Just a heads up for Ben, I believe these discussions are unrelated. Please do not take your child to The Vatican.
Just a heads up for Ben, I believe these discussions are unrelated. Please do not take your child to The Vatican.
The Vatican is definitely worth it.
But not for Ben's kids.Originally Posted by randomlegend
I've been to Rome/Vatican thanks lads. Won't be taking my child anywhere near the place.
Looked at Rabac Spikey. We love Croatia but no flights to that region from up north in May.
Could go to Turkey and sell your kids, should get a decent price for them.
Flight is too long. Mrs doesn't want to go over 3 hours with it being the little one's first time. Otherwise I'd go and sell the wife as well.
I'd probably just go with Southern Spain if it's May you're looking for. Benalmadena was alright. Loads of nice little seafood restaurants serving up Gambas Pil Pil.
Yeah, at that age you're looking at just going in to Malaga or Faro airports and going from there.
I liked Benalmadena as a low rent Costa holiday. If you try and use any TripAdvisor-alikes to find suggestions for restaurants and bars though you have to scroll past the first two pages of 5/5 rated places like Harry's Irish Bar and The Dog and Duck because morons review them highly with comments like "our favourite pub in Spain sunday dinner just like being at home."
On that note, don't take the little one in Linekers bar either.
As if the kids could meet Wayne Lineker's list of criteria if they tried.
Fly to Mallorca or Barcelona and go cruising around the med.
Malta was alright as well. Just make sure you get the express bus if you are going into Valletta. My lord, over 3x as long it took to get back to the hotel in a sweat box and the engine sounding like it was going to explode
That's my #1 preference. She's irrationally scared of cruises though. I think I could bring her round on it but a man has to pick his battles.
I would hate a cruise. Trapped on a boat with other people. I suppose you're from the north so you probably like other people. Ghastly, they are.
Those kids cruises sound the absolute worst. Trapped on board with millions of other people's bastard children. Being firmly still mired in vomit-town I can only imagine the horror of that sort of thing inevitably happening on one of those.
I went to some fancy family holiday thing near Sagres years ago. It was rubbish and I shall be avoiding all 'family holidays', save for certain destination type things, forever.
You just have to accept that if you have chosen to have kids, then you have also chosen to forego nice things for many years.
We're going in term time so I reckon (naively hope?) we will not encounter that many other kids.
I once made that mistake with Peppa Pig World, before soon realising that no Peppa Pig age fan children go to school, and so every other fucker had had the same idea.
It's all a steep learning curve.
I don't mind the idea of one of the ones that is stopping somewhere daily to see a new place but the other people would be a problem.
Yeah, those sort of cruises are quite good if you want to nail most of the sites of major interest in Mediterranean ancient history or a decent slice of the Caribbean/Mexico in one go.
Think I once did Ephesus, Cairo, Jerusalem/Israel, Rhodes, Knossos and maybe some other shit on one of those.
Also managed to walk up the pyramid at Chichen Itza on another, before that was a hate crime.
It’s really not that bad. Maybe avoid the American companies so you avoid said Americans.
Tui has been surprisingly the best in terms of least amount of wankers and busyness which is somewhat surprising as it’s the budget option and full of Essex people.
MSC is incredible but there’s a lot of loud foreigners and pretentious fuckers
Cruising >>>>> *
Yeah, I spent a week there with the broom and it remains one of the best places I've ever been to. We were on the outskirts hotel wise, but jumped on the tube each day, got off and just rambled around. As you say, so much to see.
I mention it as it's been discussed further down but the Vatican is a sight to behold as well.
I'm off to Goa tomorrow. We've planned basically fuck all.
A nice hotel in Croatia, which I've taken the family to for past 3 years has gone up by 1k each year. Now over 5k for the 4 of us. Difficult to justify such a price uplift.
Why do people go to these places, like really? Is it the sun or is it the other people or what is it?
Not you DQ, just in general.
Fair question. For me, it's the sun and experiencing other cultures. We'll, as much as you can with 2 little loveable shitbags not wanting to leave the pool.
It's the done thing.
