holiday arrangements

I have been separated/ divorced for 3 years now and have a contact order in place. The court order is specific about term time care but the holidays have to be arranged between us. I offer my ex 50/50 over the holidays and make a proposal at the beginning of the year. He agrees and then when we get to the holidays, he doesn''t return at time agreed and therefore disrupts my holiday plans. I ask for some reassurance that he will stick to arrangements and he ignores my emails! No surprise really, I divorced him cos of his unreasonable abusive behaviour and he continues to manipulate...
I have a great solicitor, but I know it will cost me to revisit court to address this.
Very frustrated. Advice most welcome.

How late are we talking? A few hours, or days?

Don''t give him contact that ends close to the beginning of your holiday. Make sure there are at least a few days in between switchover and you leaving. He has proven that he cannot be trusted.

If you go to court you can represent yourself or have a McKenzie to avoid the cost of solicitor

How much time are we talking about. How disruptive was it? Has he done this before?

If you go back to court you need to define arrangements that are unambiguous (ie you have first 2 weeks, ex has next 2 weeks....) but then you are bound by this. My ex will not co-operate with anything that isn''t explicitly defined but then there is no flexibility.

Do react or respond to ex''s games. Don''t do like with like because then court will just blame both of you and say that you are both as bad as each other (whoever started it)

Do you have documentation of him altering the arrangements at the last minute?

Could you go to court for a defined contact order regarding the holidays?

Or could you just give him the latter half of the holidays.
i.e. you have the first 3 weeks of summer, he has the second, then he cant bring them back late because they will have school.

halfadad is right that the easiest thing is to think ahead and alway define arrangements that they cannot play games with/frustrate. ie their contact ends by them taking child to school is always an easy solution.