To think family days out are mis-sold and wish to complain?

[JustAnotherManicMunchie]

Planned a lovely day out yesterday for my DC aged 10, 9 and 3 months. DC1 has ASD so takes some encouragement to get out of the house.

I spent ages planning and packing a picnic and headed off backpack in hand with visions of sunshine and the DC and I skipping through the meadows…

The reality was the DC bickered all the way to the venue, by the time we got there, DC1 was in a mood and dragging his sorry face along the ground ….

DC2 was fed up of DC1 and his endless rules.

Picked the baby up out of her car seat to find she’d had an explosive nappy all over her car seat . Cleaned up the baby whilst simultaneously trying to stop WW3 breaking out between the older two.

We carried on with our day and thought never mind, even Mary Poppins herself has blips … we can still skip in the meadows hand in hand al la perfect family style ….

We get to the playground at the venue and the DC are still bickering; before I can get to them , DC1 wallops DC2 under the wooden bridge like a troll clubbing the Billy Goats . The pair of them scrapping whilst the world looks on like they’re at a paid for title fight.

So embarrassed, I hauled them out of the park and we went for a walk. I’d paid £35 to get in, we were not leaving until we had at least some fake happy family photos ….

DC2 then tripped over a tree and skinned his knees , cue screaming like an injured wild animal. We left.

Today …. Is another day I thought…. Again , bundled them in the car and I promised myself today would be better and true family day out.

Twenty minutes in to the journey, I was screeching like a deranged lunatic over the pair of them ducking fighting and arguing again. I told them they were ruining family days out and I was so sick of their selfish bickering. I really lost my shit and told them they were making family life miserable and I wanted to go home and forget the day out ….

We went on to the seaside and had a fabulous time … before getting in the car and enduring a meltdown for the whole journey home.

I think I’ve been mis sold family days out and I’d like a refund on all the family days out we’ve ever had which follow the exact same pattern ….

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

AIBU ?

We had the exact same day out last weekend, so glad to know it's not only my kids, it was argument after argument! My youngest had a face on her all day, like he was being forced to join us! Awful day out!

Today we drove to the beach, paid for parking, started to unload the van, DS1 started being such a bastard to DS2 that I told him to load everything back in the van again and drove home. That is all.

@crackofdoom

@JustAnotherManicMunchie I can entirely relate.
I love the idea and ideal of taking mine out but it is an absolute nightmare. The squabbling in the car, last word'itis and then the lack of wanting to do anything that's actually included in the day when we get there!
I too find myself attempting to channel the inner Mary Poppins and occasionally channeling the gran from Little Britain "what a fucking Liberty"

@Progress2019 - just brilliant. I’m trying to laugh quietly so I don’t wake DH. The bed is shaking I’m laughing so much. Thank you, I really needed to laugh.

Oh so it is normal then I guess.

We usually have tears before we've even set off.

@MattDillonsEyebrows my strong recommendation is sandwiches or picnic bits from the M&S at Southbank Place near Waterloo and eating next to the playground by the Eye (Jubilee Gardens). I've tried eating near there with a child of that age and the only time it hasn't been an expensive waste of time has been Ned's Noodles on Belvedere Road, which is as basic as it gets.

My favourite one was teaching DS how to ski. On day 2 (or 3?) of the holiday we took him on an ambitiously long green run (maybe 2km, but nearly all pretty flat). Most of the way down he was crying and saying he couldn’t do it, lying on the snow, needing me to guide him along etc. It took about 3 hours.

When we got to the end I collapsed on the ground, utterly drained. He wanted to go up again! Unfortunately the lift was closing so we went back to the hotel —bar— instead

Slightly different, OP but I've been thinking this holiday about how much parents will put up with in terms of crapness from the provider. We've gone to a couple of things that were advertised as summer holiday 'events'. One was a 'football skills day' at a farm park. It was £18. When we arrived we were told our slot was from 11:30 to 12 (so 30 minutes, not a day then?). It turned out to just be a bloke in shorts playing music on his phone and letting kids run riot around him trying to score goals against each other. (the same place offered trailer rides that weren't a pleasant bumble around the farm grounds, but an insane bloke driving a tractor through the car park and over a heap of gravel to make the trailer tip up and then doing it in reverse). Everyone else seemed happy apart from me, though!
The second was an arts and crafts session at a wildlife walk which was comprised of one woman, a tub of bubbles, some balloons and four old cereal boxes. Luckily, DD likes bubbles.
I feel like places are desperate to make money while spending the bare minimum outlay (understandable in covid times) but also that people are so desperate to get out of the house they'll pay for any old shite.

Wait until they are teenagers they are either looking at phone, have a face like a baboons arse or are staaarrrvvving. I then sit and listen to them regaling tails of our idyllic days out to GPS, their mates etc. I dint know if its me or them that has slipped into a parallel universe but I'll probably keep dragging the round interesting places for the next few years regardless 😂

We should definitely take a class action lawsuit. Maybe get the thread moved over to legal?

I want a refund on the "nice card games" that I tried to play with my kids. Thought we'd have some quality family time playing dobble and Uno. Was ready to kill the little fuckers by the end.

Oh and then some Fu££er posts on SM about only having 18 summers what are you doing to make this one count? Erm making sure they make it to 18 summers!!!!!

