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Original poster

Does anyone NOT like the idea of going on holiday with friends/relatives?!

44 replies

Mandy03 · 13/12/2004 08:29

My BIL and SIL (dh's brother & his wife) and their 4 kids (aged 14, 12, 5 & 3) are going to an island resort next March for a holiday, and they've suggested that we go with them (DH, me & our ds - 4 yrs old).

Problem is, I would love to go to this resort for a holiday but I really don't want to go with them! I would much rather that the 3 of us just go by ourselves another time, as I feel that an overseas holiday is one of the few times that we get to go away and spend time together as a family... dh has a very busy job and we find it hard to spend time together as it is. I get on well with both SIL & BIL, but dh has fallen out with his brother a couple of times in the past and I would be horrified if it happened while we were on holiday - not only that, but I hate the thought of having to coordinate all our activities with them and I can just imagine my nieces knocking at our door at 6.00 every morning wanting to play with ds & wanting to spend the night in our room, etc etc. They are both very early risers, and ds doesn't usually get up until a couple of hours later.

This might all sound really negative on my part, but I don't see why we can't go just away for a weekend with BIL & SIL and their kids to somewhere local, rather than spend a lot of money on an overseas holiday and risk it being a complete failure. Would anyone else feel the same way?? I know dh would probably agree to going away with them, but I really don't think he's even thought about it... he's not forcing me to do it and he said that we can still go somewhere on our own if that's what I prefer to do. I guess my overall feeling is that we wouldn't get any time to ourselves at all, which (for me) kind of defeats the purpose of going on holiday. :(

OP posts:
Slink · 13/12/2004 08:35

Goodmorning Mandy, have to say i am with you, MIL lives with us and i do not want to go on hols with her as i live with her, her dd and husband never offer to look after her or take her themselves.

If you have a choice then don't go, I also think it's the best way to get on the wrong side of inlaws. Your CONCERNS ARE VERY REAL .Good luck

wickedwinterwitch · 13/12/2004 08:57

Don't go! Book something else and tell them thanks but no thanks. I wouldn't dream of going anywhere on holiday with my family in case we fell out. A weekend yes, a holiday, no. And imagine if the children did wake you early every morning when you could have had a lie in had it just been you 3. Eeek! If you have any doubts spend a weekend at their house and translate it to a holiday resort, bet you still won't want to go!

Moomin · 13/12/2004 09:01

again, i don't wish to sound negative, but if you already have doubts, then DON'T DO IT! these kind of holidays can be disasterous even when you all get on like a house on fire and everyone really wants it to work. it might turn out ok, but if you have doubts at this stage, i'd err on the side of caution. don't feel guilty about it, esp as your dh sounds very supportive about it.

marialuisa · 13/12/2004 09:09

completely agree with you. DH has a hankering to go on hols with friends, luckily the wives are all with me on this Wink

SnowmAngeliz · 13/12/2004 09:24

Good Lord NO!
I go on holiday to get away from it all. I get on good most of the time with all my/his family but would HATE to go away with them!

jac34 · 13/12/2004 09:53

Alot of people love these type of holidays because the kids have other children to keep them amused. My own opinion is, why should I have to listen to other peoples children screeming and shouting as well as my own.
A few years ago my parents wanted to come on holiday with us, mainly to spend time with the boys, I realy didn't fancy it but they kept on, so finally agreed. My Mum drives me mad so, I wasn't looking forward to it at all, I felt resentful that we could only aford one holiday and we had to spend it with them.
It all went quite well in the end,but I couldn't relax like I usually do on holiday.
One good thing though, after spending two weeks with our energetic DS twins, they have never asked to come away with us sinceGrin.

