AIBU to think stepmum may be sabotaging holiday?

[VirginHoliday]

Apologies in advance for the lengthy post, I want to give a full picture.

DSM and DF organised a family holiday a few years back for DSis, DBil and their two DC. It turned out not to be very child suitable and the DC weren't on their best behaviour as a result (often bored and couldn't walk miles in the hot sun like DSM had organised). Huge waste of money and a lot of resentment from both sides after the holiday. DSM has never really liked children so DSis feels she booked that holiday knowing it would be shit for kids.

So now it's DH and my turn for the family holiday with DF and DSM. DF wanted to go to Barcelona as it's a landmark birthday for him and his choice. DSM hates Spain but agreed to go.
DH and I have never been out of the country, especially not with our 3 DC so agreed for them to sort it and we would pay providing of course that it would be family suitable (should go without saying!) We got a loan and transferred our money.

DSM asked when my DH's holiday time was (he works teacher hours so has set holidays) and we gave them a decent 4 week period to choose from within their dates.

They picked the week DH was back at work instead. And booked it before telling us. DH has had to use his only free days of the year. Fucking great.

Now I've found out exactly where we are booked. I really can't see it working at all. It's a lavish, upscale apartment smack bang in the city centre, nowhere near a beach, surrounded by a 4 lane road, nothing but very fancy restaurants and even a Louis Vuitton store. It is self catering and not a swimming pool in sight. We, unlike DF these days, are poor working class Northerners making do shopping in Lidl and Aldi and I can't see us enjoying this at all. It's a really upmarket area!

My kids are pretty great behaviour wise but I can't imagine their wont be bored to tears.

Please, please, someone, tell me Barcelona is actually a hidden gem for Primary aged children holidaying and despite what it looks like, we're going to have affordable fun.
If not DSM will get to bitch about how terrible my kids are along with DSis's. I just want to cancel the whole damn thing and book a proper family holiday but our money is gone now.

I took 50 odd kids there on a school trip.
They were a bit older (between 12-15) but they had a good time.
We did park Guell, Sagrada familia, tour of the stadium, beach, port aventura theme park. Get your kids to do a market challenge - give them 15 euro between them, take them to the market and tell them they have to buy lunch for all of you.

Barcelona is amazing, the Gaudi architecture alone is worth seeing, it's so weird and cool (just Google it!) - get a free tourist map and get kids to try and find it as an excuse to walk/get around the city. Yes watch out for the pickpockets - they cluster around the tourist spots, they try to talk to you and employ distraction techniques with large maps, clipboards etc. We used a neck pocket to hold cash that you can keep under your shirt. Hope you all have a good time.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Barcelona and it can be very child friendly, but you will get pickpocketed so it’s best to just accept it’s going to happen and not take anything you don’t want to lose.

My top tips would be don’t dress like a tourist, Spanish people tend to dress a bit more smartly than Brits or Americans but if your walking around in your cargo shorts, white socks pulled up and sandals then your going to be like a pickpocket magnet. Avoid Las Ramblas - it’s basically just a very busy street and that’s where most of the pickpockets are.

Food is really cheap in Barcelona you should be able to get a 3 course meal including a drink for under 15€ each and there are cheap supermarkets in the city centre.

If you want a beach consider going out of the city to Castelldefels or Ocata as they’ll be less busy than Barceloneta.

Love Barcelona and Madrid. Spanish cities are very kid friendly. Actually, they’re all age friendly and have facilities for toddlers up to pensioners.

OP says her husband works 'teacher's hours', not that he's a teacher. If he's support staff in a school he may well work some of the holiday for a week off in lieu, and that's his 'free week'. I'd expect SM booked that week because it was in term time and therefore cheaper, nowhere does she say it's actually during the summer holidays.

Are you having to take your children out of school for this holiday, OP? If so, I expect SM did what a lot of child free adults do, looked at the prices during school holidays versus just outside them, and booked a cheaper week without even thinking of the kids/your DH.

I don't understand about the 'free days' thing either.

You'll be fine in Barcelona with primary aged kids. The beach is literally 10 mins from the city centre on the metro. Park Guell is great (book in advance) and as others have said, the Barca FC Tour, Olympic park visit by cable car and Port Aventura trips are worth a go.

However, if you don't want to go I'd say your DH can't get the time off work and don't go. You gave them the dates you could make and they chose to ignore. (Sounds like a deliberate ploy on DSM's part so you don't go.) All in all, a can of worms. What to do in Barcelona for kids is the least of your problems with this trip!

