My sister and her husband have friend with a house in Hawaii they will rent to us cheap. On the beach in Maui. Close to a beautiful golf course. They really want the whole family to go to Maui for a reunion.
I don't want to go.
1. I don't enjoy the beach. Beach vacations aren't my thing.
2. Unlike my other siblings, I have children. So I have to fly not two but four people to Hawaii - and expensive proposition. And Hawaii isn't much of a children's destination.
3. Hawaii involves about ten hours on an airplane for us. With preschoolers.
4. We have a Disney trip scheduled in October, and a
DCL trip scheduled in Feburary. We have a trip next weekend to Wisconsin for a wedding. We have future trips sketched in back to Disney (we are DVC members) as well as trips planned in our heads to the East Coast, San Fransisco, Grand Canyon, Mamouth Cave, London, Amsterdam and Korea. That takes up a lot of our vacation time and dollars - and all of these places have more meaning to our part of the family than Hawaii.
5. We love to golf, but are real hackers. A beautiful expensive course is wasted on our skills. Plus, we wouldn't be playing much golf with the kids in tow.
We've come to a compromise destination - we think the Carribean someplace. We can get their cheaper than Hawaii with less of a flight. The resort won't be as nice, but will be just as cheap. We can find someplace with lots of golf. That means that we can shorten the trip as well - four days of family togetherness is plenty - but if you are going to bother to fly all the way to Hawaii, we all feel we'd need to make it a full week.
I'm telling you this so you can see the other side of the argument with a destination you may not be as invested in. If I were to be "talked into" going to Hawaii and spending about $5-10,000 to get my family there, feed them, and have somewhere to stay - when Hawaii isn't on my family priority list for vacations or money (I'd rather drive a nice car than go to Hawaii), and then had the lousy time I anticipate (a hellish flight with small children, followed by days sitting on the beach (ick) and watching other people play golf while I watch my children - it would take a lot of effort NOT to hold it against my sister. Not the bonding experience she likely envisions.
By the way, this doesn't mean I don't know what "fun" is, just that my idea of fun and my sister's idea of fun is somewhat different. I'm sure jazstar's relatives have great ole heaps of fun in their own way - maybe they are downhill skiiers who can't understand why anyone would spend their time or money at Disney instead of Breckinridge.
If you are really set on the idea, go for a cheap three day cruise to minimize the "time and money" arguments. Pick a time of year when the rates are low and begin canvassing with "we could do this with as little as $xxx for the cruise per person." They can then upsell themselves into a different time of year of a veranda. But unless you are willing to treat everyone to the cruise (and even then - they have the time argument) their time and money is theirs to spend as they wish.