I'd say, don't go if you need the rest and relaxation, especially if your not going to get another holiday this year.

coppertop · 13/12/2004 10:08

Unless you're particularly close and get on really well don't do it! You'll spend the run-up praying that dh and BIL don't have a falling-out just before the holiday. The holiday will be spent walking on eggshells while you fight the urge to throttle the lot of them for waking you up at 6am. Besides having 4 extra children around when you're used to just the one will probably be enough to send you grey overnight. :o

Tommy · 13/12/2004 10:14

We went on holiday with my Inlaws inc SIL, husband and their DS who is same age as my DS. MIL paid for it and we thought it would be great - shared childcare, we could go out to pub on our own etc. It was awful as we realised that our ideas of holidays were completely different - e.g.MIL had booked cottage that was 4 miles away from nearest pub Shock
Decided not to go again. SIL still goes away with them but we won't be. I don't know how DH told them we didn't want to but, for yur sanity, make sure you don't seond all that money and waste all your precious family together time with people that you may like or even love for a day visit but will drive you mad for a whole week or more Grin

Mum2girls · 13/12/2004 10:20

What about suggesting a weekend away in this country instead? (assuming you'd be happy to do that). Less expense and more importantly less time together!

AllIWantForXmasisPoo · 13/12/2004 10:24

I would rather gouge my eyes out with spoons than go on holiday with my MIL. I have to fight the urge to beat her to death after only an hour in her company. Heaven help me if we were cooped up together for a whole week. My FIL lives abroad, however, and we spent our only week's holiday this year with him. Total nightmare. He is an alocholic (not a nasty one at all, just premanenly blotto and wanting to hold the baby), smokes like a chimney (although he didn't do it around ds, we all stank anyway), ds decided to start teething and screamed all the time (tiled Spanish house -ow), and then dh got bug and spent 24 hours exploding both ends! Total waste of time and money. And to top it all off I got the damn bug the day we got home Angry. So I'm totally with you on this one.

Gobbledigoose · 13/12/2004 10:26

I'm with you too (not got chance to read all other posts) - last year we went on a cottage holiday with dh's sister and her dp and their daughter (2), dh's mother and us (with ds1 2.5 and ds2 22 months).

It was a nightmare. They have such different ideas about what consitutes a good time that it was just impossible - we were quite happy to say, we'll go our way today and you go yours but they wanted to do everything together for the whole week. They like theme park types things whereas we wanted to bodge round St Davids and Whitesands Bay (you guessed we were in Pembrokeshire!). Also, MIL kept interfering with kids etc and I just hated it.

We got away with not going this year as we are moving house and saving up, plus I was pregnant from Jan to August then of course had new baby.

She is already saying can we go next year and I'm so far managing to get out of it by the fact that ds1 starts school in Sept to v. restricted to school hols and before that he and ds2 are in pre-school nursery which we pay for and is also term time. Added to that, we are moving in Jan and taking on a massive mortgage so if we do get any holidays I'd like them to be as our own family of 5. We can't afford to do both a big family one and our own.

Arrghghghghg - outlaws!!

sparklymieow · 13/12/2004 10:34

I went away with my sister (not misdee) in June and it was a nightmare, their DD screamed all night and woke all my kids up, they refused to take her out in the car as they said it would wake her up more, but she was screaming for so long, she was wide awake. BIL is overprotective over their DD and he would shout at my kids if they went near her, and one day their DD fell over and he snapped at my DS "WHAT did you do??" and he was nowhere near her at the time. Sad
I won't do it again, unless we were in difference caravans

Gobbledigoose · 13/12/2004 10:40

Yes, that was another thing. SIL dd is sooooo precious - only child and can do no wrong whereas I've got rampaging boys and more than one! It's just a totally different kettle of fish dealing with them compared to one prim, quiet girl!!!

Also, all those things that other parents do/don't do that are quite valid but wind you up, wind you up no end! It drove me up the wall that they said everything as she said it 'bot bot', 'dum dum', 'nan nan', 'mum mum'. The fact that she still drank juice out of a bottle and all sorts of things!!

Oh AND, my ds's had conjunctivitis which we treated aggressively but when their dd got it and she resisted eye drops (like they do!) they just didn't bother - well, you know how infectious it is. I mean, ours resisted but we just pinned them down for 2 seconds while we did it! I'm sure they thought we were evil but who wants bloody conjunctivitis?!

Well, you can see what I think of family holidays!

ARGHGHGHGHGHGHGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGGHGHGH!

