Family Days Out…Too Costly?

Intesting article on the Beeb today – strikes a note with our own family grumbles over the last few years…

link

Recent trip to the Isle of Man was an eye opener though. Standard * family ticket to get in to attractions seemed to be £11, which we thought was very good value – honest pricing without feeling exploited.

We were looking at camping prices last night – even those seem to have gone to silly levels.

* Standard in that we noticed the same rate at several different attractions. Not sure if this is IoM Govt / Tourist Board policy or not – may just have been a lucky selection

With this appalling summer we’re having, a lot of tourist attractions are going to have to ‘recognise the real’ (as we say on Bournemouth’s west side) and adjust prices accordingly.

The combination of constant rain, economic uncertainty and high fuel prices is going to start driving businesses to the wall. Vouchers/Groupon etc seems to be the order of the day now, I went to Thorpe Park a few weeks ago and nobody was paying full price.

I had a quick look at Flamingo land to take the littleun to the zoo bit, 2 adults 1 kid seemed to be £88.

The website is useless though so hard to tell if i was getting accurate info but £88 ha ha they’re having a laugh

The blessings of having a two year old is that she is mo than happy with the simplest of things to do. Have a season ticket to our local wildlife park which works out quite well but were you to visit as a family you’d be looking at an outlay of some £30 which would certainly put me off. But they have wages to pay and animals to feed. Is it a case of these things being a rip off or folk simply having a lower disposable income?

Unfortunately we live in a country where vast chunks of the monthly wage are consumed by mortgages or rent, leaving little room for spending money on the things that make life worth living.

Get your kids to do their Blue Peter badges and they get free entry into many decent places. Adults then just need to find a two for one offer and you start to feel like you are getting value. Have to take a picnic of course.
We have also been down to London for free museums – Nat Hist, Science etc – great days out. Train for 5 plus underground was 100 though.

A good friend runs a ‘tourist destination’ in the South East.

He says you should view full price of tourist destinations like the DFS pre sale price – only an idiot pays full price, and that less than 20% of their visitors buy full price tickets, the rest are on tesco points vouchers/special offers etc.

I had a quick look at Flamingo land to take the littleun to the zoo bit, 2 adults 1 kid seemed to be £88.

The website is useless though so hard to tell if i was getting accurate info but £88 ha ha they’re having a laug
Look for offers, discount codes etc for FL – I have never paid full price there. It is good value with a code and it is VERY good value for younger j=kids – under 3s go free but they have loads of rides that are suitable for them.

I still think blackpool is one of the best days out with the family. You can make it cheap or as expensive as you like. My kids love the 2p machines, nice and cheap.

They always have been too expensive, mine are grown up now but when we used to go to these sorts of places, a family ticket for the 5 of us was pretty expensive

My brother in law has just done some sums and decided that 10 days at a reasonable all inclusive place in Spain is a cheaper option for his family

Seems to be standard practice at Thorpe Park etc to overprice to the entrance fee and give out loads of “discount vouchers” as an advertising technique, only to find once you get in you have to pay extra to jump the 4 hour queue for one ride.

Why is the implication that everything has to be priced so that people on “very low incomes” can afford it? Your kids aren’t deprived just because they can’t go to Alton Towers.

We’ve just had an eye-wateringly expensive two nights at the Legoland Windsor hotel. We had a fab time, but it annoys me that after spending all that money to stay there, that tey still charge for wifi etc.

RANT Begins
My son wants to go to the Tower of London on his birthday so I looked at the costs:

2 x adult = £20.90 each (£18 each online) = £41.80 (£36)
1 x child = £10.45 each (£9.00 each online) = £10.45 (£9)

Train fares (from Winchester)
2 Adult @ £33.30 each = £66.60
1 Child @ £16.65 each = £16.65

Totals: £128.25

That’s excluding food!

If I had more than one child I’d have had a heart attack by now!

RANT Ends

EDIT TofL family ticket (Up to 2 adults and 6 children) is £55.00 (£47 online) which if you’ve got 3 or more children seems very fair! Wonder if any of my son’s friends want a day out?