Zaphod, x-posted with you. So that's another reason either to not go, or they'll have to fork out the fines as well?

I know I wouldn't want my DC to miss the first week of school or even a few days, when everyone's settling in. Also the OP's eldest will be starting a new school.

There’s a lot to do in Barcelona, there’s also an aquarium, beach, lovely park, the lights etc... I wouldn’t worry!

The date thing is ridiculous and they should have asked you first.

As to the suitability of the accommodation, if you are the pickier guests (which you are) then you should have booked it. You’re comfortable enough with the internet to browse mumsnet, and there’s a first time for everything. You could have asked for advice on Barcelona hotels or apartments here on MN or just read reviews. Finding accommodation and trying to read your mind re what is best for kids must have taken your in laws a long time. Hotels with pools in central Barcelona are difficult to find - did you want a resort holiday or a city break?

YANBU I would have been out the moment they chose dates that weren't within the four-week period we'd said we were free. Your OH is a teacher, of course he has restricted dates. They probably wanted to book outside school time.

I would have said "oh, sorry we can't do those dates. I guess we'll have to have separate holidays afterall."

But hopefully Barcelona will be as awesome as posters are promising.

Barcelona has a fantastic zoo. La Sagrada Familia is jawdroppingly beautiful and has a good museum underneath. La Pedrada was my next favourite Gaudi building although the bit up on the roof was a bit scary, I'm very nervous of heights. The self guided tour was excellent. Parc Guell is lovely. The central portion is ticket only, although I believe there are free days - Sundays? These may be for locals only, or only outside peak season. You should book the main attractions in advance, the cruise ships tend to block book swathes of tickets to fit in with their stops and shore excursions. Public transport is fast and fairly cheap, you can buy tickets in packs of ten. There is a railway line all along the coast from the north to the south, literally on the beach all the way.

If I were your DH I would be fairly annoyed with this situation and not with DSM particularly - but with you. If anyone has sabotaged the family holiday it's you. You chose to take out a loan for a holiday which is absolute madness in any event, to go away with people that you know have a different holiday agenda to you.

Barcelona had already been discussed and chosen as the venue as per your OP - so why are you surprised that they booked an apartment in Barcelona - as per what you had originally discussed? I would imagine a hotel in the centre with a pool would be prohibitively expensive - plus did you even stipulate that child-friendly meant you needed a pool ? DSM hasn't got DCs so she may have thought that S/C is what you meant by child friendly.

You gave dates - she chose to book outside of those dates - at that point you needed to kick up a fuss and say that as your DCs go to school and your DH is a teacher, those dates do not work.

I know it's poo-pooed on Mumsnet, but personally I feel if a parent wants their adult DCs and DGCs to come on holiday with them for a special occasion, then they should foot the bill - otherwise it is a communal holiday where everyone gets to decide the location and the dates.

Barcelona had already been discussed and chosen as the venue as per your OP - so why are you surprised that they booked an apartment in Barcelona - as per what you had originally discussed? I would imagine a hotel in the centre with a pool would be prohibitively expensive - plus did you even stipulate that child-friendly meant you needed a pool ? DSM hasn't got DCs so she may have thought that S/C is what you meant by child friendly.

I never understand these threads where people are passive enough to let other people take care of all the decisions and booking, but then complain about it.

I understand it's DF's special birthday and therefore he had the final say or DSM did, especially since they are paying, but surely you could have requested they sent you links to suggested accommodation etc before booking? I've never been on a family holiday where one set of people gets all the money sent over and goes off and books something without giving anyone ANY details beforehand. I appreciate you said you made requests, but it's so odd to me that you just left it at that and hoped for the best? Even if it's a special birthday, the birthday couple should surely appreciate that other people will be keen to have some say in where they spend their holiday. The mind boggles.

Having said that, hopefully you've learned from this and next time (if there is a next time!) you'll put your foot down.

As many have said, Barcelona is a great city and there is so much to do, so much of it easily walkable. The beach, ice-creams, parks, all great. There are water parks and theme parks.
Another vote for the fountains, I went when I was in my twenties and loved it! Really different and a nice way to spend a chilled evening.

I also second going on the tripadvisor forums, there's so much info on there from people who live there, they can probably help you draw up an itinerary of activities so you don't get bored. As many others have said, it's incredibly child friendly, nearly all eateries, cafes, restaurants and bars are more than happy to have children there.

