For just wishing I didnt have to go to my sisters wedding (whinge warning!)

[tullytwo]

My sister is getting married next summer and it is turning into a complete nightmare to try and get over to it.

I am in NI and she is in cornwall. The flights between the 2 places arent great.

The wedding is on a saturday so we either have to go for 2 weeks or arrive the day before the wedding or move out of rental cottage on morning of the wedding and stay in hotel that night. It was too expensive to pay for 2 weeks rental and I didnt really want to keep the boys out of school for that long so had decided to go over the friday (the day) before the wedding. This still involved getting into bristol at half five and having to drive through to cornwall with 3 kids including dd who will just be 2.

But was just glad to have made a decision and be able to book somewhere before the cottages all went.

So was feeling happy and went on to check out flights between bristol and me and they dont fly on a friday or saturday - aaaaghh! So that now means having to find a hotel in bristol and fly in on a thursday night which means adding another couple of hundred quid to the bill for a hotel and also means we have to leave our rental place a day early so we can get a flight home.

I am now trying to find alternate routes but a lot of airlines understandably dont have their schedules up for next summer yet.

I do feel bad but it is turning into such a stress and we just have no money and the bill keeps mounting - it looks as if we will have to spend @£2k for less than a week in cornwall and we havent had a holiday in 2 or 3 years and this wont really be one - I find my family very hard to be around en masse hence the decision to fly in late.

Am I a miserable old bitch then or justified in finding this all very stressful?!

Travelodge's Family rooms are great; and if you book in advance you can get them for around £49 per night. A super saver room is even less than that

Have you booked your weeks accommodation yet? amily came over from California for our wedding in cornwall which was on a friday and had similar probs to you...they found a lovely holiday let in Cornwall to stay which allowed them to book wednesday to tuesday in sept)they paid I think an additional £70 for this? It was not a particularly cheep place but it was just one location and took the stress and additional expense out of having to leave the day after wedding, or in some cases having to find acc overnight like you.

I can send you the link if you are interested, they have like 4 or 5 places of differing sizes - but it is rural so depends where in cornwall.

Do you have other faily in Cornwall you could stay with?
or does her future husband have any relatives who would put you up?

family

This is a copy of the email sent with details of the place called Treworgey Manor in cornwall -

'Middle Barn has two bedrooms and sleeps 4, the cost would be Wed/Thur 19/20 to Wed/Thur 26/27 £285.00 based on two people sharing. Extra guests are normally charged at £15.00 per person per night.

Coach House which has 4 bedrooms and sleeps 8, the cost would be £360.00, again based on 2 people sharing'

Babies up to the age of two are free (if your LO is a month or two over, they dont actually check so just say two, or alost two?) The link is here

treworgey manor

If you're flying into Bristol you'd be better to get a room at the Travelodge in Bridgwater, you're half way there anyway (airport is 10 miles south of Bristol), and then at least you're heading in the right direction. Or Taunton even.

hi tully- tbh the car journey to NI is an absolute nightmare, but ds1 is severely autistic so there's no alternative., We have almost turned around and gone home half way there before

last time we drve to north wales to stay overnight, (but ds1 wouldnt sleep) then drove to holyhead then dublin belfast the next day Because of the non-sleeping ds1 we did the return journey in one go- but it was hard. If he had slept it would have been easy.

We haven't been for a few years, but next easter we have to get from Devon to the north coast of NI. My parents are travelling in convoy to help us with the ferry (ds3 has arrived since our last trip- he's almost 3).

Breaking the journey overnight its fine, our problem really is trying to do that with ds1.

Could you not travel to Birmingham or London? Both would put an extra 2 hours ontop the Journey, but it would possibly mean a better connections, and the right dates, etc...

Tully - have you spoken to your sister or mum about it? Can they not help with the cost?

tully - I utterly sympathise. I only have one dc but my dh is disabled, so travelling is just the most mammoth nightmare from hell that you can imagine.

I think if you can manage it, you should just go on your own to the wedding itself, and then fly home. A massively long day (or overnight stay) compared to massive upheaval for your family. Either that or level with your sister already. I know from painful experience that childfree friends have no idea how difficult it is to travel with children/dependents. To the point where my friend who is a single mum to a ds (nearly 3) said "well I manage to travel around Europe with ds, what's the problem? [thinks for a moment]Oh. You have a husband in a wheelchair". Erm, yes. That's kinda it.

I feel sooooo frustrated that my friends don't understand. I now genuinely feel it's better to set expectations at the level of "we cannot do this" and see what happens.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

Thinking about the tortuous nature of your journey, could you either turn it into your annual holiday or leave the children with rellies? DD will be 2, I think you said?

BTW- any family events in NI - deaths, christenings etc dh goes and I stay at home because it is so difficult to get the kids across. We did do a wedding a few years ago, but only had ds1 who wasn't autistic then (that'll ruffle a few feathers but he wasn't).

Do check out Exeter airport as well though- cuts the drive considerably.

Tully, are there any other family members travelling from NI?

Or are there any other family mebers going that may be willing to share the cost of a rented house for a week?

I'm in NI too, wouldn't fancy doing the drive to Dublin before a ferry journey!

he dublin drive is OK tbh- the roads are pretty empty. It's the other end - from north Wales to Cornwall that's dreadful.

I wouldn't worry yet - does anyone know when the summer timetables come out? If you can find this out then book a flight as soon as they are available. Flybe go from Belfast to Exeter daily at the moment HERE could you ring and ask when the new timetables come out.

Aye, now there's a new road from the other side of Newry to dublin.. I've not been on it though! It's supposed to take up to an hour off the journey.

they usually release timetables for the summer in the New Year.

last time I drove long distance with dh & dcs the youngest who was nearly 2 stayed awake the whole way and cried/moaned/complained for 4 hours solid the only good thing was that is by far the fatest/clearest I have EVER done that drive in 10 years of doing it. DH doesn't drive and I truly had raw nerves at the end. I really would consider not going if it were me.

Whereabouts in C'wall is the wedding? If you fly to Bristol you've still got a long drive (depending on where in C'wall, but probably at least 3 hours). I'd be tempted to wait for the Newquay flights, which will reduce the driving and cut out the need for a hotel room. Having said that, we've done long car journeys with our dds since birth (I am in W. Yorks and my family is near St Ives) and they are fine. We drove to Italy when dd2 was 2 and she was OK. An in-car DVD system is the best thing we've ever bought in that respect! C'wall in June is beautiful, so would be a shame if you couldn't make a holiday out of it.