Tips for navigating the school holiday travel calendar
If your children have not yet reached school age you can avoid high season premiums and take them on a family holiday whenever it suits you.
If you are confined to school holidays try booking when it is not as expensive. You might find for example that is cheaper in the last week of August when parents are keen to be home to get ready for the back to school frenzy than the first week in August.
Although there is broadly speaking standardisation of holidays depending on your child's school, mid terms and half terms may be slightly different to the rest of Ireland or the UK so try to capitalise on this. Private primary schools and Secondary schools also have longer summer holidays with most off earlier than National schools in June. A summer holiday in June is likely to be cheaper than in July and August for this reason and may be better for little people as not as hot.
Children of school going age (6-16) who miss more than twenty days of school in any school year must be reported to the National Educational Welfare Board. If your children are outside theses ages the obligations do not apply. If you can point to exceptional circumstances such as returning to your own country for family reasons such as a funeral or a wedding, the illness of a family member or a close friend, a period immediately after an illness or a crisis of some sorts you will stand a better chance of not being admonished by the Head Mistress but you are likely to still be reported if you go over the 20 day limit as this is a statutory obligation on the school.
Apartments generally work well for families but there larger ones go really quickly. There are a limited number of three bedroom apartments used by big families and they will go first and two room apartments sell very quickly too. Family rooms, interconnecting rooms and triple rooms in hotels also tend to be in high demand.
There are lots of fantastic deals for families on the market such as free child places and you should investigate these early in the year as they do go quickly. Check the small print and what you are paying for and watch for under occupancy supplements on parents and how it all adds up. Generally you will have to share with your children and you should check the size of the room you are expected to share and sleeping arrangements.
Sometimes if your children are at schools that may be bucking the trend a bit and returning to school a little bit later than others you might get a bargain. This year some schools returned at the end of August rather than the start of September which meant that there was better value in the last week in August than in previous years. In some cases the price of a two weeks or ten days can be just a little bit more than one week if there is pressure on parents to get back for school reopening so you can get good value in theses weeks too.
It really does pay to shop around and you can save hundreds by booking a family holiday a week earlier or later. If you have a date in mind when you want to go on holiday try and be flexible by a few days either way and compare a number of brochures as this is where you will see the difference in prices.
Be flexible with your flight times and dates. Try flying on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday rather than at weekends.
Generally speaking you will get a cheaper DIY fare by booking early and online.
Check carefully whether children qualify for reduced prices. The age limit on child prices varies depending on your choice of flight, hotel accommodation and package holiday and you may be charged a full adult fare for children as young as twelve.
Check also what the rule is and what the age of your child will be at the time of travel. Airlines such as SAS, Malev and BA charge reduced fares for children so they are worth looking at even in peak holiday time.
You will find lots of family friendly travel tips and advice in our research and advice section to help you book the right family holiday. Check out also the experiences of other parents and travellers in our parents forum and add your own experiences as we are a great believer in real parent's experiences as the best measure of whether somewhere will suit you for your family holiday.
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