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Do you ever go home from holiday a day or two early?

(56 Posts)
Cabbie21 Sat 09-Jul-22 08:52:47

Obviously sometimes there is a family emergency that necessitates a change of plan, but I am thinking more about leaving early by choice. This is unlikely if flights or ferry bookings are involved, but in other circumstances, might it happen? Have you ever done this?
We are due to leave the self- catering cottage tomorrow, but return home the following day, breaking the journey overnight. Now we are planning to do the journey in one day. The reason? The hot weather. We both struggle in the heat, and cannot bear the thought of sitting on the beach or trudging round a hot garden, then spending a hot night in a hotel room.( The one we have booked is an old building with no air con).

Grantanow Mon 11-Jul-22 11:42:43

Yes. If we are renting a cottage, etc., we usually leave on the penultimate day as we hate getting up early and last minute packing to be out by what is usually too early a deadline on the morning of the last day. It sometimes helps avoid traffic too.

biglouis Mon 11-Jul-22 11:29:21

Ive never come home early from a holiday. However I have cut parts of it and gone off on my own when I was travelling with a group.

Once when I was travelling in a landrover holiday in Iran I wanted to stay in the beautiful city where we were (Isfahan) but the others voteds to go off camping. I stayed on 3 extra days in Isfahan and the arrangement was that I should re-join them at their hotel for the border crossing back to Turkey. However when I arrived at the hotel at the agreed time the receptionist told me they had left the night before! He arranged a taxi to take me to the border and I picked up a Turkish coach on the other side. The rest of the group seemed pretty surprised to see me at the rendezvous hotel in Turkey. I guess the driver had decided to "punish" me for daring to go off on my own.

All this was back in the 1970s before the Islamic Republic came in. I later visited Iran in the 1990s when you could only travel on a group visa and again ditched the group and only joined them for the flight back.

I hate travelling in groups!

SueDonim Sun 10-Jul-22 13:29:22

I wish I hadn’t commented on this thread. I am now getting adverts for p o r t a b l e t o i l e t s. ?

Beechnut Sun 10-Jul-22 09:23:21

dragonfly46

Yes we drove back to Holland from the south of France in one go. We arrived home after midnight to find our neighbours sitting in their garden so spent a couple of hours having drinks with them!

??

dragonfly46 Sun 10-Jul-22 09:02:47

Yes we drove back to Holland from the south of France in one go. We arrived home after midnight to find our neighbours sitting in their garden so spent a couple of hours having drinks with them!

Franbern Sun 10-Jul-22 08:45:16

When my children were younger, often used to have a week at Butlins in Minehead. Long drive for me from Essex/London borders.

Back then ALL holiday bookings were Saturday to Saturday. Friday nights was a Special End-on=holiday gala night. This would go on until midnight,. Saturday mornings were so dismal in a holiday camp, with EVERYONE packing up to get away as they all had to leave their chalets by ten in the morning,.

I used to allow ALL my children (except the babies) stay up to join in the whole of the gala night. Before we went got permission to bring in my car close to the chalet (not allowed Saturday mornings) and get most of our stuff packed before we went. Came back just after midnight, hot drink for all, then children washed, teeth cleaned and in nightclothes and we would set off home at one on the morning. Would have just one short stop (as we went onto the M4) for toilet for me. Apart from that drove directly back home,.

They all fell asleep during that journey home and the motorways were pretty empty during those early hours of the Saturday. Would arrive back home around 5 am and would listen the following day to the reports of all the hold ups on the roads we had driven through.

Soozikinzi Sun 10-Jul-22 08:16:46

When our 6 chikdren were lttle we had self catering holidays in Cornwall and we used to pack up on the Friday night then drive home overnight while they were asleep . There was no point waiting till saturday just to be stuck in heavy traffic.

BlueBalou Sun 10-Jul-22 06:29:38

I don’t think we’ve ever left a holiday early, not that we’ve had many holidays!
Like you Cabbie21 I now carefully choose our holiday accommodation regarding accessibility and distance to the beach etc as well as making sure it’s safe for DDog too. I doubt i’ll be going abroad again, I don’t like hot weather so the UK suits me fine - there are so many places I want to visit.

Humbertbear Sun 10-Jul-22 06:09:01

Never come home early and a few years ago we decided to extend our holiday by booking to stay overnight on the way home. When I was a teenager my dad extended our holiday by a couple of nights so I could see the Hollies live.

Nannagarra Sat 09-Jul-22 22:32:15

We have only done this once - three years ago. Having seen an item on the BBC about seals and puffins in Pembrokeshire we booked for two nights in the only place available near to where we wanted to be - a room in a pub. The accommodation was appalling. At the end of the first day’s sightseeing we found the room completely unserviced. The landlady shrugged off our concerns so we left in haste. She then billed us for both nights; DH had to wrangle with a well-known booking agent to rectify the issue.
The host, not the beautiful location, was the problem. We would visit again.

