Single parents need holidays too
And more destinations want them to visit
DOES the idea of an island escape with white sand beaches and luxurious bungalows appeal?
Well, now you can get the best Instagram travel shots at the Maldives, home to some of the most colourful, unspoiled coral and a diversity of marine life unrivalled anywhere else in the world.
It’s also an adrenalin junkie’s paradise.
Starlight Holidays has new packages on offer from December 1 to January 12, 2019, which are ideal for honeymooners or holidaymakers.
A seven-night package starts at R16 770 per person, with reduced rates for children under 12.
Fares include flights, accommodation, transfers and taxes. This is far below fares charged to this popular destination and, now with the SAA flights, it makes Maldives convenient, accessible and affordable to the South African holiday market.
Your options include Equator Village Hotel (3-star), Canareef (4-star) and Shangri-la’s Villingili Resort and Spa, Maldives (5-star).
For more information, call Starlight Holidays on 087 357 9133 or visit www.starlight.co.za WHEN Tanya Mcnally was planning a holiday a few years ago for herself and her two teenage sons, she had recently divorced and felt anxious about the prospect of travelling with them alone.
“I was very aware that we would be going on a family trip in what was not a traditional family setup of two parents,” Mcnally said.
Here are some options for a single-parent family holiday. Consider a cruise
Mcnally and her sons ending up taking a cruise to the Caribbean with Disney Cruise Line because she had heard the line went out of its way to accommodate single-parent families. For example, single-parent families can dine with others like them and be paired for shore excursions, so children have a chance to make new friends and parents have other adults to interact with.
Disney Cruise Line is among the several companies that increasingly cater to single-parent families by grouping them with others who have a similar family setup and offering them price breaks. Some companies have even introduced specific singleparent itineraries. he river cruise line Croisieurope, for example, normally charges single adult travellers a supplement fee that’s 30% of the total cruise fare.
In July and August this fee is waived for single parents on select European cruises when they’re travelling with children who are
16 or younger; children on these itineraries sail for free. In addition, the supplement is waived on the company’s Christmas market cruises on the Danube and Rhine River.
Find a travel agency that caters to single-parent travel
Dyan Mckie, a Melbourne, Australia, resident and the brand manager for family adventures at Intrepid Travel, said she and her 5-year-old daughter, Beatrice, feel out of place when they’re around two-couple families on their frequent travels together.
Motivated both by her own experiences and the increasing number of single-parent families booking trips with her firm, Mckie created six new tours specifically for solo-parent families to Costa Rica, Thailand, Northern India, Egypt, Vietnam and Morocco.
And Britain-based Virgin Holidays started a single-parent trip category that includes air-inclusive trips to 10 Caribbean resorts where parents don’t pay a single supplement and children get a discount. The tour operator initiated the change after requests from customers, according to the company’s managing director, Joe Thompson. “Single parents were telling us that they needed affordable vacation options for their kids, and that’s what we’re trying to give them,” he said.