Sharing a bedroom on holiday: Anne Robinson advises

A reader asks...

My brother has agreed to go on a ten-day holiday to Croatia with an old school pal who has been going through a tough time.

Very late in the day, my brother has realised his friend is assuming they will share a room. My brother, who likes his creature comforts, is alarmed by this.

Separate rooms would mean a £700 supplement, a sum my brother would be happy to pay – he would even fork out for both supplements. What should he do?

Anne Robinson's reply

Male friendships are very different to female friendships. Women tend to share their emotions with close girlfriends; they effortlessly chat about their fears, their irritations, their wildest dreams.

However, a man can go a lifetime with a close friend without either one discussing their feelings, apart from, say, how they feel about Arsenal, Manchester United or the forthcoming rugby international at Twickenham.

Therefore, the idea of sharing a bedroom on holiday, even with your best friend, can seem a very uncomfortable prospect.

You ask what to do. Let’s start with what not to do.

That is the list of excuses your brother has doubtless made in his head: he snores, he sleepwalks, he needs the radio blaring through the night, he will be making endless trips to the bathroom.

None of these is going to wash any more than – if I may say so – the rather tactless idea of paying both supplements.

Clearly for his friend the close companionship of sharing a room is an important part of the trip. As it happens, an old friend of mine was recently faced with a similar dilemma.

If being spoilt was an Olympic sport, my friend would be a gold-medal winner. He wrestled with the problem and finally and rightly concluded he could do nothing but go with the flow.

Thus, he prepared for the worst. He now shamefacedly admits that sharing a room was one of the highlights of a wonderful holiday. He and his friend immediately reverted to giggling like the boarding school boys they once were.

So much so that the people in the adjoining room more than once banged on the wall in the early hours to protest at the noise. He says it brought back great memories of weekend sleepovers.

It also transported him to a time when he had nothing to dread or worry about past his next school report or why Camilla in year two wouldn’t smile back at him.

He says he’d do it again tomorrow without a second thought. I rest my case.