The Radford’s ‘£45k’ holiday with ‘£18k’ flights, ‘£10k’ villa, tickets to Universal Studios AND pocket money for kids
WE KNOW the Radford family love their holidays, and in the past 20 months, they have been on a staggering 18 holidays.
This summer, the Morecambe residents said goodbye to their northern Lancashire town and jetted off to Florida for some August sunshine.
But this is one family who are no strangers to transatlantic flights; they’ve clocked up thousands (and thousands) of miles to the Sunshine State and have enjoyed Floridan sunshine three times between April 2022 and April 2023.
During their previous visit in April this year, the 22 Kids and Counting stars revealed in an Instagram Stories Q&A that, “two weeks isn’t long enough and we’d do three next time”.
No surprise then that this August the Radford clan (almost) took over an Are Lingus flight to Florida.
After a pre-flight stay in a classy Hilton hotel Sue, 48, and Noel, 52, and several of their children – we don’t know the exact number of kids that joined them on this jaunt – checked in 15 suitcases before boarding.
How do the Radford’s afford a holiday?
Loyal fans love watching and following the down-to-earth and relatable family. The Radfords have 365,000 subscribers on YouTube and 516K followers on Instagram.
Ten years in the spotlight have helped them rake in a healthy income stream from their TV series and Sue’s sideline as a mumfluencer.
Just this week Sue posted an ad on her Instagram account promoting the Audible app telling fans how much the kids love listening to books especially “The World According To Grandpa.”.
In addition, she previously revealed how they had Noel’s pie shop, their TV show, and various social media channels, which combined, is why they can probably afford to spend an estimated £45,522 on their summer holiday!
The flights
Sue reckons she watches flight prices for a few weeks, and only books them when they’re at the lowest price.
Sue and Noel sat together on the flight, whilst the rest of their offspring were “dotted around” the plane.
Sue said in her YouTube vlog how she sat next to her husband and another family member, whilst three children were seated in front of them, and another six were seated elsewhere. More children were grouped towards the back of the plane in a row of 12 seats block booked.
We reckon it’s cost a cool £18,522 for flights for the Radford family to jet off to the US.
The Radfords travelled with Aer Lingus on this occasion and flights currently on sale with the airline are £882pp per person.
The family is 21 strong this time according to the YouTube vlogs Sue has given.
In the past Sue has said of the family international jaunts that no part of the holiday was gifted and “we paid for our holiday”.
Sue advises fans who are on a low budget to “shop around” for flights. So the flights could have been less – but then again they could have been more.
The villa
When it comes to accommodation more is more for the family. They avoid hotels and prefer to reserve a luxury villa with a private swimming pool and views over a lake. So far, so swanky.
Mum Sue happily shares that she books their 20-person villa through the holiday accommodation website Vrbo and that – ever the savvy saver – she usually books three months in advance.
Current prices for late August/early September start at £4,000 for a fortnight for an eight-bedroom, five-bathroom villa within close proximity of the theme parks.
The villa is said to include a pool, air-con, a cinema-size TV screen, a BBQ area, a play area, a minigolf course, a basketball court, and swanky bedrooms with en-suite waterfall showers. Whilst the master bedroom for Sue and Noel has a terrace with comfy sofas and chairs.
We reckon it probably cost the Morecambe-based family a good £5,000 for their two-week villa stay.
The theme parks
The Radford Family’s Instagram stories have been charting their stay with regular visits to the theme parks. This time mum Sue vowed they would go to Universal Theme Park.
Sue claimed on an Instagram Stories Q&A that she books the park tickets from the website “attraction tickets” as they’re cheaper.
The family have been hitting up The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Florida and have been to a waterpark too.
The cost of a three-park pass on the website for ten kids and ten people over the age of ten for 14 days is a whopping £6,000.
However, as Sue helpfully notes you can pay off the park tickets “monthly”.
Given the cost, Sue recommends taking a packed lunch to the parks to avoid forking out for meals. She said last time they were there, on “average” the family noted it was $15 per person for aburger and chips, and drinks which cost $5.50.
Holiday paraphernalia
Factor in car hire – that’s two minivans, the price of food and meals out – and it’s going to cost a pretty packet.
To hire two 15-seater minibusses it would cost £3,500 a fortnight – and that’s without gas or insurance.
Despite the cost of the holiday already being sky-high, the family doesn’t stint when it comes to treating the kids. They happily order burgers via Uber Eats, and hit up the ice cream vans at $80-a-go for the family ‘99s’ and lollies. They even chow down on posh seafood too.
The mum of 22 revealed in her April Instagram Stories Q&A that she shops around for a bargain for he kids before they take off.
To fund the family’s love of Florida, Sue swerves pricey theme park gift shops for Disney memorabilia. Instead, she picks up logo-ed clothes from Primark, Zara and H&M.
The kids don’t go without when it comes to gifts and treats. On their last holiday, one of the Radford children was treated to an $80 banshee toy. This time a few kids even got to fly-board. And Sue splurged on a couple of sun loungers at the beach costing an eye-watering $53 a bed.
We reckon a family of this size would have a budget of £500 a day for food and meals out, and it’s not unreasonable to assume each person on the trip has pocket money of £100 for toys or treats.
Making a total of £16,000 – excluding petrol.
Ding-ding-ding
Cameras have been following the Radford’s since May so we reckon filming for series four of their show is already well underway.
Spending a cool £45,522 on a holiday isn’t something most families can afford but then most families don’t have 22 kids – and then grandchildren too!
With decent appearance fees for their series and Instagram ads, we reckon the Radfords will be back in their second home of Florida very soon!
Fabulous reached out to The Radford’s for comment on their holiday details, and they declined.