Supposed high-spot of the family calendar, going on holiday can often be a minefield of stress and parental tension - especially when you’ve got little kids, a limited budget and only two weeks free in the summer.
Leading family holiday operator Haven and British Holidays has put together their top tips for a hassle-free holiday with the children. If you’ve ever been tempted to leave your kids behind at the airport then maybe following these guidelines will put you back en route to a happy family holiday.
1. Don’t travel too far!
With the best will in the world, if you’ve got small kids in tow then the world isn’t always the best place to go. Flying with kids can involve tedious check-in queues, hours amusing them in the airport spending fortunes feeding them in over-priced cafes and shopping for things you don’t need, several hours more sitting with your knees jammed into the seat in front of you whilst balancing a small child and a tinfoil tray of pappy aircraft food on your lap and, finally, a couple of days of jet lag.
Forget it!
Save overseas travel until the kids are older ( or better still old enough to leave behind!) and book a UK holiday. Pack your bags, put everything in the back of the car and within a couple of hours you can be unpacked and having a good time.
‘We have holidaymakers who travel for less than half an hour to get on holiday,’ say Haven. ‘It’s not the distance, it’s the environment that makes you feel like you’re on holiday. Why waste your time travelling for hours when you could be enjoying yourself?’
2. Don’t spend too much money
As soon as the budget gets out of control so will your stress levels. You’ll expect every day to be perfect and feel cheated if you’re not enjoying every minute to the max. And woe-betide the kids having a moan if the holiday has cost a fortune. Do you really want to be reminding them how much it cost for them to have a temper tantrum in Turkey (or worse, Thailand?)
Book something that you can feel relaxed about and leave enough money over for spending whilst you’re there.
3. Pack their favourite food, toys and comforters
Sorry folks, but another plus point about travelling by car means you can take pretty much all that you need. What’s the point of struggling on an aircraft with so much gear that you have to pay excess baggage charges for baby strollers, high chairs, car seats, cots and a sack full of toys – not to mention bottle-warmers, jars of baby food and other essential dietary needs for the bigger ones?
Fill up the car with toys, hire a cot for when you arrive and go somewhere that will have a familiar handy supermarket where you can buy all those culinary favourites like fish fingers and baked beans.
4. Make sure there’s loads for the kids to do
That old adage ‘if the kids are happy, Mums and Dads can relax’ is true. Book a villa with a view and guess what - the kids will be bored and you’ll be anxious about them falling in the pool if you nod off.
Any chance of dozing around the pool will be kyboshed in favour of hours in your hire car driving to find a theme park or water adventure playground.
Turn up a holiday park that offers a full programme of daytime entertainment, sports and activities, playgrounds, kid’s clubs and loads of other people’s kids for them to play with and they’ll be happy. And you can relax. And when they jump into the swimming pool there’s someone qualified to look after them.
5. Get out at night
In the absence of the girl next door who usually babysits for you, getting out at night on holiday isn’t always that easy – unless you want to spend the evening encouraging your children to sit still in a restaurant whilst you force them to eat food they don’t like.
Choose a holiday where evening entertainment is aimed at all the family and where kids are genuinely welcome. You get to relax with a drink – they can be indulged with a virulent blue Slush Puppy (no hardship buying a few treats with the money saved by not booking an expensive foreign holiday!) and everyone can relax and have a good time. You can even treat yourself to a Slush Puppy – rumour has it that they’re pretty good with a shot of Vodka.
Haven and British Holidays have 34 family holiday parks around the UK all offering fun, child-friendly holidays with an action-packed programme of daytime activities, evening entertainment and comfortable family accommodation. With summer holiday prices from as little as £499 for a week in standard self-catering accommodation* and parks within easy driving distance of most areas of the country they are an irresistibly easy way to enjoy a family holiday.
For more information, special offer prices and immediate booking call 0870 242 2222 or click on www.havenholidays.com
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