Not sure I want to put myself through this again AIBU?

[Countryescape]

I’ll try to keep it brief. Two years ago my parents organised and paid for an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii for my family (me, DH and two kids, my single Brother and my other brother, SIL and their two kids.

To be honest the location was amazing, but in the end we had to just make the best of it because my SIL made it unbearable. We all had to dance to her tune, she was so rude/uptight and it ruined the holiday for me as most of it seemed to be directed at me and my mum. Things she did were:

• refused to go for a walk or spa treatment or lunch with me and my mum the entire trip due to a million different ridiculous reasons.
• Dictated our eating time so we had to eat dinner at 5pm (and start preparing at 4.30pm) EVERY SINGLE NiGHT!
• Never wanted her kids to hang out with ours (too tired, need a snack, don’t like x,y,z)
• Turned down our offers to babysit so her and my brother could enjoy a night out.
• Didn’t come to the animal safari *Didnt come to the waterpark
• Didn’t come to the beach *Didnt want the kids to all have a spa together. *Rudely refused an ice cream for her kids after we had been out in the heat all day

Honestly I could go on and on.

I made such an effort to be nice, kind, accomodating and I’ve never experienced such rudeness. And she was very rude to my mum which was worse.

No one said anything at the time as it would have been even more awkward but now my dad is making noises about a group holiday again.

I will go but feel we need to lay down some ground rules as in “we are not pandering to SILs every whim!”

What do you all think?

Your entire family clearly ooze dislike and judgment at her, no wonder she keeps away. I don't believe for a second that she wanted to eat with you and "threw a strop" to make sure you ate early with her. All she wanted was to eat early - likely without you. It's highly likely your brother forced her to go on this holiday, so all the nonsense of her ingratitude and what a treat this holiday was... ... a bad memory and a big relationship red flag (which likely strained her marriage) is all it was to her.

Leave her alone and stop scapegoating her.

I 'get' what you're saying in your last post, CountryEscape.
A rather awkward situation for you all but the answer is -

Don't do it again or else have somewhere in which each family unit can be independent of the others. Not difficult,

Hope you have good Christmas. I can't believe it's tomorrow! I'm really hope I won't start panicking when I wake up later for the second time :-).

Well, you can't change her, you can only change you. Either she comes on the holiday and you should assume she will behave like this again, so work around it as best you can - perhaps separate accommodation and you don't see her much, or your parents don't invite her at all on the holiday. Bliss!

You should acknowledge the holiday with 'someone else's family' might not be her thing or she may suffer through it for whatever reason. You might have to accept that the cousins will not have the perfect opportunity to bond. Not much you can do about that by the sound of it.

I can see how frustrating it is but you will be fighting the tide trying to make her something she is not.

Sounds like a rude, self obsessed control freak, ive got a SIL like that. My brother is too weak to do anything about it.

Ive been NC with both due to an incident 2 years ago.

Op so your SIL insisted you all join her for dinner but she didn't join in activities. If she's keen to eat with you, that doesn't suggest she was trying to avoid you. If you want cousins to spend time together, a mealtime is a good opportunity.

The rudeness is awful but I wonder if your brother insisted she go despite her not wanting to?

Group holidays are hard. I've gone twice with SIL and her family. Never again. They are fine in small doses but MIL gets all silly and annoying if all the grandkids are there. And wants to do stuff that puts DS out of routine which I then had to deal with the consequences of.

So I'd tell your Dad not to do a whole family holiday, but go separately with DB and you if that's what they want.

You and your DM sound lovely

Why do people persist with posting stuff like this? It's been written entirely from the OP's perspective so, of course, she and her mum will "sound lovely".
If the SIL was to start an AIBU about the exact same scenario, she too would sound lovely, surely? And the MiL and SIL (OP) would be painted as ogres, she'd be advised to go LC and told she has a DH problem etc.