alcoholic drinks.

It definitely sounds worth looking at, but we're veering towards a villa in Europe at the moment. Maybe Italy or Croatia or Spain.

Can definitely recommend Croatia - we went to Pula (Istria) which is just across the Adriatic from Venice. Friendly people, reasonable prices, most people spoke very good English - better than in Italy or Spain! Surprising as the vast majority of tourists there are German, hardly any English.

DIY was vastly cheaper than a package - when we were pricing it up SC packages for 2 weeks were over £3000 for the 4 of us. Flights plus hotel (typical SC aparthotel) came to about £2000, but in the end as we had lots of time off, we decided to drive it - taking it easy over 3 days with an overnight ferry from Hull-Rotterdam, stopping in Germany and Austria on the way. Glad we did, Austria was stunning! Including crossings, fuel, tolls and overnight stops it came to about the same as flying, but with the added advantage of having a car at the destination.

The Italian lakes are also stunning - we went to Lake Garda a few years ago. Bit more expensive than Croatia, but not much. They say eating out in Italy is expensive, but that's only if you go for the full 4 course antipasti/primi platti/secondi platti/dessert - you won't do that every night if you want to fit in the plane seat on the way back! Quite often we'd just have pizza or pasta and a salad, maybe ice cream for the kids, carafe of house wine, rarely spent more than EUR50 on a meal out for the 4 of us.

claire16c

zagfles wrote: »

Yes, the problem with August in Florida is that the weather is hot, humid and stormy and I've heard the queues in the theme parks can be long. Spending most of the day queuing in stifling weather is not my (or the kids) idea of a "dream holiday"!

But Florida is an excellent place for a holiday and has so much more to offer as well as the theme parks (everglades, Miami south beach, keys etc), but best go off-peak and when it's cooler! Easter tends to be busy, best time could be May half term - some schools have 2 weeks off then, if not see if you can take the kids out of school for a week. Accomodation can be cheap off-peak - as there's so much of it in the Orlando/Kissemee area.

Yeah going to Orlando in August is probably the worst time of year to go!

I agree I would take the kids out for 1 week and go at a half term.

JimmyTheWig

Sounds good, zagfles. One of our concerns about Croatia was the language, so definitely a bonus if they all speak English!