AIBU to not want to go on this holiday?

[Broccoliandcarrots]

DH is French, and all his family live in France. We have always visited them 3-6 times a year. We have 2 DC, who will be aged 5, and just turned 2.

It has been proposed that we all (MIL, her 3 children and their families) go away together for MIL’s big milestone birthday this coming Easter holidays. A particular destination in France was floated at the end of the summer holidays, just as an idea, because it “seems nice” and “we’ve never been there before”, and we initially said “mmm, sounds lovely”, but then the next day we looked up our travel options and realised it would be very difficult and expensive for us to get there from England, whereas it's fairly easy for the rest of them to get there. However, MIL, SIL and BIL did not take this on board despite us telling them, and they are now all adamant it absolutely has to be this destination and saying they will be really disappointed if we don't come. MIL has even offered to pay for our travel (which will be about 4-5 times dearer than what it normally costs us to travel to France). Here are the reasons we don’t want to go:

• No direct flights at all from the UK outside of summer
• Our travel options involve a combination of plane, train and ferry as foot passengers, but every option we've found would take two full days, with either a hotel stay at the airport or overnight ferry, at least 3 connections/different modes of transport, and involve either an extremely early start (5am) or extremely late arrival (1am)
• The idea of spending 2 full days travelling on trains, planes and ferries with a 2 year old makes me want to jump out of a window. We regularly do trips to France that take 1 whole day of travel, but 2 days feels like too much.
• There is only 4 days’ overlap between the French and English school holidays this Easter. This means, when you take away the travel time, it will leave us with one full day and two half days to spend all together.

I just do not think it’s worth all that palaver to spend less than 2 full days together, when there are so many other lovely destinations in France or elsewhere in Europe that would be easy for all of us to get to. We'd be happy to go pretty much anywhere else in France, we'd also be happy to go to this destination in the summer, when there are direct flights from England, and we’d also be happy to sit this one out, but MIL is adamant it has to be there, it has to be Easter, and she really wants us to come.

YABU – it’s not that much effort, and it will be worth it to make MIL happy
YANBU – that’s a massive effort, and not worth it for 2 days all together

Sorry, but I don't understand why an event HAS to be on a Friday lunchtime when doing it one day later means everyone can come without taking time off work/school.
Why make people's life difficult (and more expensive) because of a 'date'?

If they're 2 and 5 I wouldn't give a stuff about them missing school/nursery and take a longer holiday then it will at least be worth it. Corsica is really lovely. You can fly to Corsica. No way would I be messing about with ferries.

Your DH needs to speak to his family and explain that this time/place are not possible.

They can pick somewhere else
They can pick a different date
They can go without you all.

Corsica is lovely but I wouldn’t be doing all that travel with young children for about 2 days. I would get my DH to let in-laws know that all things considered it would just be too much.

Could you stay with family first and then travel together? Break it up a bit?
If it's not too difficult from where they live

I agree.

This is one of the last times where you can get away with having a couple of extra days holiday and it not being such a big deal with school etc.

If you’re going there anyway then you may as well extend it a bit and make it worth the trip.

If you say where you are travelling from, then some MNers may be able to help you reduce the journey time.

It's definitely possible to fly from London LGW/LHR via Marseille to a Corsican airport in under 5 hours at Easter. Booking.com flights is good for searching as you can add multiple airports and also connections are guaranteed. But it is a lot to ask of you to do this with a 2 year old and other parts of mainland France are equally lovely!

There are also flights from other places, Birmingham and Manchester, I think. But in the absence of knowing where OP lives, using the most populated part of the country (and the capital city) as an example doesn't really seems unreasonable.

I wouldn’t worry about school holidays for a kids in yr1.

I bloody loved Corsica, it was magical.
Not that it helps you much. We drove through France and then got the ferry.

Get her to come to you!

I don't understand why it's so impossible to fly direct to Corsica. Surely there are flights at Easter? Sorry if I've misread the OP.

