To hate family holidays?

[Straitjacketsandroses]

I don’t get them. City breaks - love; short UK breaks - love, but any longer than that and it’s just same shit less conveniences around you.

We’re currently on a week-long UK break with my in laws and I’ve abandoned my husband and kids to come back to our (average, not as clean as my house) air b&b because the thought of another walk makes me want to scream. We’ll spend the day walking aimlessly to find the best spot for some squashed sandwiches and warm apple juice before coming home to sit uncomfortably round a kitchen table whilst my FIL watches EVERY soap back to back. And we’re haemorrhaging money on ice creams and pub lunches and fish and chips. It’s all just so expensive and dull. Take me home!

Anyone else feel like this or am I a one off? I feel the same abroad too if we go anywhere for more than 3-4 nights!

We’re currently on a week-long UK break with my in laws and I’ve abandoned my husband and kids to come back to our (average, not as clean as my house) air b&b

I have a rule that I won't go away anywhere (that I'm paying for!) unless the accommodation is significantly nicer than our house 😂(with the exception of work trips or other trips out of necessity!)

It sounds snobby but genuinely I would rather not go away than pay good money to spend a week or two in a hotel / villa / cottage / apartment that is just meh... We've done it before and I end up just resenting the money we've paid!

Haha I've just posted the exact same thing! Am I your friend??? 😂🤔

I'm so glad this isn't just me 😂

I have the exact same issue OP 😂We live in the countryside in a lovely (if slightly small!) home with gorgeous walks and pubs on our doorstep.

We recently stayed in a very average apartment on a small Greek island as part of an island hopping trip but I can cope with that as my logic is that it's by the sea, the sun is shining and most importantly I'm not in the UK!

In the UK however I need to be somewhere that feels luxurious and actually like a holiday. Not staying in some soulless Airbnb to accomodate 20 people where I still have to do the washing up and cooking - just in a house that isn't as nice as my own 😂

Your husband isn't good at planning holidays. If he were, you would all be enjoying yourselves.

What he has done is plan a holiday for his parents, because he loves them and they're old and he's worried he doesn't have much time left with them.

But you and your DS are bored to tears. You're in a boring village with nothing to do and the only things on the agenda are going for walks (with shitty sandwiches, not even a pub lunch) and watching the soaps in the evening.

You need to be brutally honest with your DH and tell him you can't bear another holiday like this.

Actually, I would tell him now, in the hope that you can salvage something from this holiday. Tell him it's time you made a plan to drive somewhere there is actually something to fucking do, and have a nice lunch in a pub or restaurant. If your in laws want to come, they are welcome. If they don't, they can go on another walk with their soggy ham sandwiches and you'll see them tonight after Corrie. Because yes, it's nice for them to be included and spend time with their son and grandson. But it's not nice for them to basically force you to dance to their incredibly boring tune every day.

Maybe they don't realise you're so bored and think you're having as lovely a time as they are. But your husband must realise. And you and your son deserve a nice holiday as much as they do.

Perhaps in future you could do the odd weekend away with them and have separate family holidays that you actually want to go on. We're going away for two weeks and my parents are joining us for a long weekend in the middle. Maybe that could also be an acceptable compromise for the future, if your PIL are capable of travelling on their own. If not, stick to weekends.

The problem is not family holidays. The problem is YOUR family holidays.

I now refuse to stay in Airbnb accommodation unless its for convenience reasons (attending a concert in another city etc) for all the reasons already mentioned on this thread. I once had to cook dinner by torchlight in an airbnb as the lighting was so bad in the kitchen and I vowed never again.

Holidays are ideally in a hotel or if self catering we go for holiday parks where there is loads to do and we can have a good mix of doing stuff with relaxing.

Holidays with family are usually shorter breaks and generally we all do what we want during the day and come together in the evening for dinner / games etc - no tv watching allowed. I also have to accept that some parts of the holiday won't be ideal but as it isn't my main holiday of the year I can deal with this better.

I absolutely love holidays with my kids - they are one of the times I feel like we can just spend time together as a family without all the other distractions. I agree that your holiday doesn't sound like much fun unfortunately.

This is why we usually go AI abroad. I realise it's not for everyone but you can totally switch off there if you have older kids

Yeah it’s the in-laws and not in a nasty way it’s just they holiday different so it ruins your holiday as it’s not yours just like they presumably wouldn’t enjoy yours.

I’ve started making sure our U.K. stays are too far for them to join us. Between poor time keeping and everything being their way which never any umph behind it. So even a walk would be a well maybe we should walk to such and such later… then your left waiting to see if said walk is going to happen.

Lesson learned.

Could you leave them to it in the evening and do games and wine in the garden or at the kitchen table?

It sounds like the wrong choice of holiday this year. Maybe if there's a next time you could have separate accommodation on a complex with a pool, or walking distance to a town with a choice of restaurants. It sounds to me that the problem is it is all designed round your ILs this time. (Do you think they are enjoying it? Is it what they normally choose to do?)

We have done hols with parents and sacked it off. They hated it, we hated it. But as they grow older and less independent I can see we might find ourselves in a similar situation.

As you have established, it is the choice of accommodation that is the problem. If we were going somewhere that we would be spending the majority of time in the accommodation, it needs to be nicer than our house and big enough for everyone the have the space they need. If it’s just a bed for the night, a cheap AirBnB will do.

@Straitjacketsandroses I think where you are going wrong is going on holidays with the inlaws and then doing everything together. We used to go on holiday with in-laws but we got on very well with them. It was always a hotel abroad but we did our own thing. They liked to chill out in the beach our children wanted to do something else. We would meet up for drinks or at other intervals during the day but we did not move together as a large group. That is suffocating and too much of a wide age gaps in the group to fulfill everyone needs. Your in-laws should be doing their pointless walking together while you do your own thing and maybe just meet up for dinner later.

