Mood hoovers - tips for a successful family holiday please!

[MakingTheBestOfIt]

We need to plan a 1-week holiday with DH’s parents and our two teens for March next year. They are good, well-meaning people, but my God are they difficult to spend time with (no interests, moaning/negativity, constant bickering with each other, etc).

FIL can only walk 100 yards or so but won’t use a scooter or wheelchair, so days out are going to be very limited. We can probably get away with a few days out without them, but need to make some sort of an effort to spend time together because I don’t think I’ll persuade DH to do it again for another 7 years

I think they would travel short haul, or we could holiday in this country. We need to keep the total cost to less than £4,000 ideally (4 x adults, 2 x teens aged 13 and 14)

Our usual holidays would be villa in France/holiday cottage UK, skiing/snow holidays, city breaks, theme parks etc. They usually go away in their caravan but have enjoyed cruises and Mediterranean hotel holidays in the past.

Perhaps I’m being over-optimistic, but I think with proper planning we might be able to achieve something that is moderately enjoyable for all.

Any ideas? Anyone been in a similar situation and can recommend anything that worked well (or didn’t work!)?

You could get 2 smaller lodges and just say the larger ones were fully booked?!?

Good luck whatever you decide.

Update! We have booked Ribby Hall, thanks @ssd

It’s been a rocky road getting here.

Ribby Hall - the weather in the UK is too unpredictable in April
Ribby Hall in August - we have to make the most of the good weather in August to get away in the caravan
Spanish resort - don’t want to fly
South of France - don’t want to drive
3 night mini-cruise - want to go away for a week

DH finally snapped yesterday and said did they just want us to pay for them to have a week’s cruise by themselves. They were genuinely upset. All they wanted was to spend time with us and the grandchildren, they’re not looking for a free holiday. What about that Ribby Hall place? What was wrong with that? It looked perfect…

Yes, we agreed, it does seem perfect.

I think they just like to vocalise their worries!

I hope you have a great time OP .I'm sure you will.

It's lovely that you're doing this ,spending time and cash on something that is basically for other people .And with such grace and a light hearted touch .

Hope you have a brilliant time. It looks great
I’d take MIL to aqua aerobics for a giggle. Plus the champagne bar obviously

I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re just the sort of people who do most of their thinking aloud. So what sounds like negativity is probably just them thinking through something.

MIL especially is actually very lovely and I think the champagne bar followed by a spot of aqua aerobics will loosen her up nicely. She only just turned 70, so she’s not old, just sort of given up. She’s always been a bit negative, but she used to work full time as a PA and have friends she went out with. She retired at 61 and in the space of about 2 years went from a capable, independent, computer literate woman who used to arrange international business trips and conferences to someone who has to phone me to order her a washing machine from Argos because she can’t do it.

Sadly, I can’t solve all their problems (we’ve all tried), but I can try and make sure we have a good time and some lovely memories and no one gets murdered

Sounds lovely OP. And just to add - you sound like a very nice person hope you all have fun