My DSS has been on holiday with us many times. His favourite memories are: being bitten by a donkey, picking up a dutch fiddle playing hitchhiker, witnessing a tram accident and not being able to get decent bacon.
I just hope he tells his mother some of the things we actually did!

I plugged all mine into devices with headphones 😲

@Progress2019

Mine are grown up now, but I remember taking them up to London on the train one day, for a wonderful trip involving the zoo, natural history museum, meeting my brother for lunch, ending with a trip to Hamleys with money my parents gave me.

I thought it went well

At parents evening I got to look through younger daughters school work, I think she was about 7. It wasn’t quite the glowing account of ‘what I did at half term’ I was expecting. Just these words - My mummy made us go to London to stroke a beggars dog.

A beggar?? It wasn’t Dickensian London. It was a busker with a dog wearing a hanky around his neck.

This killed me. I’m sitting here laughing my butt off trying not to wake my little darlings

@JustAnotherManicMunchie

Planned a lovely day out yesterday for my DC aged 10, 9 and 3 months. DC1 has ASD so takes some encouragement to get out of the house.

I spent ages planning and packing a picnic and headed off backpack in hand with visions of sunshine and the DC and I skipping through the meadows…

The reality was the DC bickered all the way to the venue, by the time we got there, DC1 was in a mood and dragging his sorry face along the ground ….

DC2 was fed up of DC1 and his endless rules.

Picked the baby up out of her car seat to find she’d had an explosive nappy all over her car seat . Cleaned up the baby whilst simultaneously trying to stop WW3 breaking out between the older two.

We carried on with our day and thought never mind, even Mary Poppins herself has blips … we can still skip in the meadows hand in hand al la perfect family style ….

We get to the playground at the venue and the DC are still bickering; before I can get to them , DC1 wallops DC2 under the wooden bridge like a troll clubbing the Billy Goats . The pair of them scrapping whilst the world looks on like they’re at a paid for title fight.

So embarrassed, I hauled them out of the park and we went for a walk. I’d paid £35 to get in, we were not leaving until we had at least some fake happy family photos ….

DC2 then tripped over a tree and skinned his knees , cue screaming like an injured wild animal. We left.

Today …. Is another day I thought…. Again , bundled them in the car and I promised myself today would be better and true family day out.

Twenty minutes in to the journey, I was screeching like a deranged lunatic over the pair of them ducking fighting and arguing again. I told them they were ruining family days out and I was so sick of their selfish bickering. I really lost my shit and told them they were making family life miserable and I wanted to go home and forget the day out ….

We went on to the seaside and had a fabulous time … before getting in the car and enduring a meltdown for the whole journey home.

I think I’ve been mis sold family days out and I’d like a refund on all the family days out we’ve ever had which follow the exact same pattern ….

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

AIBU ?

I've found my people

We were on holiday in France with my sisters family. We decided to surprise the kids with a trip to Disneyland Paris. We set off for a two hour car journey early morning telling the kids we have a great surprise for them. 10 mins in nephew pukes all over DD, DD is hysterical and vows
to never speak to him ever again. Find a service station, clean up kids and car and set off again. 10
mins later DD pukes on herself, another service station stop. We get lost, cat stinks of puke, kids are cranky and demanding to know where are we going every two minutes. We get there 3 hours later, everyone is hot, hungry and cranky … SURPRISE we’re at Disneyland. DD is so overwhelmed she burst out crying and continued to cry for a good hour as there’s just too much to see. It was a shite day the kids didn’t particularly enjoy themselves and I vowed to never ever step inside a Disneyland ever again.

Then there was the time we surprised DD with a weekend trip to Spain, we pull up at the
Airport SURPRISE we’re going to Spain for the weekend. DD bursts out crying as she wanted to go to the pound shop. FUCK MY LIFE.

I'm waiting for the smug people to turn up and say their family days out are never like this and that you are doing it all wrong.

it's not really smugness, it's more than days out are the days when kids are too occupied and distracted to bicker and complain, that's the whole point.

@NoddyMcdoddy

Pound shop. Lol. My sons the same.

We've done all manner of exciting days out with DS. He's an only child so we've felt that we had to make an extra effort, and quite often taken one of his friends with us for that lovely dose of extra stress. We've done Legoland, the Science Museum, seal safaris, wildlife parks, the blooming lot. He had to make a timeline of his Big Life Events out of bunting at a club once when he was about 9 and I thought 'Brilliant - he'll have loads to put on there!' Everyone else came out with a dozen or so flags on their bunting. DS had three: 'Went to Top Gear Live. Went to Truckfest. Was sick in school.'

Yip sounds familiar.
Kids are assholes at times

I feel terribly guilty now about losing my temper. I ranted on and on about their bickering (it’s constant!) . The DC got upset.

Stop feeling guilty. Some kids have a need to learn things the hard way.

As my kids have reached older teens I realise they would much rather stay at home all the time! I have dragged them everywhere, much of it they can’t remember annoyingly so I really shouldn’t have bothered! I should have just left days out to the school and their well organised trips!

Yeah, I refuse to have massive days out driving for miles and paying unnecessary fees. The kids whine and don't appreciate it, and why should they? They are as happy at the local park.