I think you could argue that any self-catering in the UK is using a house that could be for a local person all year-round, so you will not do such holidays again, with or without older parents/in-laws.

We love our family holidays but we always do them with just DH and the dcs, never with PILs or any other family. We have only short periods of time we can spend together as a family so we're not willing to compromise on what we do, which we'd have to if we went away with others.

I love my family holidays, me and my dc, 12 & 10, DSis and DN 10. The kids are old enough to pretty much do as they please around the resort, DSis and I can completely relax without worry. I read a book a day, enjoy the hot weather abroad and completely recuperate from the busyness of work.

Being on a sunlounger all day is obviously not everyone's idea of a good time so you need to take a holiday that you do enjoy - constant walks and picnics, and especially self catering would be my idea of hell!

It does sound grim for you. I think you probably need to suck it up this time but going forward, if you holiday together, make sure you can do your eating out, games and wine etc whilst the in-laws watch tv if necessary. I bet the in laws are loving having you altogether but the children must be bored too if nothing is happening other than tv once home.

YANBU at all. We're just back (three kids, no in laws thank fuck) from a week on the coast. Some things were fine: proximity to beach, Ocado order to the house with lots of treats and easy food to see us through.

But - the house was definitely worse than my own, with no freezer (goodbye ice creams), microwave or Wifi. I think it was a deceased estate in the middle of being sold. The kitchen was in the basement and was dark and a bit miserable. The seagulls did their thing like clockwork, waking up my kids who then found they couldn't watch TV because the signal was too patchy. £125/night. Oh, and obviously I'm still paying for the nursery they aren't attending, to facilitate all this.

I would so much rather have stayed at home.

Eek! I would never holiday all together! That’s too regimented! Holidays are great to facilitate the relationships between grandparents and dc - and they are mainly about the dc tbh - but you need to book a place nearby but separate so that you can do your own thing, eat what you want and watch what you want on some nights. Have the odd day where you do your own thing and explore the area. And then join up for lunches or whatever. And you can invite your in laws over for meals sometimes. It’s far too claustrophobic otherwise!

It depends who is paying for the property too of course as to who gets to choose etc so that has to be taken in to account.

Otherwise though, coffee and pasta with constant tv soaps sounds pretty deadly to me so I’m with you op. It’s nice that your in laws are having a lovely time this year, but I think you can explain to your dh that your needs are too different when arranging a holiday next time.

I'm on the fence because I love holidays but perhaps not with wider family!

Im honestly feeling so much better after all these replies 🤣 Glad to see so many of you agree with me about the Air BnBs! Here is my non-exhaustive list of why I hate this one:

It isn’t clean. My husband hoovered yesterday and left it cleaner than we found it;

The cupboards smell like other people;

The living room smells like other people;

It has a cabinet of DVDs such as Mama Mia and Slumdog Millionnaire;

There are dinosaurs younger than our shower;

There isn’t enough toilet roll or hand soap;

The freezer has never been cleaned.

We usually choose very nice hotels and we went away for a few years with my parents and would always stay in beautiful cottages with land. We’d cook huge meals and drink wine on the patio. My parents aren’t perfect either but they are more similar to us in how we like to eat and drink. I think maybe this set false expectations for us. We actually went away with my in laws a few years back and swore never again because they woke us up at 6am every morning stomping round the house, but I think rose tinted glasses and all that…

My husband is very good at planning holidays but I think there’s less to do here than precious places, and our car being quite inaccessible with no signal etc makes it all feel rather cut off.

We have ordered pizza for tonight, promised the boys (8 & 11) a pub trip after dinner (they like playing on the beach) and I’ve asked them to have a chess tournament with me. I hope I can salvage today 🤞🏻 and then we’ve a day trip tomorrow so that’ll be okay!

It sounds like you and the DC are trying to support your husband in being kind to his elderly parents and doing something nice for them. Try to feel pleased with yourself about that (and suck it up a bit, doesn't sound like you have much choice) but avoid a repeat in future!

Who chose the airbnb and location? What do you mean by your in laws don't do food?

We're going away with my in laws next week, staying in a beautiful airbnb with lots going on nearby. I can't wait! Sorry yours is shit😕

If you are not, you could be 😂

Weird phrasing, a city break can be a family holiday? Are you only talking about European summer holiday destinations? Or stays a week long?

Either way I disagree, with 2 young kids I much prefer stays of 2 weeks. It makes it feel more worth it, the first few days end up being travel, adjusting to routine etc.
But also I don’t stay anywhere that’s less nice or less clean than my home. The point of a holiday to me is to stay somewhere nicer, not are we having squashed sandwiches for lunch.

The problem is your particular family holiday. It sounds incredibly dull and there is nothing about that which I'd enjoy. Why are you doing everything together?

I admit holidays with elderly parents are never as good as when it's just me and DH. However (!) we make them work by going somewhere we actually want to see and I always absolutely insist we do our own thing at least 50% of the time. At first, my parents were a bit put out but they got used to it quickly i.e. one day we went kayaking, they do their little walk, and we see each other at dinner. Win win.

YANBU but if my family holiday included my ILs I wouldn't go.

This year, ds and I went to Portugal.
He'd just finished his gcses so wanted to sleep, swim & be left alone.

I'd just finished a gruelling year so we were in an hotel that did magnificent breakfasts. Then I'd lie by the pool, swim, read, snooze, have a siesta. Maybe amble down to the local marina with ds for an ice cream.

Out in the evening for a meal, people watch and then back for a sundowner at the hotel while ds played computer games.

I didn't have to cook, clean, shop, hurry, drive, think about what to eat, all week. It was bliss 😎