A HOLIDAY with kids can be costly, especially when you factor in flights, luggage, hotel and spending money.
As a single mum, I have to watch every penny, so when someone shared The Sun £9.50 holidays in our mum Whatsapp chat, it seemed too good to be true.
My friend Cherisse had been collecting tokens in The Sun every day and she booked a weekend away in the UK with her three children for less than £10.
They had booked a caravan for three nights, including use of the park’s facilities – an indoor pool, club house with nightly entertainment, kids activity sessions and a large playground.
We had all been saying that it would be fun to do a group holiday together, but with the cost of living crisis, we’d yet to get that out of the group chat.
But at £9.50 for a weekend away, I signed on straight away.
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Gradually, other families decided to go for it too and eventually all 10 families in our friendship group had booked on.
We were all buzzing for our group trip and the kids were giddy with excitement. There were actually 40 of us in the group, in total.
When I was a child, we’d often go to holiday parks with our friends and my school friends and I still talk about those trips 30 years on.
I was excited to be able to give my kids the same experience.
To get the best deal, we booked early in the season, selecting holiday cabins at Park Dean Kessingland Beach Holiday Park in Suffolk.
It was the first weekend in March and absolutely freezing! But the kids didn’t care.
They were just all excited to get away and spend the weekend together. Us parents were too.
Packing was easy since I could just throw everything in the car, including footballs, colouring books and the kids’ scooters.
As soon as we arrived, the kids were all outside playing together so the parents could unpack and have a cup of tea.
Our cabins weren’t all next to one another, but we were all on the same pitch and it was very safe for the kids to play on the grass outside, with at least one parent being able to see them from every angle.
Some of the families had teenage children with them, so we had built-in babysitters too (thank you Freya, Ava and Harrison).
This was how the weekend continued, only really seeing my children when they wanted food, snacks or money for the arcade.
Much easier for me, as a solo mum, than taking my two children on holiday by myself. It was actually relaxing and I came home feeling like I’d actually had a break.
The old saying ‘it takes a village’ was definitely true here.
It was my first time at a holiday park as an adult and I was really impressed with the caravans. We had a two-bed comfort caravan, which was spacious and very clean.
There is a large living area with a sofa and a small table and the heating, thankfully, was good, so it was really cosy.
I even had a partial view of the sea.
How to book Hols from £9.50 by joining Sun Club
Becoming a member of Sun Club lets you skip token-collecting completely…
Step 1: Simply head to thesun.co.uk/club and sign up to Sun Club for just £1.99 a month.
Or £12 for an annual subscription unless you cancel at least 7 days before your next billing date.
Step 2: Once you have joined, head to the Offers Hub and click ‘Book’ on the Sun Hols from £9.50 offer from Tuesday, January 13.
Step 3: You will be taken to the Sun Holidays website to choose from thousands of breaks at over 300 parks across the UK & Europe.
Sun Club members do not need to collect any codewords or Sun Savers codes.
The last day to book The Sun’s £9.50 holidays for the current promotion is Thursday, January 29, 2026
During the day, the kids joined in with craft and sport activities, all included with the price.
There were also more extreme activities like Nerf Gun battles and slime workshops, but these cost a bit extra.
To use the indoor pool, you had to book a session and because there were so many of us, we filled up the pool capacity and had it to ourselves for two hours.
It’s not often you get a stay with a private pool for less than £5 per person for the whole weekend. Plus, since we were the only ones there, the staff let the kids play with the inflatable jet skis – usually these would cost extra.
It was brilliant.
In the evenings, there is a quiz night, kids disco, karaoke and a full cabaret show.
The site has a few low-cost options for dinner including a pub in the clubhouse, a pizza takeaway and fish and chips.
However, most of us opted to cook in our cabins to keep costs down. A quick pasta and my kids were itching to get back to clubhouse to hang out with their mates and play on the arcades.
Us mums enjoyed the evenings too,as the pub even sold cocktails (only £7 each).
Even though it was cold, we still enjoyed rounders on the beach and two of the mums even went for a cold-water sea swim.
It really reminded me of the wholesome holidays of my childhood and everyone agreed it was a brilliant weekend. As we packed up the car to start the convoy home, we vowed to do it again every year.
And we have!
The following year, we paid a bit extra to go to a bigger resort, which has a wider range of activities, a huge adventure playground and a pool and water park.
The cost for the weekend was still less than £150 for a family of four.
I took the kids to Tenerife and Florida the same year and they still said this was their favourite trip.
I think a holiday with 20 of your mates is just brilliant for kids – and the mums!
This year we have booked to go again. This will be our fourth caravan trip. I can’t wait.