SOME years ago, finding myself newly single and reluctantly living back at home for the first time since school, I decided a holiday would be just the thing to cheer myself up – until I tried booking for one and discovered the joys of the single-person supplement!
With no children I was able to travel outside the school holidays and was quite happy to accept a resort with no kids’ club, baby-sitting service or amusement park attached.
In fact, pretty much all I wanted was somewhere clean, comfortable and close enough to the beach that I could get there without a trek requiring several months of prior gym training (that’s another story).
So, given that it was a time of year when no-one else seemed to want to go and the hotel, when I eventually got there, was less than half full, why on earth was I expected to pay almost as much again as a single-room supplement?
I can understand the concept of a ‘reasonable’ supplement during high season when a single person occupying a twin room is denying the hotel the extra revenue the second person might generate.
But paying almost the same for one person as for two can hardly be considered reasonable.
It also begs the question, in light of both burgeoning divorce rates and the rise in the number of solo vacationers who simply choose to travel alone, why the dearth of actual single rooms?
I did find a few websites promoting singles holidays but to be honest they looked about as attractive as singles bars – I was planning a solo vacation by choice, not looking for a new companion, travelling or otherwise!
So I took the extreme option, I booked a last minute deal for two, paid less than if I’d taken the holiday of my choice and forked over the single supplement, and took great delight in demanding my two airplane seats, two meals and everything in duplicate once I reached the aforesaid half empty hotel.
I had a wonderful time, apart from the prickly heat, and the hotel staff, once I explained the situation, were very understanding and absolutely charming even if they did find the idea of one woman helping herself to two dinners (alright I only did that once and felt thoroughly sick afterwards) quite potty.
But really, what a carry on!
Thankfully, these days the lot of the single traveller is mostly a happier one.
Though there are doubtless still some single-room supplements out there, more often than not hotels quote their prices per room and even the cruise lines are catching up with NCL (pictured) and P&O recently launching single cabins on some of their ships.
Admittedly I am less likely nowadays to be taking a package tour which is where, I suspect, the single-room supplement still reigns but it is good to see so many tour operators and hotels taking single travellers into account.
I’m sure the financial implications of alienating an increasingly large travelling contingent have not been ignored but I’d like to think this is also one of those much vaunted victories for common sense as well as a reaction to a great deal of lobbying over the years.
And if that’s the case, perhaps it’s time to start campaigning for child-free sections on aircraft.
A recent survey on comparison site Skyscanner found 59 per cent of travellers would like a separate ‘families only’ section in airline cabins.
Not surprisingly fewer than a third of the parents among the 2,000 respondents agreed but, tellingly, of those 45 per cent said they didn’t want a families-only section because they didn’t want to sit next to ‘other people’s horrors’!
Personally I can’t think of a better reason for families-only sections, I hope the airline industry is taking note.
By Liz O’Reilly