When Melanie* travelled abroad in July for a family holiday to Mallorca, Spain, with her six-year-old son Luke*, she found Dublin Airport stressful.
Originally from Slovakia, Melanie, who works in finance, and her Irish-born husband have younger children – two-year-old twins – but Luke has profound autism and finds airports challenging.
“You’re always worried there will be delays. You’re worried the plane could be sitting on the tarmacadam for three hours. If I have to keep him on a plane for five hours, he will probably walk off the plane. It’s too much,” she says.
Luke has limited verbal skills and, in common with many autistic children, a tendency to abscond. “He runs away if he feels like it. One year when we were abroad we had to move chairs and luggage to block the door. The same goes for balconies.”
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Dining on holidays is difficult. “He’s very limited with his diet. He will eat chips or bologna sauce but the one I make because that’s the one he knows,” Melanie says.
“So there’s anxiety around food because the food needs to be always the same. If it’s too much for him, he will lie down on the floor. It doesn’t matter where you are, he will just lie down. For us, it’s much easier to stay in Ireland.”
For some families with autistic children, going on a break can feel harder than being at home. Lack of predictability, absence of routine and the anxieties and stress that may come with meltdowns in public settings can result in families avoiding holidays altogether.
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But as awareness has improved – it’s estimated one in 20 children in school today has an autism diagnosis – more hotels are retraining staff and improving facilities to cater to families with diverse needs.
Adam Harris, of the autism charity AsIAm, which is working with hotels on training and awareness, says: “There’s an important momentum gathering. Contributing to that is our autism-friendly town initiative. Clonakilty, Maynooth, Drumcondra, Killarney and Waterford city have achieved the standard. Dublin city is working towards it.
“There’s huge momentum and hotels are at the table in that regard. We’re in the process of doing accreditation with the whole iNua group,” which is Ireland’s largest regional hotel group, “so that’s exciting.”
In Dublin, the Ashling Hotel on Parkgate Street, situated near the Zoo in the Phoenix Park and close to hospitals including St James’s, has 11 family rooms.
Since 2023, one of these has been transformed into a sensory room, which is kitted out with mood cubes, weighted blankets, vibrating pillows and low levels of lighting.
Ciara Barry of the Ashling says: “Some autistic people are sensitive to light, others to noise, others to touch. They’re able to sit down and just hug the pillow and it calms their nervous system.”
Ashling staff have also received autism awareness training and the hotel endeavours to keep the same managers on rotation to welcome returning autistic children so they see a face they know.
“They’re not just upgrades that we’ve done, they’re meaningful experiences for people under sometimes tough circumstances,” Barry says.
The room rate (from around €260 for a family room per night) is the same as for other family rooms in the hotel, an important factor given it is estimated that it costs an additional €28,000 a year to raise an autistic child.
“This isn’t something we wanted to financially benefit from. We just wanted to put something out into the community that’s needed,” she says.
In developing their facilities, the Ashling took inspiration from other hotels around the country.
“We were the first hotel in Dublin, but I linked up with the Pillo hotel in Meath – they were one of the first to implement a sensory bedroom – and the Radisson in Sligo have also done it,” Barry says.
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The hotel also worked with Keith O’Grady from Sensory House Ireland, which specialises in designing playrooms featuring everything from memory-foam bean bags to weighted teddy bears, lighted bubble tubes and projectors. These help to capture and regulate attention spans
O’Grady says: “Ultimately you’re creating a space for calming within spaces like hotels, which can be over-stimulating, or anywhere with high footfall. We’ve done shopping centres, hospitals, the Curragh Racecourse, secondary schools like Blackrock College.
“The most important things are to block out natural light and sound. People can be dysregulated by sunbeams hitting their eyes and fluorescent lighting can have the same effect.
“The easiest way to explain to people is you’re trying to emulate the feeling of going into a spa. A relaxing environment with nice ambient lighting – that’s the effect you’re trying to create. You’re hopefully giving a space that they can go into, block out stimuli, and it gives them time to re-regulate themselves.”
When it works, he says, families build trust with the hotels and come back time and again. “In the Ashling, people are coming back specifically to go to that hotel because they have that sensory bedroom.”
It benefits all the family too, not just the autistic child, he says. “If families have a get-together, there might be only one autistic kid within the family, and it’s so they can go to that hotel, everyone can have a good time and it’s inclusive for everyone, the autistic person and not.”
In Clonakilty, Co Cork, the Park Hotel and Fernhill House have evolved their offerings for neurodiverse guests.
