Cheap package holidays

[Elder Sister]

I think of packaged vacation experiences in much the same way as I do the US suburbs. There's a Target, a Starbucks, everything looks the same, and if you're in one of those places, you can't tell if you're in Chicago or Louisiana; everything is generic and homogenized.

I prefer to get out and about on my own and talk to the locals, eat what they recommend, check out things on my own. I don't want to sleep in a hut on the beach, but I don't want to be enclosed in a place, either.

Part of the fun of traveling is getting to see how other cultures and people live. I had a blast in China getting to eat at the local places and hang out with the people who actually live and work there.

Just my .02.

[Eponine]

A tightly scheduled package holiday sounds awful, I HATE doing "nothing", and I'm not a big fan of the beach (although I see nothing at all odd about taking a trip to a beach and then spending most of the time on that beach), but I was grateful to not have to do my own scheduling night by night in an independent driving tour through Western Ireland. The package was a series of pre-booked castle hotels - you arrived and checked in for the night, but that was the only planned part. Otherwise, you could do whatever you wanted for daily activities and meals, without having to stay with a group or hit certain tourist destinations.

It also seems to depend on what's local to you. It does seem odd to go halfway across the world and then spend all the time in a resort, but before all the stuff happened, we were considering going to Crimea, and husband didn't see that as any particular opportunity for local immersion, just like if I were going to Myrtle Beach, even though it's over 1500 miles away, I wouldn't feel the need to meet "real South Carolinians" and experience "real South Carolina culture".

[kairparavel]

Many Canadians love an all inclusive resort vacation in the dead of winter to Mexico, Cuba, DR etc. I did so in Puerto Vallarta about seventeen years ago. I enjoyed it though two weeks was way too long no matter how reasonable the price. Sunquest and Alba were the two big charter companies at the time. Not sure if either are still around.

Seven years I did a four? five? day all inclusive trip to the Dominican Republic and it was perfect. Beer in one hand, book in the other while lounging on the beach. I get it's not for everyone, but in the middle of winter I just want some sun.

I also love renting a house on the ocean side of the outer banks for the very same rEason in the summer. I love the beach. Sadly, MC does not.

[Buckwheat]

I absolutely love being on a beach (or really, in the sea most of the time) - swimming, reading, eating ice cream, chatting and talking to friends.

But I would not want to spend the whole week in a hotel resort with everything organised by somebody else. I like seeing new places - cannot say I immerse much into local life etc., but I do visit sites like museums and galleries and similar, so staying in one hotel with nowhere like that to go would seem very boring to me and not a holiday that I would choose. I do not even like hotels to be fair. My choice of a holiday would be visiting cultural things, trying some local food, and only if there is sea nearby, spending a few hours on the beach to rest and have fun, but not stay there the whole day/week.

Am I the only one who is now getting the link to justapack on the side of Westeros as an ad?

[sperry]

I love all-inclusive resorts. When I go on vacation, the last thing I want to do is be busy. I want to lie on the beach or by the pool, have some drinks, and eat good food. Things like fishing charters and golfing are fun activiites for me to take up part of the day.

[Myrddin]

For a relaxing time at the beach, yes, I'll pick up an all inclusive package for the Caribbean or Florida coast (I live in central Florida so this is kind of local travel).

For going anywhere else in the world, I wouldn't choose this option. I'd be all about seeing the local culture/sights.

It's all about what your interest or need is for a given vacation. Sometimes I want to be out and about seeing everything new I can. Other times I just want to relax and enjoy a beverage and a book with the sound of the waves nearby.

[Inigima]

I don't really want to do stuff where I never leave a resort, but I also don't vacation all that much because I find the logistics of planning stressful.

One thing I do like doing is booking airfare, hotel, and car all through the same website at the same time, like Orbitz -- I have a persistent fear that I'll book one and then be unable to secure the other. I am aware that this makes little sense, but I am comforted by the ability to lock it all in at once.

