Do Trips w/ Extended Family Always Work? LONG

[GOOFY4DONALD]

My family is planning a trip to WDW next Dec. After talking with my mom my parents and younger brother & sister are planning on going. I thought this would be a good match. Growing up we were total Disney nuts. My mom took us to DL 2 or 3 times every year. Our only difference is our taste in rides (she hates fast rides and offered to stand out with the kids that do not want to go on..so the rest of the family can ride together). My DH would like his dad & stepmom to go. I understand this. His father never took him on a vacation in his life and he would like to go somewhere with his dad. Here is the downside (and I am probably being very selfish). His dad philosophy about Disneyland "been there, done than..glad I never have to go again...biggest waste of money I have ever spent". My DH has been bitten by the bug but I am afraid that having them come with us will change all that. When I am at home his dad criticizes me about what I buy, my animals (I am a doggie foster mom) and tries to tell me what to do. I am afraid that WDW will be the victim to his critical thinking and he does have a magical way of changing my DH's mind about certain things.

Also my DH though it might be a good idea to bring along his single sister. I do get along with her ok but she is a party girl. She likes to go out all night and sleep all day. She also gets annoyed with every noise kids make.

My main fear is that my plans will go right out the window and we have to conform to them, that DH will feel obligated to go out with sis a few times, that this trip will turn into an adult trip that kids tag along on (my trips are the opposite) and most important that my my FIL will shake the pixie dust right out of my DH.

 

[mommy-on-the-move]

I'd be tempted to suggest maybe 2 seperate vacations- one with his family, one with yours. It doesn't sound like his family would make for an enjoyable disney experience so maybe have your disney vacation with your family and then a more grown up weekend some where else with his family (maybe even the kids could go spend some grandparent time with your family during this?)

If you do end up doing the big group holiday then maybe come up with your own schedule and let them know they can join you if they wish but you're happy just to meet occasionally? That would provide a good get out clause for you and hopefully minimise stress.

 

[DawnM]

We would never go on a vacation with either of our extended families!!!! It would be an immediate no!

Your family may not be like ours though.

Dawn

 

[Lisa77]

Having just gone to Disney for the first time with my family and in-laws and 15 other relatives... the only way I think it it will work is for you to be flexible and separate rooms. If you have very specific plans on what you want to do then I would not try to do it with other people in tow...Or let them know this is what you are doing and they can join you or not.

It's not going to be fun for you to dictate what they do, you are not going to get to do what you want, and honestly.. it's not fair for them to have you plan it all for them unless they want you to. It's their vacation too.

What ended up working for us is we all had an itenerary of what park we were going to be at and a couple of meals planned during the week for everyone. Then we'd check in with each other in the morning. Some days we were on our own. Some days the in-laws were with us and some days we met up with other members (sometimes even by accident.)

 

[Not so Dumbo]

Extended family vacations are very touchy.
We just got back from one and things that I never saw coming hit like a Mac truck.
DH's parents came down with us, I hardly get along with them so I was expecting the worse, but they were great.... who knew.
After they flew home my parents flew down to stay the last 5 days and they were a complete nightmare. My mom and I get a long great, but we just didn't mesh on vacation.

I think if your FIL already criticizes you as it is and you know he doesn't like DL than I have a feeling that you will be miserable and if you are miserable then your DH will be miserable too and your vacation will be a waste.
Maybe to make DH happy, take a shorter vacation some where else with your FIL.

 

[Vijoge]

We would never go on a vacation with either of our extended families!!!! It would be an immediate no!

Your family may not be like ours though.

Dawn

We did it once. Just once.

 

[dougsmom98]

We have done some large trips with in laws and they have worked out well. My DH and I both have the philosophy that our trips are for the kids. Because it is for the kids, everyone else who sticks with us at the parks knows that. When they get tired of doing what we are doing, they go and do their own thing. We have cell phones, so when they want to meet up again, we call each other. This works really well. As for your SIL, you and DH just need to have an agreement up front about what your expectations are for the trip. My DH hardly sees his sister, so I would probably encourage him to go out with her one night. That may not be the case with your DH and his sister though. As for your FIL, he may have been there and done that, but he probably hasn't been there and done that with the grandkids. Grandkids make the parks fun and new again.
I know you don't necessarily want you in-laws to go with you, but it sounds like you DH does and that is important.
Good luck.

 

[GOOFY4DONALD]

Thanks for the advice. My DH wants FIL to go to WDW with us. My MIL is pretty good and they both want to go to WDW. That being said. I do not want to plan any one else's vacation...just my own. I was thinking that since I book as soon as that year's rates come out and I always have my meals planned and reserved 6 months prior..I can give them a list of what we are doing and see if they would like to join us....sometimes. I think that my in-laws would like to go off on their own as well so they can do some adult things.
Is it possible to take 3 separate vacations...possible arriving different days....stay at different resorts....book on your own and still be a grand gathering?

 

[Fingerpaints]

I would say no. We did it last year, it went alright, but certainly wasn't what I had hoped it would be. We found there was a lot of time eaten up just standing around and waiting for the group to get to dinner and such.

There were a lot of things we had to skip for the kids because the others did not want to do it or didn't like it. The best days we had were when we were on our own completely.

There were some great things about having everyone there. It was helpful to have extra hands, and some great memories and pics. But all in all I felt the group was always split up, I did not get much time with my oldest ds because he went with the other group, and I missed him when we were having little family moments. Those holes in the pics really stand out to me.

This year we are going it alone. We are not inviting everyone else along. Now, I just have to tell them that.

