MUMS CONFESS: When kids become little monsters on holidays.

What’s a family holiday with a little vomit, sleeplessness, and maybe even a quick hospital visit?

Every parent who’s ever bravely taken their children away in the hopes of a family ‘holiday’ will know all too well that there’s often more intense parenting time than pool time.

But, that’s fine, because you don’t get real memories without real experiences, right?

To celebrate the DVD and Digital release of Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation (just in time for Term 3 school holidays), where young Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez) takes her father, Dracula (Adam Sandler), on a luxury monster cruise, we asked some parents to share their funniest family vacation moments with their little monsters! All worth it, of course.

“Kids Eat Free” has a limit.

“We were at a resort which had a ‘kids eat free’ policy. But our five-year-old is actually a really hearty eater, and loves seafood – especially lobster. So after a couple of nights of watching us, the manager came over to say we’d have to pay full adult price for her, even though we had been pretending to get the food for ourselves.” – Amy

“We were in a lovely hotel in Singapore and my seven-year-old ate a $12 packet of chips and $8 chocolate bar from the mini bar every day for ten days when I was in the shower. I didn’t know about it until I saw the charges when we were checking out and started disputing them – then my son had to confess.” – Nora

When there’s a buffet for dinner. Video: Columbia Picture/Sony Pictures Animation

There’s always a wet mess and not enough dry clothes.

“After a disastrous flight from Bali, where the 15 month old screamed for the entire time, at around 2am on our long drive home from the airport, the four year old started projectile vomiting in the back seat. There were lots of tears – mostly from me.” – Kelly

“We were about to take off on a 14-hour flight to Los Angeles and my seven year old spilled the entire contents of a bottle of sticky lemonade into my crotch. I was wearing denim jeans (old-school style, so they were thick and didn’t dry quickly), and I sat there with a sticky wet crotch for the entire time. They wouldn’t even let me go to First Class to use a hair dryer.” – Mindy

Planes are a bane.

“We were going on our first- ever family holiday with our two year old. She’d always been pretty easy, so we thought it would be OK for the six-hour flight. Of course, this was the precise time she chose to come into the ‘terrible twos’, and screamed as though we were torturing her when we tried to sit her in her seat.” – Tranh

Jet lag is a drag.

via GIPHY

What’s a holiday without a hospital visit?

“We arrived in Vietnam, and my daughter promptly fell off the hotel bed – because she was jumping on it. Twelve hours later, we returned to the room from hospital – with a plaster cast, a very grumpy eight year old. I was so angry, I ate the $10 Pringles and drank the $24 half-bottle of wine from the mini bar.” – Susan

Buy it first on digital now.

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