Cabbie21 Sat 09-Jul-22 21:22:30

We are home! ( I am the OP).
We actually cut two days, one in the cottage and one overnight in a hotel, to break the journey. We didn’t decide till this morning. We left after lunch, so there was no rush to pack and clear the house. The journey took six and a half hours, including three short loo stops. There was not much traffic.

Actually this holiday proved quite tricky. DH’s mobility meant that we needed to park close to places, which ruled out various ones. He is no longer able to just enjoy pottering around small towns. Beaches were not easy either as often there was a walk from the car which was too much, especially if hilly. We do not like being in the sun. And I hate the narrow lanes that lead to most beaches. The beaches were beautiful, however. So next time I am going to book a place right by the sea, on the level!

cornergran Sat 09-Jul-22 20:37:08

Usually leave the afternoon or evening before the final day when self catering. Much less stressful. Have never cut a hotel stay short but have been known when on a 14 day cruise to ask (only a quarter joking) if the next port has an airport - just too long away for me although Mr C would happily stay away for a month. I’m a home bird really.

SeaNain Sat 09-Jul-22 20:13:49

Us too, a very cold and windy Blackpool honeymoon, November.... Ten years ago, lol

Daisymae Sat 09-Jul-22 18:49:03

Yes. Always leave a day early as DH can't manage an early start to be on the way by say 9:30. We get ready at our own pace.

JackyB Sat 09-Jul-22 18:31:39

We drove to Annecy and stayed for a few days, but it poured with rain the whole time. Although we were up a mountain the site was waterlogged.
We were camping and when an airbed floated out of the tent next to ours we decided that enough was enough and packed up and drive home.

We haven't been camping since.

Erica23 Sat 09-Jul-22 17:32:08

Yes we were stayed in a barn in Norfolk a few years ago. I’ve never been as hot in my life.We couldn’t move and were just laying on the bed. I told DH to go settle the bill a day early, I couldn’t wait to leave. It was 38c when we got n the car to come home.

SusieB50 Sat 09-Jul-22 17:22:17

Late DH and I often used to leave our self catering the evening before to save that awful “out by 10 “with everything to pack into the car, DH never travelled light, and all cleared up .As we generally travelled to France or Italy by car it was nice to have an extra night in a small hotel . Miss those holidays…

AreWeThereYet Sat 09-Jul-22 17:17:20

No. Things have never got that bad. We have changed hotel room if we were near very noisy people but never gone home early.

Rosina Sat 09-Jul-22 16:59:43

We came home from a week's holiday three days early - bored stiff with our choice of venue, nothing to do, and we longed for our house and garden. Now we rarely go away; I love where I live, and if I went on holiday now it would be somewhere very much like my home area, so what's the point? Can't stand beach holidays, noise, or too many people, bit of a bore really!

Floradora9 Sat 09-Jul-22 16:14:23

We came home early from Mull as it rained all the time . One New Year an old friend who owned a timeshare invited us to stay over on New Year's day as we had been with other friends the night before nearby. My DH thought this was a great idea as this chap was usuallt good to himself so would have lots of goodies to eat and drink . When we arrived there was nothing only the thought of a very expensive meal in the resort restaurant . DH whispered to me to get us out of this mess so I told our friend that we had been unable to get anyone to look after our cat so we could not stay long . We fled home and had some scrambled egg for our New Year's Day dinner then a good friend who lived along the road from us noticed we were home and invited us for a meal so we had that too . The chap we fled from had left his wife and 4 daughters at Centre Park as they refused to go with him.

Lyndylou Sat 09-Jul-22 14:48:31

My OH hates being away from home and always wants to go back early. I've got wise to him now, last time he went home mid week and my daughter and grandson drove up and spent the last few days in the caravan with me!

Judy54 Sat 09-Jul-22 14:29:57

Yes we have. If we book a cottage in the UK say from Friday to Friday we often leave on the Thursday to avoid the heavy traffic usually lorries on a Friday on the motorway. This year we were lucky enough to be able to book mid-week to mid-week which made a great difference to our journey time and it was much more pleasant.

Oopsadaisy1 Sat 09-Jul-22 14:29:06

We returned from Chichester yesterday, we had booked until Monday.
We didn’t want to share the beaches with hordes of people and the house we rented was too hot for comfort, so here we are at home and loving it, shady trees to sit under, no traffic and plenty of food in the fridge so that we don’t have to keep eating out.
We stayed for 5 days instead of 7 so not too bad.

Witzend Sat 09-Jul-22 14:26:34

OTOH, we were once phoned right after breakfast by the travel agent to tell us they were very sorry, but our return flight - scheduled for around 3 pm that afternoon - was delayed by 24 hours.

We were on a beautiful Caribbean beach so needless to say it was a case of Yippee!!! all round.
I hadn’t even started packing my own stuff, let alone all the wet sandy things littering dds’ bedroom floor.

Jaxjacky Sat 09-Jul-22 14:24:42

Sara1954 we did the prison tour it was well worth it and the best part of our stay, I’d highly recommend. Goodness knows why we chose to go to SM I can’t recall, lesson learnt.