So… you need to arrange a weekend away for a large group! Maybe it’s holiday accommodation for a big family get together. Perhaps your friend has just said YES and you’ve been tasked with organising the Hen Do. Or you’re finally getting your university friends back together… perhaps with partners and young kids now in tow. Our business helps dozens of groups like yours to get together every year, as well as organising our own friends and family to meet up!

One of the first things you’ll need to think carefully about is exactly how many rooms and beds you will need. For any given property, one of the most common questions we get asked is “How many people does it sleep?”

But to answer this, you need to think around the problem. Because of course the answer depends entirely on what kind of group you are – and especially who needs or wants to share rooms and beds.

Let’s think about a three practical examples.

In the first case imagine four middle aged ladies travelling to Bath to see the Jane Austen sights. They may well want a room each for the weekend, so four bedrooms in total.

Next, a group with four young couples, two of whom each have a young baby. Just 8 adults plus two babies in total, but to be comfortable they will need to share a property with a minimum of four bedrooms each with a double or king sized bed in each room and two of the rooms should also have baby cots available.

Finally, how about a group of a dozen or so hens wanting a property for a quiet hen weekend with shared meals and chat? In this case sharing bedrooms is part of the fun! So with a single extra pull out bed or two in each bedroom, and a sofa bed in the shared area, this group might also only need four bedrooms! Premier Inn are a company that realised ages ago that flexible beds in rooms is an important issue! And Travel Lodge have pushed their own use of pull out beds.

Now holiday accommodation prices usually reflect the number of bedrooms required. Which means you get much more value for money if people share a smaller number of rooms. So think hard about how many beds are on offer in each room before booking more bedrooms than your group needs. And as we’ve seen, sharing is often part of the fun!

The answer to the question of how many a property sleeps therefore depends on your group’s needs.

Here at Cottages Near Bath our four bedroom cottage for large groups and our six bedroom Airbnb Large Manor House are perfect examples of houses with flexible sleeping to allow groups of many shapes and sizes to have a great time. Take a look at them and let us know if they suit your needs!

One extra possibility we offer at Cottages Near Bath is the ability to extend the number of bedrooms by renting one large property immediately next door to another smaller one, for example our Beautiful Cottage that sleeps up to 7. As larger properties typically cost more per extra bedroom than smaller ones, this is an extremely cost efficient way to accommodate a large group. And gives you some quieter rooms away from the main property! For example, many groups like to book our four or six bedroom properties along with one of our two bedroom cottages on the same site to give themselves more bedrooms.

Whatever the shape or size of your group, we hope you pick the perfect location for your stay. If you’re visiting the Bath area then perhaps we can help?Please drop us a WhatsApp and ask!