Most, if not all hotels, do request long trousers to dinner. I know what you mean about getting expensive though-my children will be 13 and 11 when we go to Cyprus next year, so we wont be able to get away with buying them a kids meals anymore when we go! We will have to take more money with us, thats for sure! Our next holiday after that will probably be an All Inclusive somewhere like Dominican Republic. We will get our moneys worth then!

Blackcat,
Make sure that you do your home work if you choose a half board hotel, the last 2 times that we done this the food was not really suitable for kids especially parky ones and we ended up buying them food elsewhere when they would not eat anything in the Hotel restaurant. So it can work out a waste of money.
As cromwell said its only the evening meal where men are required to waer long trousers, shorts are fine at breakfast time.

Loulou

We always went s/c when the kids were little. Then when they became teenagers it was def half board. Couldn't afford to eat out everynight. And sometimes buying in from the supermarket could be expensive.
But the kids always moaned at half-board as most times we had no fridge, so water and pop was always warm.
This has sometimes resulted in them running downstairs to a shop and buying a bottle of cold water.

But now it is just the 2 of us it's back to s/c for us.

we've just returned from benidorm staying full board and my hubby hadn't packed any trousers because it's too hot in august.On entering the dining room the head waiter stopped him and told him no shorts but 3/4 length were allowed.Luckily he had a couple of pairs so just saved these for going for our evening meal and then got changed afterwards.

I think most hotels now accept 3/4 length trousers, when we were in Cuba they specified long trousers but 3/4's were ok. I know in the 5* hotels they were a bit more strict though.
My kids are 13 and 8 and I go AI so I get the fridge/mini bar in the room, I find the drinks and ice creams add up to as much as a meal can otherwise, at least with AI you get those as well!
Ellie

We did a/i this year but now my children are older we found we did not get our monies worth 16,15 and two 12 year olds, its also down to the evening entertainment it was far to young for them so went out every night, meaning we were paying for drinks we had already paid for

Thanks for your replies , still undecided my two will be 16 and 13 next year and the older one cost us the most to feed this year (I don't know where he puts it !) neither eat "kiddie portions" so eating out is not cheap and we never bother with hotel entertainment so I am looking at either half board or sc with half board options for some of the time .
I only got back 5 days ago but I have the post holiday blues and have spent hours looking at the brochures for next year

we went to turkey this year b&b 3 star we have 3 kids so evening meals are our biggest expense. food in our hotel was wonderful 3 course buffet style serve yourself so eveyone liked something, usually everthing. I dont think long trousers were needed, in fact no as my husband sometimes wore shorts. it was £7 each for 3 courses lovely food we never usually eat in our hotel as we like to go out and about, but the food was so lovely we ate there alot and next year we are going back half board something id never thought wed do