Playdate day out

[Salsanoodle]

We have annual passes to our local farm park, which cost over £200 for myself and my 2 children. The daily park fees are expensive, £14 per child and £12.50 per adult (adult prices are ridiculous - you're only going to take your kids, a token fiver charge I feel would be enough as you're going to buy a cuppa at the cafe at the very least, but anyway, not the point of this post).

We go once a fortnight / once a month at the least to make good use of the passes and get our moneys worth, and sometimes just pop in for an hour to the soft play etc.

If arranging playdates I often suggest it as a potential meet up place, along with a few other free suggested options (local forest/beach was etc).

I suggested the other day to meet my friend and her 2 children there. She said they'd come but since we've got our annual passes and would get in 'free' that I should pay half of their £40.50 entry!!

I told her that I was sorry, but i wasnt paying half their entry fee as I'd already paid money for our passes and wasnt getting in free. She said I'm an awful friend and selfish for not paying!!

AIBU to refuse this?!

Think our friendship is over regardless. I'm just so shocked that she'd expect us to pay half their entry.
In all our years of playdates with various friends and family, everyone has just paid their own entry fees for their own families etc.

I think your being unreasonable suggesting you go there with people that don’t have passes - effectively you’re suggesting a free day for you and an expensive day for someone else. IMO that’s really selfish.

Yanbu for not paying half

But she should have just said it’s too expensive for us let’s go somewhere else

All those saying the OP was unreasonable suggesting this place for a meet up, if you read the OP, the OP also suggested free places too.

YANBU, your friend is being v rude. Sounds like she is jealous of you being able to afford the membership. If she doesn't want to pay £40 to visit that's fair enough. In this case she should have just taken you up on the suggestion of a free walk /beach trip and not suggested you pay half of her entry fees!

Your friend was ridiculous to ask you to pay half. But personally I wouldn't suggest to my friends that they meet me at a place which would cost them £40 to get in just because I wanted to get my money's worth out of my annual pass.

My parents used to have National Trust membership cards and sometimes we went to NT places with them but they wouldn't have specifically made a point of suggesting them knowing that we'd have to pay and they wouldn't.

I agree this is a bad suggestion for a playdate location. similarly, in my DC primary class there were about 3 (of 20) parents who had membership of London zoo and used to say 'ooh, why don't we have a playdate at the zoo'. but that is about £20 per person for those who don't have membership, and i'm not paying that for drinking coffee and chatting without even time to see the animals.

you can't expect a friend to pay to join you for a playdate.

Your friend sounds crackers, but to be honest I would find it irritating if someone kept suggesting we go somewhere that they get in free knowing that I'd have to pay £40. But yeah, YANBU for not paying half of her fee, obviously.

Well, to be fair, the friend didn't have to agree to it. It's ridiculous to suggest the OP pays half, though.
We've got annual passes for our local theme park. It's equally expensive if you get a day ticket, so quite a few families in the area will have annual tickets. Sometimes, we just pop in to use the soft play on a rainy day...or to see the animals or to go to the massive playground. It's a possible suggestion but not the only place to meet up.
We've also got annual passes for Legoland. That's three hours from us but worked out cheaper than getting 2 day passes for our holiday. I'd be happy to have friends join us when we go again, perhaps for a weekend, but I wouldn't pay for their tickets.

I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest as a venue. If OP had said 'we can ONLY meet up at X' then fine but if she's said 'we have membership at X if you guys fancy going there, or otherwise how about A or B' there's nothing wrong with that.

YANBU to not pay for them but YABU for suggesting such a hideously expensive day out to friends who don't have day passes.

YANBU not to pay for half their entry but I do think it's a bit of a cheek to suggest a meet up somewhere that you yourself feel is expensive and only go as you have an annual pass. I have an annual pass for a zoo and certainly wouldn't suggest meet ups there as it's an expensive day out.

No, she said she ‘often’ suggests free places.

But it doesn’t like she did for this particular date:

I suggested the other day to meet my friend and her 2 children there. She said they'd come but since we've got our annual passes and would get in 'free' that I should pay half of their £40.50 entry!!

However, the friend should have said no. But I think @Harridan1981 might be right, she probably got tired of OP suggesting this expensive place and asked OP to pay half to make a point.

I wouldn't suggest meeting at a place I had an annual pass to unless the people I were meeting also had one or it was a pass that I could get extra people in with (RHS) but she was very cheeky to ask you to pay half their entrance fee.

I agree.

One of my BF has NT membership. We stopped renewing ours as the DC got older as we didn't have time to get the use out of it.

They still occasionally suggest meeting at our local NT place and I say yes or no depending on whether I want to go/can afford. Wouldn't dream of asking them to pay for me! Sometimes being a member somewhere gets guests a discount and I'd ask for that if it applied but asking for half is mad! If you have a BOGOF offer then it's appropriate to go halves rather than one person getting a freebie but in this case you've already paid

I also don't think YABU to suggest it either as long as you wouldn't be in a huff if she said no it's too expensive for me

You were a bit of a CF to suggest meeting place that's so expensive because you have annual passes.

She is a cf.
But you are the worst when you suggest to meet up for a playdate that is going to cost the other people 40 pounds!!!

Because it would cost the friends £40!

Not quite the same as going to the local park and having a picnic.

I wouldn't suggest a place that costs a family £40 and would be probably a family day out type of thing.

Unless you both parties had expressed interest in going anyway and you suggested going together.

Very cheeky of her but you were pretty cheeky too suggesting a place that would have cost you zilch on the day.
I think you should remain friends😐

It's beyond belief that you would suggest going somewhere that you had an annual pass for, but the other person had to pay £40 - not a trifling amount.

It's also completely UR of her to ask you to share the cost.

So, because the OP doesn't pay anything on the day itself (as the membership is a sunkcost) she can't ever suggest this place as a playdate meet up to anyone else??
YANBU to ask if she wanted to meet there.
She is NBU to decline - for whatever reason including cost. She is Very U to ask you to pay half.

I think she can suggest it, along with other options. M
However, knowing that it costs her nothing on the day, and her friend £40 wouldn't sit well with me - £40 is an awful lot for most people.

If it cost say £15, I think that would be different.

I also can't believe she's ending the friendship over it. While her friend was UR to ask, I can't see it being a reason to stop being friends.

I definitely wouldn’t pay half! Maybe she’s trying to give you the hint it’s not cheaper for Her. I have an out of town friend with passes to a local amusement park and she’s always suggesting we go when in town. No thanks, I’m not paying £100 per person on top of flights/hotels/restaurants!

What a cheeky cow!!