Original poster
Mandy03 · 13/12/2004 10:44

Thanks for your responses, I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this way. We also have some other friends (they're not even close friends) who constantly suggest going on holidays together and I don't know how much longer we can keep putting them off!! I just really don't want to do it. I thought I might be in the minority here, as I imagined that lots of families like go on holidays together and that perhaps I'm just being anti-social :)

Tommy that's exactly what I'm afraid of, that everyone's got different ideas of a holiday and that the whole thing would turn out to be much more stressful than enjoyable. I think holidays are too precious to spend time doing things that you don't want to do, with people that you don't usually spend a lot of time with. Even my parents would probably drive me nuts after two days, and I'm closer to them than anyone :)

OP posts:
Original poster
Mandy03 · 13/12/2004 10:53

Lol AllIwantforXmasispoo, about gouging your eyes out. My MIL is nothing like me and although we are always nice to each other, I can't imagine going away with her or spending more than one day with her - especially now that I've got a child!! She is very critical of how other people do things & I really don't need that in my life.

Gobbledigoose, that is the kind of scenario I wish to avoid and I can completely understand you being irritated by everything they did. I'm SO glad I'm not the only one who feels like this.

OP posts:
noddyholder · 13/12/2004 10:54

I would never go on holiday with others I have seen many friendships destroyed through this

onlyjoandthethreekings · 13/12/2004 11:03

dont go if your gut feeling is it will be no fun, we went to lanzarote recently with our best mates 11 of us alltogether, 7 kids, four with autism, we had a great time and cant wait to go again, best holiday we have ever had as me and hubby got to go out alone ect.

Tommy · 13/12/2004 11:09

What was useful for me was that DH agreed with me. I think I could have coped with it if he was enjoying it but he wasn't either!

Gobbledigoose · 13/12/2004 11:11

Same here - even dh found it stressful and it was his family!

GingerBells · 13/12/2004 11:19

We are going with brother his wife and 2 kids next year.
BUT, are setting the following ground rules:

  1. We will have 2 hire cars
  2. We will go our separate ways some days and arrange to meet up in the evening
  3. Will share 'babysitting' so that me and DH, brother and SIL can have a night out as adults.

Gulp, hope it works out!!

midnightmass · 13/12/2004 11:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
Mandy03 · 13/12/2004 11:20

Best of luck, GingerBells... at least you've put some thought into it first though.

OP posts:
GingerBells · 13/12/2004 11:37

Mandy, I would be tempted to do your own thing after reading your first post. Maybe have a weekend as a trial, but don't be coerced into a full two weeks. If you enjoy just the three of you being together as a family, then that time is precious, and I wouldn't worry about upsetting BIL.

DH and I once went to Amsterdam for a long weekend with two really good friends of ours. We wanted to be out early every day visiting museums and galleries, but they wouldn't rise til 11am. It was a complete nightmare! Would never do it again with them!

Stilltrue · 13/12/2004 16:54

Don't go. I imagine it will be expensive, which might prevent the 3 of you going somewhere else later in the year. There are already tensions with your dh/bil, and with the early rising cousins. Do you think they WILL want to co-ordinate all activities? If so, total nightmare. Also, imagine the offer of swapping evening childcare so each couple can dine "a deux". One more will be no prob for them, but you will have a whole tribe to look after Shock. No offence to large families, I have 4 myself...Otoh, they may expect their 2 oldest to stay up with the grownups (I've had this with sil's obnoxious early teens who butt in to adult conversations etc but who frankly have nothing adult to say just yet! )Please don't go. Follow your misgivings.

tallulah · 13/12/2004 17:48

I have always envied people who go away with their whole families. OTOH we have been taking my mum away with us for the past 8 years. In the beginning it was great- we got some childfree time, I got someone to go to the evening entertainment with while DH was much happier back in the caravan in front of the TV looking after the kids.

The last few years have been awful! She had a real go at DS1 for leaving the tap running while he washed up, because it costs money (um, not ours!). She said she'd brought "plenty of food" so we didn't need to go shopping, & expected a 500g bag of pasta & a 250g jar of sauce to do 7 of us!

Last year we took her to Orlando- never again!!!! We had 2 rooms but every night she was banging on the door demanding to know what we were doing & she had her own agenda which was totally different from ours. When we said she could sit by the pool all day if she wanted that was wrong too- she wanted us to sit with her! Then she got home & told my brother there was "too much organising & not enough relaxing". Angry Next breath she's asking where "we're" going next year.... aaarrrggghhh!!!!

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