Our Family Holiday in Devon: Rated and Reviewed

I’m going to start giving scores to my holidays, trips and family days out. What an absolute Joy Hoover™. I know you’re supposed to live for the moment with these things and enjoy making memories but I think it’s only fair that these expensive, time-consuming excursions receive the same analytical treatment that I’d give the purchase of, say, a new orthopaedic desk chair. or non-stick frying pan. Because why is it that family holidays get off scot-free when it comes to honest critique and evaluation? Is it a uniquely British trait, that we try to always “make the most of it” and pass off major inconveniences as minor ones?

We did lose the car when the inebriated ferry captain sank us all just shy of Calais but on a POSITIVE note, there was plenty of space in the life rafts and they gave us a lovely nip of brandy once we were on dry land!

I suppose there’s something slightly sacred about the family holiday - so much is resting on it - and you don’t want to ruin it while you’re actually there by writing notes into your iPhone about how there’s gunge around the shower tray and the mattresses on the beds have apparently been filled with nuts and bolts rather than mattress stuffing and the man in the apartment above your Air BnB plays the trombone at 6am every morning. The family vaycay is supposed to be a period of treasured respite from the mundane workings of day to day life, a time of hallowed, unadulterated familial bliss: nobody wants to break the spell by mentioning how the kitchen smells overwhelmingly of dog shit or how all the beach bars have metal detectors in the doorways and so we often tend to minimise the problems and just make do.

No more! These trips can be ruinously expensive! Emotionally devastating! Do we not owe it to our fellow travellers to be more open about the rubbish bits? I think that we all need to be more brazenly honest about really how good our family trips and holidays are. Warts and all. If only because it makes for more interesting reading and gives me more content.

With that in mind, here’s my very mixed-bag short break in South Devon, rated and reviewed. Let’s see which element of the holiday got a 3/10 and which gained top marks…