Most people do the done thing.
It's why it is the done thing.
It's the exploration for me. Going to a new city and trying to map the place out. Plus you're seeing new stuff along the way and making memories.
From my experience, the whole package deal, going to the same place year after year, and staying by the hotel pool thing is exclusively a British thing.
Checking to see if the place I'm staying at has a pool or not has never even crossed my mind.
Aye, I'm not big on return visits. I'm sure my sister does that stuff because they've got a kid with them and it's easier to plan.
My nan and grandad used to go to the same hotel in the same place in Spain during the same week in September every year for about twenty years. Then they started going twice a year with a March holiday as well. Baffling, especially since she disliked all the other coffin dodgers who did the exact same thing and began recognising them.
I dunno.
I know plenty of Australians, albeit pensioners mostly, who made the same journey up the coast from Victoria to Far North Queensland every year forever. Of course, they did that because they were ahead of the world in knowing what a legendary place it was, perhaps past tense emphasis, but I don't know if it is exclusively British.
The whole package thing maybe, but we're a mercantile people who need to leave the country to find more hospitable climes, unlike our North American special friends. Businesses exist to service that. I reckon the Germans might be similar though, Kiko will have to advise.
Plenty of Swedes that go to the same Greek/Thai location year in/year out, depending on tax bracket. I reckon social media has made it a bit less appealing than it was 10-15 years ago though, even for Jan Average. Can't be posting the same pool to your boomer Facebook pals same week every year.
We're the largest and most populous nation on earth that hosts neither a warm region with palm trees, nor a proper mountain range. Pretty much inevitable that we'd be the ones to pioneer mass package holidays.
My impression of it is that Brits/Scandis/Dutch/Germans very much have their own areas/islands, this is especially true for the Greek Islands. To a lesser extent this also applies to areas that used to attract a lot of Russians but no other nationalities. Guess it's just easier to focus marketing and flight logistics to one market for one specific island.
The hotel I was staying at in Tenerife the other year must have been 50-60% Belgian/dutch/Germans. I was expecting it to be full of only Brits.
Going when the English are still in school has its benefits I guess
The Germans all love Spain (Malaga especially), Turkey and Greece. They do like to wandern (hike) so do a lot of those types of holidays or go north or to the lakes (like lake Constance).
I went on a few all in inclusives with my dad years back to Mexico and we ended up going back to the first one as we knew the quality of it would be good. I can't be arsed going to the same place over and over again (although I've mostly done the same summer holiday for 9 years since meeting the wife).
Lake Garda was more Germans than anyone else as well, every menu seemed to have schnitzel, spezi and kopfelhagenflugelschmerz.
Damn it, Wullie. I tried to google the last one.
Not necessarily a spring/summer destination so maybe not suitable for what Ben's looking for, but I thought Ljubljana was incredible and flies under the radar a lot as an option (albeit less so in recent years).
Last edited by Adramelch; 08-01-2024 at 09:44 AM.
It's definitely on my list yeah, I've been to Maribor with work and I thought Slovenia was a lovely country. Like you said though, it's just not suitable at the moment with it being our first family holiday.
Going off what people have said so far, we're probably looking at Spain or Portugal with TUI.
How long should I allow myself from Earls Court to Stanstead? Google says around 90 mins or so but I never know if the maps is actually helpful or not.
Only ever flown into Heathrow and jumped on the Piccadilly line but the flights to there are about 5x price of Stanstead on the same day.
Fucking ages. Circle line to Liverpool Street is probably half an hour on its own, and Stansted is basically in Norfolk, or at least somewhere up in Partridge Travel Tavern country.
I thought as much. 3 different trains doesn’t sound all that fun either. Assume Gatwick isn’t all that much better either as that’s reasonably cheap as well
Gatwick should be a lot easier as you can get there from Victoria which is just up the District Line from Earls Court.
Alright. Thank you boss man
Its in Essex.
I will be the judge of what is and is not in Essex.
It's closer to Cambridge than it is to me, so I think it's Essex credentials are as accurate as calling it London Stansted. The lying northern bastards.
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