Last weekend, my DH and I stayed for three nights at my SIL's and her DH's house, who live in another country. About a month in advance, we asked her if it would be fine for us to stay, since we wanted to visit them -last time we saw each other was in summer-, to which she said yes.
Let's say that we did not quite feel, well... hospitality, precisely. The day of our arrival -on Friday night, 8pm-ish-, we were supposed to meet at a train station to go together with them to their house (which we had never been to, since they moved a couple of months ago). We let them know beforehand the time we were arriving, we messaged them when our plane landed, and even when our train was on the way to the station. They just did not show up. We called them letting them know that we had arrived, and they said they were still home! They did not just arrive from work, but were there - we don't know what. So instead of waiting all the way for them to arrive -25-30 minutes-, we just compromise to meet them at half the way.
Then, when we arrived at their house (at around late 9 pm), they did not offer us anything to eat or even snack. There was not any dinner or snacks prepared, so we all order take away. They had not had dinner themselves either, waiting for us to have dinner together.
Right after ordering, my SIL says that 'ours' is 'x' pounds so that we pay her the cost of our meal, which we do immediately and do nothing else that night but smile and talk to them. We ended up having dinner at 11pm.
Of course, we had brought with us some gifts for them -things we knew they liked-, and gave them upon our arrival. We were also more than willing -or would have been, if things would have been different- to contribute with the costs of our stay and invite them for some meals and/or buy groceries, but were just not expecting that reaction precisely on the night of our arrival, which was quite shocking tbh.
During the rest of our stay, they provided for breakfasts -consisting of cereals with milk or yoghurt, fruit and coffee or tea-, and an occasional drink -twice- at their house, but nothing else. They did not cook once - which is fine for me-, and all meals were out or takeaways, but we were expected to pay for absolutely every meal apart from breakfast, and they did not invite us even once, not even to a coffee or tea while we were out in the city with them.
In fact, they were so tight that they expected each person the bear the exact cost of what they had ordered, they did not just divide the bill (even when what we all had ordered was pretty similar in cost). This happened with coffee, too.
During all our stay, we cleaned our dishes and what we used for breakfast and/or for the takeaways without being asked for, and we offered our help whenever we could (to clean the dishes, set the table or even prepare a coffee for them at breakfast, since they always woke up later than we did!).
The morning we left, we woke up to be ready to leave the house at the same time they did, since they did not have the day off and had to go to work, and we did not want to be an inconvenience for them.
I would love to say that our stay was lovely, but that attitude left us quite cold. We tried to ignore it the first day, but then it just repeated during all our stay, so we did not bother to invite them for dinner or coffee either, feeling quite annoyed.
Is it just us, or is this really an absolute lack of hospitality? If they had stayed at our house, I know we would have made sure that dinner was ready when they arrived, and would have been waiting for them at the train station upon their arrival (not to mention that we would have invited them to all of the meals at our house, or some of them if dinner or lunch was out, in addition to buying some snacks and/or things for them).
Financially, they currently do better than we do, since SIL has a very good job and my DH is unemployed at the moment, but there is usually not a big difference between us.
What do you think?? Last night I messaged SIL thanking her for 'our stay', and offering them to stay at our house anytime, but did not feel right thanking her for their 'hospitality', since we felt there was NONE.
Am I being over-criticising? Do you believe that they are aware that they were not hospitable? What would you do?