Irene O’Callaghan, of the Park, says: “We have sensory packs: the idea being that they have something to touch, something to smell and something to squeeze.”
As soon as you mention that your child is autistic, it’s like ‘no problem’. Nobody looks at you or stares at you
— Melanie*
Because routine and predictability can be important, the hotel offers a picture guide of what to expect when guests are visiting for the first time.
With staff trained in autism awareness, the hotel tries to anticipate issues before any arise. “During the week we had a lady whose child liked a specific kind of pancake. She told us that in advance so we were able to get them in. That really helps,” she says.
In addition to family rooms, the Park has 20 apartments and six units that are fully self-catering.
“We would have kids who would be flight risks,” O’Callaghan says. “In our apartments we have put additional locks on the inside, so we’ve those extra little mechanisms.”
While not overtly geared towards those families, Center Parcs is a popular destination for parents with neurodiverse children – their self-catering lodges set across 400 acres in Longford Forest offer a soothing, low-stimulation environment.
“I know many people say Center Parcs is very expensive, but my boy loves it,” Melanie says.
“In the kitchen, I can make his meals. He learned to swim in Center Parcs because they have a slide where, to let you on, you have to be able to swim without a swimming aid. So he actually learned to swim from one side of the pool to the other so he could go down the slide. It was amazing. I never thought he would be able to swim.
“There’s huge supervision there. As soon as you mention that your child is autistic, it’s like ‘no problem’. Nobody looks at you or stares at you.”
For Etain*, an IT professional based in Dublin, who has four-year-old twin sons who are autistic, “the challenges come sideways at you”.
Her twins were diagnosed in May, after they had started at preschool. “We just thought, ‘Oh my God, twins are complete chaos’. It took us a while to come around to the idea that our perfect little men might have been a bit different.
“What we realised through that process was that we’d set up our life around the boys. Everything inside our bubble suited the boys. We had a nice routine. It was only when you went into the outside world that things got tricky.”
The boys have differing needs and challenges. Noise can be a trigger: the white noise of hand-driers in public toilets or crying babies; big crowds another.
When the family gets an invitation to go somewhere, Etain thinks long and hard about what’s best. “If it’s not something the boys are going to enjoy, we’re not just going to go so we have an Instagrammable photo.”
She gravitates towards holiday homes in autism-friendly towns, where a minimum of 25 per cent of businesses in the town have undergone autism awareness training.
“It’s definitely a plus,” she says. “It means you’re more likely to get a warm welcome from local businesses. If a child is finding a situation stressful, it means they don’t look at that child as a ‘bold child’.”
When we speak, Etain is packing the car for Clonakilty for a family trip. “Clonakilty has a model railway village, which is a huge hit with our boys who love trains.” In their Airbnb, “the boys can see the sea from the garden. The garden is enclosed. I just love the freedom of them running around.”
What parents recommend
- Caravan parks are full of neurodiverse kids. The format offers flexibility, freedom in a safe space, kids playing together and nature, beaches, lakes etc. The Woodlands Caravan Park and Mannix Point in Kerry, Lakeside in east Clare, are some of our favourites. – A. O’Brien
- I went to Center Parcs in January with my neurodiverse kids and neurodiverse self, and it was perfect and stunningly beautiful because everywhere was iced over. – Lisa Keogh Finnegan
- My two boys are neurodivergent and they just want adventure parks like Legoland and Disneyland. The big parks have queue-skipping passes for neurodivergent kids and adults. – Tara O’Connor
Having last visited at Easter, the twins have been excited about the upcoming trip for months. “The boys have had a 60-day countdown on the calendar on the fridge,” she says.
Etain is willing to stay in a hotel with her sons, but it’s rarely her first choice.
What would make a difference? “What hotels need to realise is parents don’t want to bring chaos. You’re not expecting people to roll out the red carpet, but small gestures like having quiet spaces or being accommodating if someone asks for a larger room, or getting your same table in the breakfast room – all those things make a difference.
“In the La Mon outside Belfast, we get the same room every time we go. The hotel is spacious with a lovely quiet pool area and very warm, welcoming staff who remember the boys every time we visit, which is why we always go back.”
Friendly staff, quiet spaces, a dedication to people’s needs: what’s not to like?
Harris hopes more businesses will incorporate inclusive design and autism awareness training once they realise it’s an approach that makes sense for all.
“Who doesn’t like clear communication? Who doesn’t like having predictability about what the experience is going to be like? Who doesn’t want to feel welcomed and not judged?” he says. “What is essential for an autistic family coming on holiday can actually be good for everybody.”
*Some names have been changed.
