We booked a last-minute holiday to Ibiza – was it worth it?

We unexpectedly found ourselves with a few spare days recently, so obviously the sensible thing to do was to book a last-minute holiday to Ibiza. 😂

Because the holiday hadn’t been planned, we didn’t have a huge budget set aside for it and we didn’t have months to save up any extra spending money. That meant we were looking for something where as much as possible was included in the price we paid upfront.

We weren’t necessarily looking for the absolute cheapest holiday we could find though. There are some things that are important to us when we travel and I’m happy to pay a little more for those, so it was more about finding the best value holiday that worked for us.

We chose all-inclusive to make the spending predictable

We decided pretty quickly that we wanted to go all-inclusive. It’s not always my favourite way to travel because it does mean you’re tied to the hotel for most of your meals if you want to get your money’s worth, and we usually like having the freedom to wander off and eat wherever we fancy. In fact, we usually hire a car so we can do just that! 

For a last-minute holiday though, all-inclusive gave us exactly what we needed. Once we’d paid for the holiday, we knew that our food and drinks were covered and we could technically go away without needing much spending money at all.

That reassurance was worth the compromise for us. We could still go out whenever we wanted to, but there was no pressure to budget for three meals a day, drinks and snacks on top of the cost of the holiday.

We booked a package holiday

We also deliberately chose to book with TUI because the package included things that can easily add a chunk onto the headline price of a cheaper holiday.

Our luggage allowance was included, so we didn’t need to add the cost of checked baggage afterwards.  Our transfer to and from the airport was also included which was important as we’d decided not to hire a car.  That’s something I’d always take into account when comparing package prices because a holiday that looks cheaper at first isn’t necessarily cheaper once you’ve added everything you actually need.

Having less time than usual to budget for this particular trip made that even more important to us. The more we could pay upfront as part of the holiday price, the less we needed to think about afterwards.

Flight times matter more to me than getting the cheapest deal

One thing I won’t compromise on just to save money is flight times.

I don’t like night flights and I don’t want to lose half a day of a short holiday because we’ve chosen awkward flights. If we’re only going away for a few days, saving some money on the flights doesn’t feel like much of a saving to me if we lose a big chunk of our actual holiday in the process.

We actually chose to go to Ibiza specifically because the flight times were so good. They fitted perfectly around the plans we already had and meant we could make the most of the time we had available.

That’s one of those things where the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best value for us. 

We don’t pay to sit together

One of the extras we almost always skip when it’s just the two of us travelling is paying to choose our seats on the plane.

We usually end up sitting together anyway, but if we don’t then it’s really not a problem. I tend to put my headphones in and either listen to something or sleep for most of the flight, so paying extra just to guarantee we’re next to each other doesn’t feel worth it to us.

It’s a really easy saving because we’re not actually giving anything up that matters to us.

We chose a three-star hotel

We weren’t bothered about finding a four or five-star hotel either. We ended up choosing a three-star hotel because the star rating is much less important to us than what people who have stayed there recently are actually saying about it.

I always look at the most recent TripAdvisor reviews rather than relying purely on the official star rating. I want to know whether the rooms are clean, what the food is like, whether people are generally enjoying their stays and whether the same problems are being mentioned over and over again.

And I’m not going to pretend it was the best hotel we’ve ever stayed in because it definitely wasn’t. 😂 The food was interesting at times, although there was always enough choice that we didn’t starve, and there was a really good choice of drinks included. 

The things that mattered most to us were absolutely fine. The hotel was clean, the air conditioning was spot on and there were enough sunbeds for everyone, so there was none of that getting up at stupid o’clock to claim one with a towel.

The pools were brilliant too, although it was so ridiculously hot while we were there that the water felt more like getting into a bath than jumping into a swimming pool to cool down. 😂

For what we’d paid and what we wanted from a last-minute break, we were more than happy with it. It wasn’t luxury and there were definitely things that could have been better, but we weren’t expecting five-star luxury from a three-star hotel. It gave us everything we actually needed and meant we could have the last-minute break we wanted without spending more just for a higher star rating.

We spent less than £150 while we were there

The all-inclusive decision worked exactly as we’d hoped because we spent very little once we arrived.

We weren’t determined to spend nothing and we didn’t stay inside the hotel just because we’d already paid for everything. We wandered down to the beach one day and had a drink in a bar right on the beach, and another night we went to a pub down the road for a couple of drinks because they had a band playing.  It was ridiculously hot while we were there so we didn’t go far from the air con for most of our stay. 😎

On our last night though, we braved the heat and went into Ibiza Town and visited the hippy market on the way home, which meant paying for the bus there and getting a taxi back afterwards. We also bought the obligatory fridge magnet and a pack of playing cards because I’d forgotten to pack ours along with a couple of other bits and bobs.

Altogether, we spent less than £150 while we were in Ibiza. We could easily have spent less if we’d wanted to, but the whole point of the holiday was to enjoy ourselves rather than see how little money we could possibly spend.

So, was our last-minute holiday worth it?

Absolutely.

Booking at the last minute meant we approached this holiday slightly differently to one we’d planned months in advance. We wanted to know that most of our costs were covered before we left, so choosing all-inclusive and booking a package with luggage included made sense for us.

We saved money on the things that weren’t important to us, like choosing our seats or having a higher hotel star rating, but we didn’t compromise on the things that do matter to us like the flight times.

And that’s probably the biggest thing I took from booking a holiday this way. Getting a good deal isn’t always about finding the lowest possible price. It’s about working out what’s important to you, what you’re happy to compromise on and what you’re actually getting for the money you’re paying.

Our few spare days turned into a last-minute trip to Ibiza, we had a brilliant time and managed to spend less than £150 while we were there.

I’d definitely call that worth it.

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