Hope you enjoy it OP - is it coming up soon? Do make sure you have passports - I think there's currently already an 8 week wait unless you pay to express them

Too late now, I know....but why didn't you all meet up first and discuss the kind of holiday you and your DC would prefer. Obviously, you'd have been prepared to compr little, but in my experience, all kids want on hols, is a beach, a pool and somewhere to eat at night!

You had ample warning from your sil's experience that they're not good at booking holidays. You let them take charge. Why the fuck didn't you just agree dates and book your own accommodation? They can have the swanky apartment, you the beach hotel/campsite and meet up for day trips. In future you need to grow up and take charge yourselves, agree your boundaries.

I never understand these threads where people are passive enough to let other people take care of all the decisions and booking, but then complain about it.

To be fair, I can see how it happens. It's happened in our family. DH's sister and her DH don't travel. Ever. Their comfort zone is about 3 miles from home and never go on holiday in the UK, let alone go abroad. Parents in law travel quite a bit. A few years ago FIL decided they'd all go on holiday together and they discussed what they wanted as a group and SIL thought she had made herself fairly clear - but as someone who's never been to Devon never mind Tenerife, she had no concept at all of what was available, what was realistic, what was achievable in their budget, the weather, food - anything in fact. She was completely out of her comfort zone and for her it was like a trip to the moon - she didn't know where to even start looking and planning.

So PILs booked the whole thing in a hotel which was part of a chain they'd been to before and liked. SIL and her DH had a decent enough time - but again, they had nothing to compare it to. They did complain there wasn't much to do for the kids, but didn't know what was realistic to expect.

Next year PILs asked us to go away with them. We said no.

Barcelona is great and there will be plenty to do.

You really should work on no being a pushover. What you actually should do now: 'DSM, we told you which dates were suitable. The ones you booked won't work for us. You have to cancel our trip and re-fund our money. Hope this does not leave you out of pocket'

Why it is your turn? You don't have to organise a holiday, just say you can't afford it and organise a day trip for this year instead.

Think about this -

WHY are you don't this and what would the consequences be if you refuse?

DSM has never really liked children so DSis feels she booked that holiday knowing it would be shit for kids.

sorry to go back to the OP but this really leaped out at me. There's a difference between someone with no experience of childrearing booking a holiday that's not ideal for small kids, out of lack of experience; and an adult deliberately booking a holiday that she knows will be miserable for them. Unless your SM is Cruella de Vil surely she's in the former group - the fact that she's booked and organised a family holiday in a country she 'hates' because your DF wants to go there suggests she's trying to compromise, whereas you've already decided she's planned all this to cause maximum stress for you, that she's going to 'bitch about how terrible your kids are' and spend her time spending money in the boutiques.

If you dislike her this much, then it's hard to see how an all-inclusive fortnight in Disneyland Florida would be any fun. You had a great chance to tell her it was impossible when she booked it outside the weeks you gave her - no chance you can try that one again? Could her travel insurance cover your cancellation?

Well you don't have to be joined at the hip. There are many ways of making sure everyone gets to do something they enjoy, including taking turns to choose an activity, or have quiet time.
Often best not to spend too much time together, perhaps just eat all together, you can cook if it suits you, they can buy dinner if it suits them. Or split into different groups on different days.

Barcelona is an amazing city with so much to do for kids. Honestly, you'll love it.

A beachfront all inclusive hotel I'm pretty sure isn't an option in Barcelona. Most of their beachfront hotels are mega bucks and probably not 'all inclusive' style so it sounds like an apartment is a great shout.

“I did ask why they'd bothered to ask us when we could go when they would just ignore it.”

And what was the reply?!

There's a fallacy that kids need Butlins by the sea type all inclusive resorts. Nonsense. Let them experience a different culture, families are more than welcome in Spanish restaurants etc, the metro is fab, Barcelona is beautiful the kids will love the 'dancing fountains' , the parks, we went to Barcelona when I was six, it is still a really strong positive memory for me. I remember having a book with blank spaces for things to look out for and draw, loving the museums, parks and the beach and we took a trip out to Salou, dad drove the was a huge beach there with a funfair next to it and not far from there is porta Ventura theme park (unfortunately now owned by universal) , we also drove up through the mountains to Andorra and stopped to swim in a reservoir on the way. My parents are working class often worked 60 hour weeks or multiple jobs, but holidays like that are the reason I love to travel. Dumping the kids in a kids club and laying by the pool wasn't their idea of a holiday and luckily it's not DHs either, he often went away with GPs on similar trips as a kid (Rome, Athens etc, his gran was a history teacher) as his mum and dad were also working long hours for low pay. Enjoy it, it'll be fabulous.