Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to go skiing

369 replies

Leanback · 20/12/2016 22:58

Dp and his family love skiing, and dp has gone most years since he was about 12 with them.

I've never been skiing, I'm not a very active person and it's not something that really appeals to me. Me and dp have agreed that if I was to try it we would go with mutual friends, some of whom had never been skiing before either and some who are more experienced like dp. I do feel nervous about going but I feel if I had someone to learn with I'd feel better about the situation.

Dp's family keep trying to convince me to go with them. I've polietrly declined each time and for the last couple of years I've been studying for my masters and so can use that as a reason for not attending as I can't get the time away. I think this has annoyed them, and dp did admit to me that his df thinks I should just suck it up and go for 'family'. Every time we see them they badger me about going even though I have said I don't want to. Dp has no issues with me not going so I don't understand why his parents do.

Aibu? Should I just go for the sake of family relations?

OP posts:
HellonHeels · 23/12/2016 12:12

The inlaws sound awful. I wouldn't like to go on holiday with them full stop, skiiing or not. YANBU

Tokelau · 23/12/2016 12:31

Skiing is brilliant, and I am not sporty usually! I am not an adrenaline junkie at all. I do slopes that I enjoy, I don't like going too fast, and always like to be in control.

The holiday with your PIL sounds dreadful though. Definitely don't go. You'll be on your own in ski school all day, and stuck with the annoying après-ski in the evenings.

I do think it's worth you trying skiing, but with someone who'll be the same level as you, and who you get on well with. I started skiing on a school trip, and had a lot of fun in a group with my friends.

tonymac84 · 23/12/2016 14:53

Never been skiing myself but a few friends go snowboarding twice a year and love it. My sister went for the first time last winter and is itching to go again. Apparently it's best to visit a dry slope to do some practising before you head off anywhere to do the real thing

Mindtrope · 23/12/2016 15:05

Not everyone like skiing though - even those who have tried it.

I have been on two week long skiing trips, a few day trips to slopes and I live near the UKs biggest outdoor dry slope.

Hated all of it.

rookiemere · 23/12/2016 15:10

YANBU OP.

I enjoy skiing as I learnt when I was a teen although seem to be getting worse as I get into my 40s, but DH came for the first time a couple of years ago. It's not a great sport for him as he has a dodgy knee and he wasn't overly keen, but DS took to it very well. We're going again this year, but to a resort where one of DH's friends work and I've told DH he doesn't need to ski if he doesn't want to - I'm just as happy for him to snowshoe with his friend instead which he does enjoy.

It's an expensive holiday to be goaded into if you don't really fancy it. Someone said up-thread that you're unlikely to have change from £1k and that's if you stay somewhere fairly moderate. If PILs want you to holiday at a destination of their choice, carrying out the sport that they want you to do, then they should blinking pay for it.

Not that I'd be going anywhere that involves a dick of the day hat.

Maybe to get them off your back, go for a beginners lesson at an indoor snow dome (I'd avoid dry slopes as they are much worse than the real thing). If you hate it then job done - tell the ILs you've tried it and it's not for you thanks tell them to wear their own Dick hats and leave you out of it, or maybe not, if you do enjoy it then you can rethink the holiday, or go on your own with DH.

MrsMattBomer · 23/12/2016 15:12

I don't blame you. DS1 and DS2 have been skiing with school but I'll never go. Personally I don't want to spend thousands of pounds to crack my head open on a rock, but maybe I'm strange.

MrsMattBomer · 23/12/2016 15:14

And for the record, I can actually ski. My granddad learned during WW2 when he was deployed in Italy and he tought us which is why we all learned how to ski with automatic weapons.

ForalltheSaints · 23/12/2016 15:20

Can you go to a place where you could do your own thing whilst others ski?

TrapDoorInACanoe · 23/12/2016 16:18

Felt so cross reading OP! If there's one thing I cant bear it's being badgered into doing something I don't want to do. If you don't like the idea of ski-ing don't go. Or go and enjoy the scenery, restaurants or shopping while they ski. It's your call, not theirs. Don't be bullied into it.

sparechange · 23/12/2016 17:15

This sums up a few posters on this thread...

To not want to go skiing
MuseumOfCurry · 23/12/2016 17:18

Why not just go and settle yourself into apres ski mode? Book/gluhwein.

You don't have to ski to enjoy a ski holiday.

Original poster
Leanback · 23/12/2016 17:29

GrinGrinGrinGrinGrinGrin

OP posts:
WhereYouLeftIt · 23/12/2016 17:37

Definitely DO NOT GO.

