How would you feel about going on a 3G holiday

[Lardlizard]

3 generations
Kids parents and grandparents

[WallyWallyWally]

We’ve done them every year since my oldest was born, he’s 11 now. On the whole they work well, but reading this thread has reassured me that it’s not unusual to find them a challenge !

My parents have a holiday house in the EU country DH and I live in. We both work in schools so have 8 weeks off every summer - so we use the holiday home as à base for thé whole time. To date, most summers have involved at least two weeks with my parents, a week with my sister and her partner, a week with DHs parents, a week with DHs sister and her wee boy... plus a couple of weeks camping and maybe some friends visiting.

On the whole it’s great and has allowed my boys to really know their extended family despite not living in th UK. They have a very close relationship with their grandparents.

Downsides... I’ve got fed up being chief cook and bottle washer: we don’t eat out much (only one local restaurant, no takeaways) and someone’s got to organise the food. We’re all a bit bored of this location, we only do touristy things with visitors Now. And being around my parents does bring out my inner teen...

[duebaby2]

Depends on how well you get on with everyone. It never happened for me as a child because I had such a split family on one side and elderly on the other.

I did however do this when my son was a year and a half. Me, my mum and my son went abroad. Never ever again will I do it. She promised to help me with my son to also give me a break, did she...no! She just isn’t cut out to be ‘grandma’ on holiday or in confined spaces for hours. In fact she completely ruined our relationship for months following the holiday, she acted like an annoying child and drank heavily. My second baby will never get that experience and I’m glad! From now on just me, my partner and our boys.

[katewhinesalot]

Oh and I've been to the pencil museum a good few years ago when the kids were young.

It was actually ok.

[thenewaveragebear1983]

We do it twice every year, both sides of the family. Whitsun is with dh's parents plus brother and his family; summer with my parents. Always separate accommodation though.

[happycamper11]

We've done it with 4, kids, parents, gp and ggp. It's fine as we all do our own thing then meet up for a few arranged meals etc, arrange trips in smaller groups depending on interests so time together is often more just coincidence of who is around at the same time. Obviously it could be a nightmare depending on relationships.

[katewhinesalot]

We do at least one every year. Love it.

[LightDrizzle]

I agree it probably works best if people feel free to dip in and out of communal activities without causing offence.
We’ve had success as 2g with my adult DD and her DP, but they/we are free to peel off to do stuff as a couple (although this rarely happens in fact) and certainly nobody gets upset if one of us is reading, or checking football results on their phone. Despite being oblivious to how relentless she can be, mum is incredibly sensitive herself to perceived slights etc. so we all tiptoe around her. If I suggested visiting the pencil museum at Keswick, DD1 and my DH would probably take the piss for at least 10 minutes and offer alternatives like gouging their own eyes out with teaspoons. However a failure to rhapsodise over the same suggestion from mum (nobody would take the piss) would be a huge rejection and lead to teary apologies for being “so boring” - she doesn’t believe this, she thinks we are boring.
I love the idea of 3G holidays and hope to have them in the future, we would be the GPs in that scenario and I hope I remember the problems we had with my own mum.
Dad would have been great and just buggered off to do his own stuff and joined in the rest. Unfortunately he died when my eldest was tiny.
Apologies to the Pencil Museum, it’s probably brilliant.

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

We've done it a few times, PILs, DN, and us plus our DC. It's mainly oriented around the children. PILs want to take DN on holiday, it's more fun for her with cousins, and this way all adults get child free time. Last year we went camping, and PILs stayed in BnB while we had children.
My DM wants to take us on holiday too. Not so sure about that because I think we live different things

[TeamUnicorn]

We've just done it, though my family had a different property. My sister did stay with Mum and Dad though. It was fine and lovely.

The first week Mum and Dad also had their grandson and great grandson. (We were there their 2nd week)

[RippleEffects]

We do this lots. Grandparents, sibbling plus family me plus my family.

Works well but there are some tensions that need to be managed. 5 children, one with significant needs, 1 younger than the core group. Different financial attitudes. Different alcohol attitudes.