This is why we buy everything from a single loaf of bread to a full tank of petrol on our tesco credit card. We then use rhe points purely for days out. That and groupon all for the win.

Tesco’s vouchers also good for places like Alton Towers. Kids in free with BP badge as mentioned earlier.

“My son wants to go to the Tower of London on his birthday so I looked at the costs:”

Errrm …. ToL IMHO isnt great either.

If it’s castles he want rather then specifically ToL find some where local??

Why is the implication that everything has to be priced so that people on “very low incomes” can afford it? Your kids aren’t deprived just because they can’t go to Alton Towers.

Indeed! They should be bloody grateful they’re not darn’t pit! The lower orders expecting a quality of life? The gall of it?!!!

You are Ian Duncan Smith and I claim my vouchers for Alton Towers 5 English pounds 😀

only to find once you get in you have to pay extra to jump the 4 hour queue for one ride

You don’t have to pay this extra charge, you choose to.

Or you just go on other rides.

Regarding the BBC article;

Children in poor and middle-income families are facing a summer “stuck at home” as they cut back on days out and leisure activities

When I was growing up my parents had minimal disposable income and ‘days out’ were primarily walks in the countryside, hiking, mucking about in rivers, building rafts, seaside, crab fishing, etc etc … things that didn’t require huge finiancial outlay.

There’s no need to be ‘stuck at home’ like the BBC are implying – just requires a bit of thought and effort to find something to do rather than just roll up and pay someone else to entertain your kids.

These days there seems to be the mentality that a ‘day out’ must inevitably involve a spangly venue with large entrance fees and a monopoly on (over-priced) food and drink.

As was posted earlier, your children are not ‘deprived’ by not going to Alton Towers or such like.

Its never been cheap, slow news day.

Poor people can’t afford stuff…

Legoland for 2 adults + 1 child + car park:

Standard = £125.60
Pre-booked = £94.70
Tesco’s Clubcard = £36.50

When I was growing up my parents had minimal disposable income and ‘days out’ were primarily walks in the countryside, hiking, mucking about in rivers, building rafts, seaside, crab fishing, etc etc … things that didn’t require huge finiancial outlay.

It was only when I grew up a bit that I realised they actively avoided places that had ‘retail opportunities’ nearby. I just assumed they liked deserted beaches etc. 🙂

Poor people can’t afford stuff…

I don’t think 99% of UK-ists really appreciate what being poor actually means …

Where do you get these voucher things from then?

mastiles_fanylion – We have an 18month old do you think flamingo land will have rides and things that will amuse her? I was thinking the zoo would as she loves animals.

National Trust for Scotland membership, valid across the UK, is £63 a year or £5.50 a month for two adults and as many kids or grandkids as you like. Have hundreds of places to visit, no problems taking your own picnic.

It’s only expensive to have days out if you insist on going to big commercial theme parks and eating the overpriced rubbish they sell there.

The OH and I were talking about this the on Saturday, we only have one kid, but for his birthday we took him and a couple of mates to Drayton Manor.

With 2 BOGOF vouchers it still cost £100 to get in (inc £3 parking, which never got checked!). With food and drinks while we were there, then on the way home we weren’t too far short of a £200 day out (actually over that if we factor in petrol).

It was a one off as a birthday treat, but we said that it must be really hard to do anything like that as a family if you have 3+ kids. Granted we could’ve taken a picnic etc to lower costs slightly, but it wouldn’t have made too much a difference.

We had 5 days in Snowdonia at half term, I don’t think we spent £200 on amusing ourselves/food all week.

National Trust for Scotland membership, valid across the UK, is £63 a year or £5.50 a month for two adults and as many kids or grandkids as you like. Have hundreds of places to visit, no problems taking your own picnic.

So that gets you into England NT sites too? As I think that’s £12 cheaper than I was quoted on a ‘special’ day that I very nearly bought!