It's not about whether or not you'd enjoy skiing. You might, you might not. But you definitely wouldn't enjoy being with his extended family trying to bully you at every turn, griping at you for not wanting to drink like a fish or wear Dick of the Day hat. Fuck me, but it all sounds really grim.

bunnylove99 · 23/12/2016 17:51

Suck it up and go. I would absolutely love the opportunity of going. I would also love if my DH had a family, especially one who wanted to take me skiing. I have only been skiing 2 x day trips in my life. It was fabulous fun. Even the falling over is fun!

airedailleurs · 23/12/2016 18:00

I would go, have some lessons and give it a try. Even if you don't like the actual skiing, being in the mountains in the snow is awesome as the air is so clear and fresh and you could find another activity like snowshoeing or even cross-country skiing which are less intimidating if you don't enjoy the feeling of going downhill out of control.

rookiemere · 23/12/2016 19:21

bunnylove99 - her DP's family don't want to "take her" skiing. They want OP to use her own cash to fork out on a holiday she doesn't fancy at a destination that she doesn't choose. Incidentally ski resorts that are good for advanced skiiers are rarely those which suit beginners.

Bogeyface · 23/12/2016 19:43

OP your big mistake was mentioning skiing. Your ILs are a perfect example of how people who love it will gush and gush and insist you will love it because they do!

If you had put "AIBU to not want to on hols with the ILs as a couple of them insist on getting totally trashed and humiliating everyone in turn. They are really hard work and wont take no for an answer" and no one would have told you to give it a go because you might like it.......

Ibloodyhatethomasthetankengine · 23/12/2016 19:50

Your call. But I would say they are badgering you because,well, speaking from the heart, for me it is the best holiday ever. Skiing (and believe me, I am no skier!) holidays have always been utterly amazing personally and it's something I'd recommend everyone try. Stay away from the dry slopes as they're shit and nothing in comparison. Skiing holidays have nothing to do with fitness or 'activeness' and everything to do with the beautiful outdoors, and being surrounded by people who just want to enjoy themselves. I'd go every year if we could. Cannot wait to go again. You will never know unless you try ;) xx

BoffinMum · 23/12/2016 20:30

Go, but insist on the best private instructor you can possibly afford, make sure wherever you are going has a pool and spa, and make sure you spend time just chilling' as well as worrying about whether you can ski.

BoffinMum · 23/12/2016 20:31

Quite frankly there is nothing to beat sitting up a lovely mountain in the sunshine, looking out over the trees, with a Gluhwein in hand, breathing the fresh mountain air. I basically ski from bar to bar, me.

cheval · 23/12/2016 22:27

Actually the best week skiing is the first one when you are in a group, none of you have a clue what you're doing. It's very bonding. And a good laugh, also scary at times, which is also good to be pushed out of comfort zone.
Skiing gets boring when it's all the oh yah, I skied backwards off-piste, nearly died jumping off the glacier etc.
But once you master a little blue run and can stop off at a restaurant in the mountains for a hot choc or a mulled wine, it's a good feeling, surrounded by spectacular scenery and lovely fresh air.
The biggest downside to skiing is that it is so ruddy expensive.

cheval · 23/12/2016 22:30

To add, meant to say in a ski school group. Go somewhere where they have English ski schools, such as courchevel. Nightmare if you can't understand instructor and have no fellow newbie soulmates.

Itisnoteasybeingdifferent · 24/12/2016 03:01

I remember in Zell Am Ziller many years ago... We watched a woman get of a chair lift. She fell over straight away and said..

"You see, I knew I wouldn't enjoy it"...

She was detirmined to ruin a holiday by having a negative attitude.

Skiing takes effort on your part. It is physically demanding and you have to balance ina way that is very counter intuitive ... (you have to lean forward into the slope instead of leaning back to the hill). Don't go unless you are prepared to try..

Itisnoteasybeingdifferent · 24/12/2016 03:05

I should add....
Skiing the best fun you can have with clothes on.. It't better than sex insofar as you can ski for seven hours and do it all again the next day..

Itisnoteasybeingdifferent · 24/12/2016 03:18

I have just noticed the OP's username...

Don't lean back is a phrase much heard in ski school. It is what someone who knows how to ski knows what not to do.. In fact it is a term that only applies to skiing, (badly) .... Methinks she is posting to wind up. Off to the nursery slopes for you all day.