I went to corsica. It was lovely. I think i flew from Manchester but it was a couple of years back. Public transport was a bit sparse so maybe hire a car?

YANBU. I'd expect a grandmother to have a lot more awareness about how hard travelling with small children is and to accommodate you. My own mother would bend over backwards to have her grandchild with her for her birthday.

How are they getting there ?

If you have no issues when visiting them, how about traveling to them staying the night then all travel together ?

I would suggest saving Corsica for the summer when you can fly direct.

What does your DH think?

I think it's very unreasonable myself, but you know the dynamic of the family.
Presumably your DH wants you all to go otherwise you wouldn't be posting on here?

Can DH take one of the children and go with them? (I bet not!)

This is exactly the sort of thing my (French) MIL would do.

My DH would put his foot down, and we wouldn’t take our children out of school (one has a chronic illness and misses enough already). If they wanted us there, then they’d change the destination.

We had always talked about going to NYC as a family for my Mums 60th. We didn’t because DS was 2 and DNephew was 18m and it wasn’t going to be a sensible trip for anyone so we did something else.

I'm surprised at the lack of direct flights if that is the case. Whilst Corsica is lovely, better to visit at another time of year, and not go along with the nonsense of so-called milestone birthdays.

Oh god, you have my sympathies. My parents insist on going to the Scillies. We start in southernish France so it's an absolute bloody nightmare. They won't consider swapping for somewhere reasonable like Devon or Normandy so we just don't go now.

DH thinks its much too much hassle and wants them to change the destination or do something in the summer. He did suggest either going alone, or going with just our eldest, but MIL wants us all there. He's upset as he thinks it'll be held against him for years to come if we don't go, even though the destination was chosen completely ignoring what we'd already said about our limitations. Ironically, the reason Corsica was suggested in the first place was because a cousin went there this year and said it was really child friendly and easy to get around with small children 🙄

I was posting on here because I had genuinely got to a point where I didn't know if I'd built it all up too much in my mind and actually it wouldn't be that bad, so it's reassuring to see most people agree it would be too much hassle with young children for such a short time. I do feel like we make an awful lot of effort all the rest of the time - we've never missed a family get-together in over 10 years, even during covid and even when the children were babies, so I feel like if this feels like too much for us then it's because it really is too much.

I have looked into some of the suggestions people have given to see if they would work any better - so thanks for those - but unfortunately they would not. I don't want to say where we live exactly, but it isn't close to any London airports.

C'est pas possible. Désolé.j'espère te voir bientôt

.... and also it takes time to travel around Corsica. The ferries come in at different parts of the island, possibly not where the family are convening. All sounds way too much of a faff to me. It won't be enjoyable for the OP and the kids with 2 days travelling there and two days back again. I dont think the weather will be great in April either.

No point discussing anything with someone if they are hellbent on their decision already. It's a can-do attitude v a can't do.

There are loads of ways round this. But op doesn't want any of them. Mil is paying so cost isn't the issue. You could go the day before and stay a day later if you wanted to, make a week of it. But you don't. You could do this, or that. Or not!

We could ask you if you prefer to fly to Calvi or Figari. But the question is pointless.

And re a pp, who asked who thought YABU, I guess it's just that I am clearly the polar opposite of op - few things bother me, I'm practical and just get on with things. Plus I find travelling pleasurable, the planning, the airport. Many years ago I found travelling with 2 young ds's easy, not stressful. If you aren't of that ilk I'm sure you'd find many things in life difficult.

No point any of us trying to convert the unconvertible.

Someone asked about the weather. I think very generally speaking, The weather generally is getting hotter, earlier. I don't know if next year will be the same but I suspect so. It was hotter earlier, longer and later. April and May in Europe was hotter than previously, and less rainfall than in the previous qtr.

Eg Alvor in Portugal last Easter was lovely, hotter than the norm. Cyprus in September was hotter than expected. Michael Mosley died on Greek island symi , was very hot. India had over 50 degrees in May. Just saying, that I suspect Easter will be very nice in lots of places.