Yep, that’s the price if you do it on DD. Cheaper than NT and still has all the benefits including the magic free parking sticker which is very handy if you visit the Lake District.

worth knowing for those in the South that the Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth is free to park, free to get in, has some nice walks around the fields full of donkeys and also has a footpath down to Weston Mouth about 1 mile away. Weston mouth is a long pebbley beach but largely empty by virtue of only being accessible by said path. Picnics at the ready, perfect for a cheap day out!

To come back on my OP – As a family we are inclined towards the “do our own thing” type of outdoor entertainment…

… and I think that makes it an even bigger shock to see the price of some of these “attractions”

Regarding balance of operators’ costs vs entry charges – my comments in the OP, regarding the Isle of Man… it does seem the be a very British (or psuedo American) commercialism. Any thoughts on how mainland Eurpoe compares?

I don’t think 99% of UK-ists really appreciate what being poor actually means …

I think you’ll find its lower than 99%, but I was been obvious.

It was only when I grew up a bit that I realised they actively avoided places that had ‘retail opportunities’ nearby. I just assumed they liked deserted beaches etc.

Haha, sounds like my childhood too.

I rememeber my first day at ‘big’ school and one fo the bigger kids asking what I got for christmas (not maliciously, just making conversation, forced to buddy up etc), I’d been quite into Swallows and Amazons, sailing boats, etc so my dad’d done some ink drawings of the boats. This got laughed at and I was informed that I was poor and he’d got a top of the range stereo Hi-fi. The art’s still on my wall, I wonder what happened to the stereo…….

There’s lots to do for “free” but that sort of thing is largely weather permitting. I’ve had some great days out looking for fossils down on the coast, rock pooling etc. A day out in London needn’t be too expensive, lots of places are free, eat out for not too much money at the markets in Leather lane, Petticote lane or over at Camden. A little imagination is required but there are still plenty of cheap days out or in. Had a cracking day the other weekend, spent the day baking all sorts of stuff, mess everywhere but happy kids and 20 quid for the ingredients.
Cost of travel and petrol is a bit of a sickener though, that’s for sure. I’ve been to two fun parks and hated both, as did the kids, long queues, horrible food and short rides, where’s the “fun” in that.

Yearly membership of zoos can be good value – a one-off trip to Edinburgh zoo with the kids would wipe you out, but annual membership was great value, around £80 per adult IIRC (kid’s free).
Particularly good when the kid’s are young and only really have an hour or two in them for these sort of visits.

National Trust for Scotland membership, valid across the UK, is £63 a year or £5.50 a month for two adults and as many kids or grandkids as you like. Have hundreds of places to visit, no problems taking your own picnic.

So that gets you into England NT sites too? As I think that’s £12 cheaper than I was quoted on a ‘special’ day that I very nearly bought!

NTS membership is valid in England During the first year of membership, admission to English sites is with 50% discount, then free after first year – IIRC but you might want to check that

Totally agree with joao3v16, you only have to stay home if your poor and have no imagination. We took our kids to Legoland a few years ago, even with discounts it’s a fair chunk of change to stand in a queue with a load of scabby chavs.

Tesco’s vouchers also good for places like Alton Towers. Kids in free with BP badge as mentioned earlier.

I have a Blue Peter badge, will I still get in free? (aged 36 now though)

It’s the cost of fuel that restricts our days out at the moment. I have English Heritage and National Trust memberships, but to get to the places costs a fotune as there aren’t many of those attractions near to where i live.

It’s all good taking small kids for walks in the fields etc but as they get older and like to go to theme parks and bowling and the cinema etc, then it is hard not to take them. Peer pressure from secondary school is a big thing for kids and if they don’t get similar experiences then they can be made to feel like the odd one out, which isnt very nice.

Any thoughts on how mainland Eurpoe compares?

Spain’s no better, the Madrid zoo will set you back a fair amount, the local waterpark is pricey, and all the museums charge for entry…

But similarly to the UK, the beach and the countryside are free, and you can always take a picnic.