AIBU to think family should wait for us to order

[CatherineRose16]

I am away for 2 nights in a hotel with my 2 sisters and our families to celebrate my oldest sisters birthday. I am the youngest sister. My older sisters are very close and I often feel a little left out with my sisters. Anyway we had a meal booked for 6.30 in the hotel restaurant last night. My kids wanted to go for a swim so we did that before the meal. My sisters and their families went for a drink in the bar. Anyway at 6.15 my sister texts me to ask were we coming for the meal. We were just getting dressed after the swim so I replied yes, we will be there at 6.30. We arrived at 6.30 and they were already seated and had ordered their food. So it ended up that they were eating their food and were completely finished by the time our food arrived. My kids had to sit and watch their cousins eat and it just made me very uncomfortable. My nephew told my kids that they were late (we were perfectly on time for the booking). If we had known sisters were going early we could have spent less time in the pool. AIBU to be upset about this? I obviously didn't say anything to my sisters as I didn't want to argue on my sisters birthday but it's just another time where my sisters have made me feel bad about myself.

If a table was booked for 6.30pm I would consider it rude to be early. I hate it when people just can't wait for an agreed time and always have to be that person being early. Weird and rude of your sisters not to wait on you.

Maybe because they never said let's meet in the bar? Maybe because bars aren't a good enviornment for children? You were fine OP. You were on a break away and swimming is a perfectly fine activity to do beforehand.

I think this is odd!

If you're booked for 6.30 that means there is space for you at 6.30. That's when the restaurant is ready for you, not when you order food! Otherwise the whole place would just be crowded with people faffing around going for a wee before they're supposed to be there.

Ask them next time. You sound like you defer to them all the time. Just because they're older than you doesn't mean they were right, and if they have done something that hurt you you should just say. Even if you have to joke about it "What did you order for me?"

I hate that too.

If a time is agreed-upon, it seems childish and lacking in impulse control to show up early. Have a friend who does this (he has little social life so cannot control himself when the opportunity to get together with others arises) and it's beyond annoying.

I think your sisters were rude. It sounds like they wanted to eat early and rather than do the polite thing and wait 15 minutes for when you had all booked the restaurant they decided to go ahead and eat. Bad manners!

Of course it's odd. It's a hotel restaurant where they are staying. No-one will be wearing a coat. No-one will need a wee because they would have done that before leaving their room. This isn't a Shearings coach party of OAPs just arrived for lunch!

Wow - they have no manners.

You were fine arriving at 6.30, they definitely shouldn’t have ordered before the time set for everyone to arrive.

She has form arriving at the right time? And fit being annoyed when the others rudely arrive early and order without her?
One would hope so. Anyone with manners has the exact same form.

I don't know how it came about that they ordered.

Because they were rude couldn't bothered to wait for you.

Thanks for all the supportive messages, I do appreciate it.
I was worried that there was an unwritten rule that we should have arrived much early than the booked time but this has helped me to see we were probably OK.

It's easy to imagine that once they'd been seated and given menus someone will have arrived to take the order. Rather than say, we're waiting for the rest of our party to arrive, they've gone ahead and ordered. It's incondiderate and rude.

That is downright rude.
I would have thought that you would have met up for drinks first then ordered meals together.

Why didn't you ask them why they'd ordered without you? If they have form for this sort of thing you need to start asserting yourself. If you'd gone for a family meal together, surely the aim is to eat together. I would have said something.

On the face of it they were rude to order before 6:30 if you'd all arranged to meet at 6:30 but I am wondering whether you actually arrived on time. I'm also conscious that you were off so g your own thing (I understand you have children) and they seem to have been altogether so it's because of this that you didn't realise the plan had changed. They probably got hungry and decided to eat. You were not around and if you were swimming there would have been no point texting you.

Yes we did arrive at 6.30.

Wtf!! Are you joking or pissed?

It would have felt uncomfortable to ask. I really hate confrontation.

Not sure if anyone's asked but are you autistic? The whole thing about taking things literally and breaking unwritten rules, plus over thinking does sound pretty classic.
You can spend your whole life feeling out of step without knowing why

Pissed would explain the need for an immediate wee…

I am not diagnosed but I has crossed my mind.

Your sister should have said "table is booked for 6.30 but we'll have a drinks in the bar first so be there for 6.15". She didn't so they were rude to go ahead and order unless everyone was going on somewhere else afterwards and there was a time issue. If there was nothing else planned for afterwards they were out of order not to wait for you especially when they knew you were actually in the hotel.

I would have been in the bar at 6.00 with DC, DP would have turned up late. I wouldn't have taken my DC swimming so late in the day and so close to dinner time though, that would just be asking for us to be late.

Sounds like they had an issue with the swimming? Did you invite the other DC to join you? Or did you not invite them and they were upset?

I would have turned up about 6.25 if I’m honest. Why would you turn up at 6.15? I met my family for lunch today- booking at 12. We all turned up… at 12 on the dot.

Surely the waiting staff would have seen all the empty seats, it's not like it was just one person who hadn't arrived. To me that sounds odd they took the food orders and put them through the kitchen unless the rest of the family had said to do this. Most waiting staff would take the drinks orders and then come back for food orders when the rest of the party arrived. This is why I think the family were rude in not waiting and insisting their food order was taken.

When we stay in a hotel we usually meet in the bar an hour or so before dinner for a drink. I'd think it was really odd of someone didn't arrive in those circumstances til the time the table was booked.

If you were just meeting at a restaurant for dinner and nothing else, arriving just before is normal. I'd never arrive at the exact time the tables booked

That aside ordering without you was rude.