August's bank holiday sits at the tail end of the school summer holidays, so it tends to be the busiest of the three by a clear margin, effectively the last big weekend of summer before term restarts. The May bank holidays fall outside the school holidays for most, so they draw a different mix of visitors, more retired couples and those without school-age children, and tend to be marginally calmer as a result, even though they're still busier than a standard weekend.

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Neither is a lesser option than the other, and mixing them across the year often makes more sense than picking one. A couple might take a short weekend break in spring or autumn and a longer week together in summer; a family might use a half-term weekend for a quick recharge and save the full week for the big summer holiday once school allows it.

The two May bank Norfolk Broads holidays also work well as shorter breaks in their own right, for anyone who doesn't have a full week free. A long weekend built around the early May Monday, arriving Friday and leaving Tuesday, gives four days without touching much annual leave, and traffic on the roads tends to be lighter than the equivalent August bank holiday weekend.

See more on this at family holiday parks.

A full week changes the shape of things. There's time to properly unpack rather than live out of a bag, to have a slow day doing nothing as well as busier ones, and to see more than one nearby town without feeling rushed. A week gives room for the weather to turn for a day or two without wrecking the whole trip, since there are enough other days to make up for it. It also tends to work out better value once you compare nightly rates: parks generally price a week more favourably per night than a short midweek stay, since the fixed costs of changeover are spread across more nights.