Booking Your Cat's Summer Holiday Stay: Why July Fills Up Fast

Every year, without fail, the same thing happens: families start looking for summer cattery boarding in late June or early July, only to find their preferred dates are already taken. It’s not a tactic to create urgency: it’s simply what happens when a small, family-run cattery with a limited number of pens meets the busiest travel season of the year. Here’s why it happens, and what to do about it.

A limited number of pens, and a lot of demand

Unlike a large commercial boarding operation, we keep our pen numbers deliberately limited so that every cat gets proper space, a quiet setting, and genuine individual attention. That’s the whole point of choosing a small cattery over a bigger one, but it does mean that once our pens are booked for a given week, they’re booked. There’s no overflow capacity to lean on during peak weeks the way a larger facility might have.

Why summer specifically

July and August line up with school summer holidays across Northern Ireland, which means the overwhelming majority of family holiday travel, and therefore cattery demand, compresses into roughly six to eight weeks. Add in the number of families flying from Belfast International Airport specifically (and choosing us because we’re close by, see our article on cat boarding near Belfast International Airport), and the summer weeks fill from both directions: general summer holiday demand, and airport-convenient demand specifically.

The Twelfth adds a second summer spike

In Northern Ireland specifically, the period around the Twelfth of July brings its own wave of travel and family arrangements, often overlapping with the start of the main summer holiday season. We are closed for drop-offs and pick-ups on 12 July itself, which means bookings either side of that date get booked especially early, worth bearing in mind if your travel plans fall around that week.

It isn’t only about getting a pen at all

Availability isn’t simply a yes-or-no question in summer: it’s also about getting the right pen for your circumstances. If you have two cats who need to share a family pen, or your cat needs a quieter spot for medication or nervousness, those specific pens are fewer in number than our standard single pens, and they go first. Booking early doesn’t just improve your odds of getting a space at all; it improves your odds of getting the right space for your cat’s particular needs, rather than whatever happens to still be free.

The knock-on effect of late booking

When families do book late for summer and find us fully booked, the scramble that follows rarely ends well. Last-minute options are often further afield, unfamiliar, or simply unavailable at short notice too, since the same summer surge in demand affects every cattery in the area at once, not just us. Booking early isn’t about beating a deadline for its own sake: it’s about avoiding a stressful last-minute search for anywhere at all, potentially with a cattery you don’t know and haven’t had the chance to visit or ask questions of beforehand.

How far ahead should you actually book?

As a general guide: for any stay during July or August, we’d recommend booking as soon as you have confirmed travel dates, ideally several weeks to a couple of months ahead rather than waiting until the trip is fully planned down to the last detail. For the rest of the year, two to three weeks’ notice is usually comfortable, though half-terms and other school holidays also see a noticeable rise in demand and are worth booking a little earlier too.

If you’re planning a longer summer trip, three weeks or more, perhaps combined with travel further afield, take a look at our long-stay boarding service, which is built specifically around extended absences and is worth discussing with us directly given the added demand on availability over summer.

What happens if your preferred dates are full

If summer dates you want are already booked, don’t assume that’s the end of the conversation. Get in touch anyway. Occasionally other bookings shift, and we’re always happy to let you know if a pen becomes free, or to suggest slightly adjusted dates that might still work for your trip. It’s always worth asking rather than assuming there’s no availability at all.

Booking multiple cats for summer

If you’re boarding more than one cat from the same household over summer, our family pens (see multi-cat families) are also in high demand during peak weeks, simply because there are fewer of them than standard single pens. The same booking-early advice applies, arguably even more so.

A practical summer booking timeline

• As soon as flights or travel dates are confirmed: get in touch to check availability, even if other details of your trip are still being finalised
• 4–8 weeks before travel: the safest window to secure July and August dates with your preferred pen type
• 2–3 weeks before travel: comfortable for most other times of year, but tightening for summer by this point
• Under two weeks before a summer trip: still worth asking, but be prepared for limited or no availability on your first-choice dates

Summer should be one less thing to worry about, not a scramble to find somewhere for your cat at the last minute. If you know you’re travelling this summer, the simplest thing you can do today is check our availability and get your dates secured: it’s far easier to cancel or adjust a confirmed booking later than to find a pen once summer dates are gone.