[Astromech]

I have never taken a package deal and never will. (I'm a quasi-ginger so the sun and I don't have the best relationship. :frown5: ) I prefer having a very loose itinerary. When I was in my 20s I would just buy tickets to wherever I wished to go and make plans day by day, even hotel reservations were spur of the moment. It's also much easier to accomplish with a fantastic rail or highway system like in Europe or North America. I wouldn't quite travel without hotel reservations anymore, but my itineraries are still very loose. I now enjoy choosing one or two base locations or regions and taking day trips from there. My daily life is already heavily scheduled. Vacation should not be.

Is Brindisi still a tourist trap for people taking the ferry to Greece, or do they have more than one daily now?

[Ixodes]

Last year the in-laws dictated that we were going to take a whole family vacation (on their dime). They selected a Disney cruise. I was so pissed off. I'm not a fan of Disney and I had no desire, whatsoever, to get stuck on a ship. My two boys had no real love of Disney and I was supremely upset with this decision thrust upon me. For the sake of family peace, I shut my mouth and we went with it. I had never done a cruise and had no interest in anything Disney.

I'll be damned but I had a great time. Disney puts great stock in having their vacations go perfect. The amount of effort that went into the organization and quality of the experience was impressive. Every person on that ship was dedicated to your kids having a spectacular experience. There was so much to do that at no point in time did I feel bored, stressed, or anxious. My boys absolutely loved it. It was so well run that they could do things independently, or with others, or with their parents and have a great time. My wife and I could do things with or without the kids. They understood the malleable nature of a child's mind and structured the experience to compenstate. It was a 4 day cruise, which is about the length of time that is ideal. Any longer and I would have been bored.

It wasn't a vacation where you experience new cultures. It was a vacation where you did not have to put one single minute of time into planning, research, or choosing anything. I get it now. I get why people choose to do this. If you have a brief period where you don't want to feel obligated to plan anything, this was a very real legitimately fun experience. I would never do this on my own, but with young picky kids this was absolutely a viable option to actually enjoy time. I'd do it again, in a heartbeat, becuase it was so easy and (more importantly) my kids loved it.

I'm no bitch of Disney but I do see now the draw of a planned vacation. Some really smart people organize these events and I have a much more lenient view.

[Born Yesterday]

I agree with the consensus. It's a cheap and relaxing vacation for people who want no hassle, especially if they have kids. Personally I'd never go near it, and I don't consider it travel, but there's nothing wrong with that. Relaxing is good.

Now, from the native's perspective, I find all-inclusive resorts appalling for the following reasons:

1) They obliterate all "mum and dad shops" that existed or were ever going to exist in the area, turning the entire population into waiters.

2) This economic activity brings good money to the resort owners, better money to the middlemen (wherever they are located), and pittance for the employees who actually do the work. And it's a lot of work.

3) Related to the above, big all-inclusive resorts are to tourism what maquiladoras are to industry: the authorities are tempted/lobbied/bribed to pretend there's no such thing as labour rights, or laws that protect the environment, or anything at all that might serve the public but inconvenience the Owner. It doesn't happen everywhere, not to the same degree at least, but it's a very recognizable trend.

Mind you, I'm not saying that non-resort tourism is perfect, far from it. But this is definitely the worst option for me (as a tourist or as a native).

P.S. For people who don't mind the hassle, but only choose this because they can't afford something better, I think it's a trap. You can find equally cheap arrangements, and actually see the place you're visiting. You just have to plan it early enough to find cheap tickets (it helps a lot if you're not limited to high season), search online for accommodation, and resign to the fact that you can't afford to get stone drunk every night. (Unless you make friends with the natives, in which case we'll get you stone drunk every night. And trust me, shared booze is better.)

[Shryke]

To answer the OP: I would never willingly go on a package holiday. The thought of sitting on my arse in some hypercontrolled environment for days on end is just...nope.

God yes.

My brother got married in the Caribbean and it was basically a package holiday. And it was tons of fun for the week we were there cause we spent the whole time hanging out drinking all-you-can-drink booze with friends all day. After the wedding him and his wife stuck around for another week for their honeymoon and we all went home.

He comes back and the first thing he tells me is "We should have made it like 2 extra days tops. We were bored stiff within a few days of just sitting around at a resort." And I can totally see it. I was thinking the same thing before we left. "If this wasn't a big party with tons of people, me and the wife would be going out of our minds pretty quickly."

