Group holidays - yay or nay?

[Findmysocks]

My Dh and his friends are wanting to go on a big group holiday. We all have kids near enough around the same ages and apparently it's going to be great all staying in the same villa. It will be 4/5 families in this villa.

My Dh was all excited when he told me about this the other night, then disappointed I didn't share his enthusiasm. Now he's pissed off and won't even talk about it. He'd messaged his friends telling them I thought it was a bad idea, I wanted a villa for ourselves and was worried that the kids wouldn't get along. Fair enough things I all said but I wasn't expecting my Dh to tell them that.

For me it sounds like a complete nightmare and my anxiety levels shot up at the thought. We don't see his friends very often, maybe once or twice a year at weddings or the occasional birthday. It doesn't sound relaxing to me, I like my space and feel claustrophobic being around large groups for long periods of time. I even get stressed out having family over for birthdays.

Please be honest and tell me if I'm overreacting and give me your stories, good or bad!

I couldn't I'm not overly social and my anxiety at sharing accommodation would go through the roof. It would be a blunt no from the start but my DH would know that.

Your H has been a prick about this. Springing it on you, sulking, blaming you to the entire friendship group?!

This is the sort of thing that needs discussion and careful planning for it to work. Sounds like your H is unable to do that.

And your anxiety is not to blame for this - your concerns and feelings are perfectly reasonable.

No no no no no.
We did exactly this in May (4 close friend couples plus all the kids) and have still not all got back on speaking terms.
Please don't- however close or similar you think you are, you are not!

We live outside the UK and have had visitors roughly 5 times a year since we arrived.

What we have learnt is that parenting styles make the most difference to how the visit goes. Everything else is kind of manageable.

So if they are strict with their kids and you are the kind of family who expects the world to stop while your ten year old has a tantrum it’s not going to go well (and vice versa).

You can be brilliant friends but nightmare house mates.

I do it every year with my friends but just for a weekend. It’s amazing! I’d love to go abroad with them all (20 adults and 9 children). We all arrange food in advance and it works brilliantly. I’ve also been away with extended family and again, I had a great time.

If I were you I’d be annoyed with my husband for telling his friends what I’d said but you could have discussed it before dismissing it.

Actually why not suggest what rach does? Suggest a weekend all together and see how it goes?

Sometimes we wish say friend A parents (ex army super strict docile well behaved kids) would spend a few months parenting friend B's kids (no disciplined nightmares). Sort of like parent swap. Would sort out a few behaviour issues

I'd like a group holiday with family or friends but not in a villa. I'd prefer to go all inclusive for a week and just all go to the same place at the same time. Or, like a PP suggested, do apartments in the same complex instead.

I think separate apartments in the same complex could be a v good compromise

4/5 families is a lot !
We’ve done it with 3 families and the important thing is to have enough space- you’d need a mahoosive villa for that number.

Separate accommodation and shared pool could work well. Nice for DCs to have company but for everyone to have their own space.

Oh and it never appears to be the DHs sorting out the DCs or making the dinner or emptying the dishwasher ( this is imho- doubtless all other DHs on Mumsnet are more emancipated than mine). These are the things that cause issues so if you aren’t doing them you can’t see any problems

Sounds like hell to me. We have been on one couples trip to NY, and I found it too much, even though we were in a hotel and doing our own thing in the evenings. If it was a villa 24/7 I’d hate it

My idea of hell I’m afraid, the rest of my family all go away together but we (DH, DS & I) don’t go.

I love them all dearly but holiday time (for us) is to get away from everything & everybody.

I’m sure it’s fine if you like that sort of thing.

It obviously depends what you're like, I guess. I'm a very private person, and I have to own space, even from my own dd and dp, so I wouldn't suit me.
However I can definitely see the appeal if you're sociable.

The villa would have to have oodles of loos and showers. En suite aswell thank you, as a minimum. Can you imagine two or three bathrooms for you all to share. OMG.

Sounds a bit keys in the ashtray for me anyway.

Exactly, it's things like not being able to have a shit in peace.

We do a family gathering every year with my in laws. One weekend is quite long enough. I enjoy this but my husband finds it awful. We normally stay all together but this year we are staying away from the rest so that we can have much needed space.

We did it once 20 years ago and it was a disaster. We've also done it eight more times with different friends and it's fantastic. It completely depends on your personalities and similarities.

We did it but in an aparthotel, three families with 5 kids between us. It was fab. We did however decide before we went that we'd all do our own thing on the two weekends that happened during our stay and that worked really well. In fact we never saw one family from the Friday lunchtime until we met up again by the pool on the Monday.
It was great for our only DD, she still talks about the Algarve holiday.

Deffo separate apartments. I couldn’t do that group thing with other people’s kids noises etc sounds like stress not holiday

Done this twice. Didn't go well on either occasion

I’d love it... the more the merrier! My DH would hate it. He’s an introvert and would find the continual interaction and noise exhausting. He’d need another holiday to recuperate from the group one!

Separate apartments shared pool is the way forward. Then IF you end up living in each others pockets even though you don't have to then you'll know maybe a shared villa next time.

I think DH was being spiteful texting you didn't want to do it because he was disappointed. He needs to apologise and put that right.

The only group family hols we do is with our young kids, our adult kids and the adult kids boyfriends. It's a great laugh. I've been avoiding a holiday with the Inlaws for years

Thanks everyone for your help. Had a chat with Dh tonight and he apologised. We've talked about it more in depth and at the minute the destination isn't affordable for us. He did eventually agreed with me on separate accommodation.

It's a hare-brained idea unless there's separate accommodation or the villa is a former castle. I like how my friend's father puts it, about sharing close accommodation, 'I can barely stand to share with myself!'

I think ours worked as the villa was actually 3 self contained apartments. There were four families, 10 teens, so two families shared an apt and the others had one each.

Massive pool and outdoor cooking area and BBQ. Had a kitty for all expenditure, everyone mucked in with cooking, clearing up and we also ate out a bit. There were a couple of minor pissed rows but generally it was a fabulous holiday and I'd do it again. But not unless you're used to spending time together. We had all camped a lot before this holiday.