How To Have A Great Group Holiday

You’re jetting off with friends for a week in the sun. What could go wrong? Quite a lot, actually. From swerving drunken rows to childcare diplomacy, here’s Lucy Pavia’s guide to a stress-free trip

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‘Look at you ladies, beavering away,’ he says, strolling into the kitchen in swimming trunks to pop the cap off a stubby in the fridge. ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do!’ A pretty empty gesture since he’s already halfway back to his sunlounger.

It’s 2004 and I’m on my first group holiday in the South of France with eight friends. The weather is glorious, which is particularly good news for the boys in the group. Somewhere between Gatwick and Carcassonne airport, our 737 apparently flew through a rip in the space-time continuum back to 1950, when women unthinkingly took on the cooking and cleaning while the men chillaxed.

Seven million of us will be jetting away on holiday this month, while the proportion of us going away with friends has risen to 25 per cent*. There are obvious benefits to a group holiday: shared cost, company, play buddies for kids (if you have them) and fun nights by the pool getting sauced on rosé. You might even be reading this on the plane en route to one right now, a G&T wobbling on the tray in front of you. Are you excited about the week ahead, or is a small part of you worried Alice and Dave will fall out over Brexit? Or Ian and Anita’s inflexible childcare routine will dominate the schedule? Or that Richard, who cannot sit still for more than five minutes, will keep standing up, clapping his hands together and asking, ‘So, what’s the plan for this afternoon, then?’ ‘The thing about villa holidays,’ says etiquette

expert Jo Bryant, ‘is everyone’s behaviour is magnified because you’re cohabiting, which is very different to the usual friendship dynamic of lunch at the pub.’ Add to that the pressure of expectation being piled on to this precious window of time off and it’s a bit like New Year’s Eve, says Bryant. ‘It’s that feeling that it