At the same time, that trip also showcased for me why people do that sort of shit. Cause alot of these places are not near as nice or safe as where the people in question are coming from and the whole purpose of the resorts is to create a controlled environment that is separated from the area around them for exactly that reason. It's to create a fictional idealized fantasy so as to avoid the messy often poor reality.

We did a sight-seeing/visiting family tour of Ireland for our honeymoon instead, which is more our style. Gimme some nature and so many castles you get sick of them and some great tours.

[Zoë Sumra]

The appeal, to me: don't have to organise groceries and cook/clean a hired apartment. Don't have to socialise outside the travelling companions if not necessary (I'm an introvert: there are four people on this earth that I've met so far who don't exhaust me. I love many of the exhausting people dearly, including some boarders. It's not you, it's me). Able to go sightseeing when desired, but able to relax when desired - I typically come back from a week's holiday with the same word count as obtained in a month of commuting and work. A week into a walking and sightseeing tour and I'm ready to break things, even if I would have enjoyed each individual day out alone.

Mmm, I'm a fan.

[Quorra]

It seems to me there are fundamentally opposing philosophies of vacation. And maybe some people are firmly in one camp or the other, while others can adapt to either and enjoy both.

One version requires you to make decisions and basically throw yourself into a project of exploration and learning.

The other version requires that you surrender and be taken care of.

I think that, depending on your personality type (i.e. are you more inspired and motivated by risk or comfort?) and the intended function of this vacation (i.e. what is it a break from: the daily chores of decisions and organization of projects, or the daily drudgery of monotony and lack of autonomy?) one or the other will be better suited.

What do you think?

[BigFatCoward]

snooty f'ers. i have the same 3 holidays every year, skiing in march, somewhere exotic in spring and somewhere cheap in september. ain't nothing wrong with a package holiday, i can go to spain for and get some september sun, and all the food and drink i can consume for the same price as a train ticket to newcastle and 7 nights in a shit hotel.

i have no problem winding down for a week, preferably where the temperature doesn't top 30 degrees, reading a book a day and not worrying about a single thing, if there is something interesting nearby i may have a look, but i never feel obliged to.

[Liffguard]

I've done a few package deals that I really enjoyed, but they were all with more specialised companies that centered around a particular activity. So on a windsurfing package trip you've got all the same conveniences of a beach resort combined with a massive shed full of all the latest kit to sign out, instructors and technique clinics and one of the most consistently windy locations in the world. Beyond that sort of thing it can be extremely nice to just have no responsibilities or hassle of any sort for five or six days.

[Iskaral Pust]

I like to have both types available. We take trips to European cities most summers and spend ~10 days sightseeing, experiencing the culture, etc, but in winter (hopefully twice each winter) we escape Chicago to somewhere sunny. Sometimes a resort, sometimes not. But even a non-resort at any sunny tourist destination feels like a resort. It's all the same stuff.

Any good suggestions for next February & March? I think Arizona and/or New Mexico for spring break would be great but probably very crowded. I'm tired of Hawaii for February. Any good destinations in Central America that are (1) very safe (2) not in the center of crushing poverty and squalor (3) have a mix of beach and non-beach? I like the idea of visiting the Mayan ruins but the resorts/towns on the Mayan Riviera always sound a bit trashy and heavily focused on alcohol. I've also heard of fun rain forest trips in Costa Rica. And I'd even like a trip to Buenos Aires but my wife is worried that we would need Spanish and it might be unsafe.

[Relic]

Central America that is very safe and close to ruins - Tulum. Playa del Carmen if you want more nightlife. I'd also recommend Caye Caulker in Belize, Santa Teresa in Costa Rica, or Bocas del Toro in Panama. I've been to all and have loved them.

[Deedles]

Buenos Aires definitely doesn't require Spanish. We spent six days there 2.5 years ago. I've leaving cert French and he has leaving cert German. We both managed admirably. No issues in restaurants, shops or buying bus tickets.

Loved it. Highly recommended.