 

[troynkasey]

I've been on a 3 day vacation with my wife's family and we always go to Disney with my mom and dad and my sister and her boyfriend. The Disney trips can be done, but we always need time to ourselves and we need time away from each other when we return home. The trip with my in-laws was a once in a lifetime thing we will never do. The difference between the two? The trip to Disney has us all getting our own rooms. The other trip (to the Dells to a water park) consisted of us all staying in a condo and not having much time to ourselves.

It can be done, but you have to make sure you get "you" time and not make it all about the whole family. It is vacation and you need to enjoy it.

Doing vacation with both families would probably work in our situation, but you're asking for conflict if you can't come up with a consensus.

 

[Darcy03231]

I did it last summer with my children, my mom, and my sister, BIL and three nieces. It worked out really well because I made up an itinerary ahead of time and gave it to my sister and told her this was what we were doing. She was welcome to join us, or do her own thing. Because of the differences in ages of the children (oldest was 16 and youngest 3.5) we did split up a lot. We were usually in the same park on the same day, just did different things. Most meals we ended up having together. We also didn't stay onsite, but rented a large vacation home with a private pool. We loved having all that room and everyone had their private space.

 

[GOOFY4DONALD]

Thanks, again. For those of you that have taken a large vacations hw do you handle meals? I think that everyone will have their own rooms and packages. My family and my parents will all be on the dining plan. I am not so sure about my in laws. Can I make dining ADR's for some of the meals with those people (I do think WCC would be so fun with everyone)?

 

[EthansMom]

We've found that we do MUCH better going on vacation with a couple members of our extended family than going with a huge group. Also, we've learned (the hard way) that we will never go on vacation with BIL and SIL again.

We did one fairly disastrous vacation with the extended ILs... thirteen people ranging from toddler age to 80s. Too many people trying to "stick together" who really wanted to do completely different things on completely different schedules... In the end, most no one was happy. I sat down and figured out how much time we'd wasted waiting for family members (waiting for SIL and BIL for breakfast, then waiting for SIL to pack her stroller after breakfast, waiting for people to finish a ride that the young kids couldn't go on, etc..) and it was DAYS.... literally, we'd spend days of our vacation waiting.

My advice, if you're in a big group: Book rooms all at the same resort. Take cell phones and separate for most of your days at the parks. Schedule dinner together every evening. This way, you get to have the vacation YOU WANT, but get to see your family members also.

We've had some fairly good vacations going with just my Mom and Stepdad, just FIL and StepMIL, and just MIL and StepFIL.... easy enough to meet up with just a couple other folks and to make a few compromises about things to do.

My Mom and Stepdad are the easiest folks with whom to do WDW... they are pretty happy to just go whereever we're going and to do whatever we want to do... a little picky about their foods, but I figure that when I book ADRs. FIL and StepMIL were the easiest to go on a cruise with... happy to go on whatever excursion we had planned, but also confident enough to go off on their own some too.

 

[Disneygirl26]

I think I am in the minority, my family and I go on vacation together at least 90% percent of the time, I mean we the whole extended family last year it was 13 of us we rented a private house and had a ball, It can be done, but I come from a very close family so I think that helps, I'll agree with everyones suggestions that you pick a park for the and not to try to stick day together and just meet up at dinner and make sure have their own private space i.e hotel room so that at the end of the day everyone can have their own piece of mind. Just remember is its DW the good always out wiegh the bad

 

[tyniknate]

We've been there with extended family and it is very doable. The thing you have to have is separate time. Pick days and times where everyone will be together. Dinner, a morning together, etc. You CAN NOT spend the whole vacation together. People get on each others nerves.
We love getting together for a couple of hours each day to talk about where we've been and what we've done. We also take turns with the kids so mom and dad can have a little time to enjoy the parks.
All I can say is that your vacation is only what you make of it. If you go into it thinking it won't work, it won't.

 

[holly7347]

Most of our vacations are huge extended family affairs. It has its pros and cons. Pros are there are plenty of people around to watch the kids for a bit so DH and I can go to dinner alone or see a movie or something. Cons are DH's family are card players and play well into the night. That leaves me sort of stuck in the hotel room trying to be quiet after the kids get to sleep while DH is off in someone elses room playing cards. The weekend trips are ok. But the longer trips sort of wear on me, but I'm sure that would happen even if DH's familyt wasn't there. My girls are just hard to get to sleep on vacation then are tired and cranky the next day and of course mommy is the one that gets the brunt of that even though DH tries to help. Last summer we took a week long vacation with Dh's family all the way from great grantmother down to the great grand kids. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins all week. But I did have to make clear to DH ahead of time that we would still be doing some stuff alone as a family and doing things that our kids would enjoy not just hanging out with his family the whole entire trip. His family is all local to us so it wasn't like this vacation was the only time we would get to see them for the year. It worked out pretty well and they are planning another trip to the same place for next June.

 

[HalloweenBaby]

We went last year with DH's family. There were 14 of us in all. Our biggest problem was that DH's parents saw this as a "family vacation" so they didn't want to do anything alone. The only thing we planned to do with everyone was one TS/day. This would have worked out well but BIL's family had their own agenda and it did NOT include his parents. Only twice in 8 days, and only for a few hours, were we able to adventure out on our own. My in-laws are in their 70's so needless to say we didn't get to do nearly half of what we wanted. BIL's family, on the other hand, came to dinner every night bragging about all that they had done.

We're going back this fall and we haven't told anyone from DH's family!

If yau all decide to go Good Luck!!!

~Sam