The rise of child free holiday resorts – why not use birth control instead?

I was shocked to read a press release from Thomson Holidays, which is launching “Thomson Couples, a new child-free holiday experience at resorts worldwide”. This ‘experience’ is “aimed at couples who want to spend time abroad in a child-free environment, away from their own kids, and other people’s”.

And the raison d’etre? According to a recent survey by Thomson, “one in three adults agree that ‘hell is other people’s children on holiday’ while “40% say their own children adversely affect their holiday enjoyment”. Well, why have ‘em then!

It seems that 48% of respondents find the “general noise and whining” made by kids on holiday irritating, while 32% said that “over-tired youngsters can spoil an evening’s entertainment”. Furthermore, 30% were annoyed by being “splashed while sunbathing around the pool” while 21% disliked being “splashed by kids in the pool”. A disturbing 4% of the adults surveyed said that their own children can “ruin a holiday completely”. Calls for segregating sections of resort swimming pools for adult usage and banishing children from the bar followed, as predictably as night follows day.

What a load of old misery-gutses! I have news for these moaning minnies… when on holiday with my children, I find couples who insist on rolling around in the sand and making drunken whooping noises in restaurant areas annoying. Perhaps it really is the best plan to divide and separate everybody: let’s put the snogging couples in a “walled garden” retreat where nobody has to watch them smugly canoodling, and consign the kids to a hectic “family resort experience” where they can’t ruin unsuspecting adults’ sun-tanning opportunities by splashing water on them in the 30C+ heat. I mean, how terrible… getting splashed in or around a swimming pool area! It’s lucky that these adults don’t have to worry about a proper problem, such as a famine or a war.

I believe it is just the Brits who maintain this type of attitude towards their own and other people’s offspring. In more relaxed and socially civilised European countries, it’s doubtful whether an offering such as Warner Leisure Hotels – another child-free ‘experience’ operating within the UK – would thrive. If you suggested to a Spanish family that they should leave their kids behind because ‘los ninos’ are too noisy / annoying / might whine / could splash water in a pool, they would look at you as if you’d gone ‘loco’ and probably walk away in disgust. And who could blame them!

I’m not advocating water pistols in the restaurant or bun-throwing at breakfast but, hey, where is the tolerance? If people are so averse to their own kids having fun in a holiday resort, I suggest that they should have taken advantage of the many forms of contraceptives available, instead of starting a family. With that sort of attitude prevailing, no wonder UK society is ‘breaking down’ and disaffected ‘yoofs’ would rather don hoodies, smoke fags and rob alcopops from the local “offy”, rather than join in with what their families are doing.

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