Long post, buckle up.
Myself and DP have been saving up for a long weekend away in Scotland at the end of March, bit of context but we’ve both started new jobs in the last 6 months which have really reduced our time together so this was something we’ve been looking forward to.
DP had the great idea of booking an apartment that he and his family have visited on a number of occasions, he’s familiar with the owners and it really fits all our requirements. As his parents’ place is on the way he called them last week to let them know we’d be in the area and that we’d love to drop in. They chatted for a while, made plans- great!
Then Monday evening I received an email from DSIL asking if the pool(??) was going to be available because if so she’d need a new costume. I assumed it was a mistake- I was wrong.
Apparently DMIL had thought about mine and DP’s trip over the weekend and realised it would make a brilliant family getaway! She called her parents, her brother, DSIL and DBIL to make sure they and all their kids were free to come along. She then called us (apparently to tell us about the sudden influx of mad relatives) after she spoke to all of the family on Sunday, but we missed the call and when we tried to call back they’d gone to bed.
The next day she called the family who owns the apartment and asked to cancel the reservation for our 2 bed place we’d reserved, so they could instead rent out one of the larger properties on offer- a 6 bed house with an indoor pool. They’ve used this place in the past for family parties etc so the owners assumed everything was agreed with us and happily switched the reservation for them.
So the first I hear about it is when the owners of the property call me up to ask if I’d like a refund for the other property or whether I wanted it applying to the new booking. DP called his DM Wednesday evening and was told “If you’d answered the phone Sunday night we would have told you then but it’s too late to change now!”
He told her that this was supposed to be a romantic getaway and we’d be delighted to organise a trip away with everyone another time, and again she answered that we should have gotten back to her on Sunday as it’s all paid for now and everyone booked time off on Monday.
They’ve been going round and round with this since then. When he brought up she had not asked us before planning she claimed “I didn’t know I needed to ask, I thought you cared about family and would be HAPPY to spend time with us…other people would kill for an opportunity like this…Grandma is getting old and this may be our last chance etc”
We’ve talked about just giving in and planning another romantic getaway for another time but we also don’t want to send a message that this is acceptable behaviour. WIBU to tell her to stuff her family getaway and use the money to bugger off abroad?