I find that it works best if we all work out what the key things we each want are from the break and pre-agree the financials, not to the penny but roughly whats joint spending and what isnt.

We went to a ski resort. BIL wanted to go skiing, I wanted to go husky sledging (some had done it before), Granny wanted to keep warm, kids wanted to sledge, Grandpa likes to play building the fire. These core things could all easily be built into the holiday by working out which days would fit for ski sessions, dog sessions, booking accomodation that had views over the ski slope so Granny could watch from the warmth (actually with warm clothes she enjoyed the fresh air but it was her worry). We booked large enough accommodation we could have adult space, children could have adult free space and child with needs could have his own space.

Sibling and I divided up 2/3 catering so no one spent the week in the kitchen other meals we left free for people to eat out or cater at the accomodation.

We do summer breaks too, but this is in a catered hotel so as part of the deal we have an agreed evening meal time we all eat together. We breakfast together and have an hour or three together in the morning going on a stroll or to the beach. Afternoons do our own things - quite often end up together.

It's great for getting a bit of adult only time without it being like children are stuck with sitters, they barely notice because they're in their own space but with cousins and grandparents.

[PuppyMonkey]

Thought this was going to be about giving up mobile phones for a week or two.

[hughwhatascorcher]

Just about to do it.
We are the GPs. Taking both kids and their partners plus 2 GC.
Will report back if we make it out the other side

[Bliponthescreen]

We did it a few times after my DF died. We took my DM (in her 70s at the time) on several holidays with us to the Caribbean, Spain and Turkey.
The holidays worked out fine. But it absolutely depends on the personalities involved. My DM isn’t an interfering/domineering sort and my DH is very laid back.
Interestingly, in Turkey, we were quite often stopped by locals who commented on how nice it was to see a 3G family on holiday together.
Also in Turkey, the hotel staff made a huge fuss of my DM - calling her ‘Mummy’ and giving her lots of attention. They were incredibly kind to her and she loved it there.

[EmpressJewel]

We've been on holiday with my mum and her partner a few times, plus my sister and her children.

It works for us because we stay in separate apartments and we all are free to do our own thing during the day and we eat together in the evening. There is no expectation to spend all day together.

[Legomadx2]

Are you a journalist OP?

Odd post with no context given.

[SoyDora]

We’ve done it with PIL’s, my DM and DF and his wife. Always fine. Just not for more than a week.

[RubbingHimSweetly]

We go with my parents and our dc frequently. We love it. Even dh says he feels he gets more time to relax as we can take shifts with making sure dc don't drown etc. Going later this year and can't wait.

[forkfun]

We do it once a year and love it! We never get to spend enough time together otherwise.

[pumkinspicetime]

We've done this. Works well with MIL and BIL, didn't work with my DM.
So I think it depends on the personalities involved.
Enough space and a mixture of family activities and time alone also helps ( and wine)
Hope to do it next year again.

[Spingtrolls]

As a kid did it a lot. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and me.
Hated it.

As an adult? Haha mum lives on another planet. Would just leave her to get on with it and tolerate her whilst in the same room. Would have many thoughts of accidents and if the opportunity arose would help with an accident.

Dad would be abandoned at the airport. He would moan constantly about stuff in his life that I have nothing to do with.

If/when my dc’s have kids, we would get on. We’ve done 2g holidays already. But we enjoy each other’s company. Any clashes with their partners have been because I saw through the bs.

[CarolDanvers]

Can't imagine anything worse.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

It's great as long as it's planned like a military operation. You need somewhere everyone has alone activities, everyone can live with the together stuff, doesn't have any red lines for anyone, and people know how to fucking suck it up.

So yes to it with my parents, sometimes with DH's DDad, but only if mine are also there. And never ever with SIL. Her

[rabbitsarefluffy]

So long as you stay in a big enough space, everyone knows what's expected of them and you're not expected to spend every minute of the day together, it can definitely work.

Or it can go horribly horribly wrong.

[HarrietSchulenberg]

We used to do it when children, and the rest of us, were all much younger and it was great fun.
Now kids are teens and grandparents are older and more curmudgeonly, it would not be fun.