Don't you hate family gatherings that... (long)

[SleepyatDVC]

use up all your vacation time and take away your opportunities to use your DVC?

MIL calls us during the Xmas holidays to let us know "a year in advance" to save some vacation time to go to their home (in TX) next Xmas. She wants the entire family to get together next year and celebrate early their 40th wedding anniversary (mid jan).

She wanted to let us know early so that we didn't plan out all our trips and use up all our vacation time. Little did she know, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that DH's vacation time is ALL gone already!

DH only has 2 weeks a year off and we have a trip planned to OKW during Prez Week. My side of the family, planned a 9-day family cruise for late August 2006 that we put a deposit down for months and months ago. And there went our 2006 vacation allotment, and she thought she was letting us know EARLY!

Right after MIL called, DH and I were trying to figure things out. I REALLY wanted to go on the family cruise. My aunt was getting the 1200+ sqft Royal Suite, you know the one with the baby grand and the hot tub on their private balcony , and I REALY wanted my only opportunity to hang out there! I knew that I wouldn't have another chance to even SEE into one, not at those prices!

We were kicking around the idea of seeing if DH could borrow his vacation days from NEXT year (2007). Since it was more than 11 months away, I couldn't even check on airfare to TX yet, we put it on the back burner.

Fast forward to last week. DH's boss gives him a hard time about our February trip and at first denies his request because someone else in the company (small) was taking the same week off. Company policy for the last 8 years has been to just let them know one month in advance when you are taking your vacation days.

DH had been unhappy for a while and it was a last straw thing and he was thinking of quitting. Well, I calmed him down and convinced him to start looking for a new job first before he quit. Ideally he won't resign until he got a new position. But even if he didn't find anything, to stick it out for as long as he could so that we could build up a cushion so that when he did finally resign, we would be ok even if it took a while to find something else. He's interviewing for another position as we speak.

In any case, after the incident with his boss, we had a discussion, and we decided to cancel the cruise . It was the right decision. We knew we had to go to his parents' next Xmas after their royal summons. The trouble with the Feb trip showed that if he stayed at his current company there was no way he was going to ask to "borrow" vacation days from next year. And if he got a new job, he woudn't be able to go August and December either.

I could have gone with my Mom (her family's trip) and my girls but at $4500+ per cabin it was too expensive (school's still out) a trip to go without DH and I didn't want to spend all that money especially with his job uncertainty. I called my aunt to cancel our cabin and blamed my MIL desire for a family Xmas and DH's lack of vacation time. It's a good thing they still had 10 cabins without me because it would have messed up their group status.

So here I am, not even on my Feb scheduled WDW trip yet, day dreaming about my next one and darn it! If I can't go on a Carribbean cruise, I want to go to WDW again next December! Arrggh, but we got to go to the In-laws instead!

All I can say is, DH has better get a job with MORE than 2 weeks vacation! Since we had to "waste" one week already!

Anyone else have to work around family obligations, DVC and limited vacation days?

 

[CarolMN]

Sorry things didn't work out, but you are doing the right thing. IMHO, 40 year wedding anniversaries are a big deal and I don't blame your MIL for wanting her family around to help celebrate.

Hope your DH gets a better job with more vacation (and where he will be more appreciated, too) - 2 weeks is just not enough unless one is a relatively new employee.

Best wishes -

 

[SleepyatDVC]

Sorry things didn't work out, but you are doing the right thing. IMHO, 40 year wedding anniversaries are a big deal and I don't blame your MIL for wanting her family around to help celebrate.

Hope your DH gets a better job with more vacation (and where he will be more appreciated, too) - 2 weeks is just not enough unless one is a relatively new employee.

Best wishes -

You're right about the 40th anniv - just wanted to vent a little.

As for the vacation days, it just doesn't increase for ANYONE at his current company. DH has been there almost 8 years and still has 2 weeks, others who have been there over 20 years have the same 2 weeks. But DH knew all that when he took the job, so HE can't really complain.

Technically, I'M the one complaining! It was especially hard because he had TONS of vacation when he worked in the university system. I think they started off with 3 or 4 and it keeps increasing the longer you are there. He had some staffers that had worked there over 20 years getting ready for retirement with like over 10 weeks of vacation. This was on top of all the school holidays when the offices were closed and a bunch of personal days and unlimited sick days.

He really likes the work he is doing now though (he was bored before); he just doesn't like the company.

 

[stampinshauna]

Having limited vacation time is a bummer. I like to use vacation days for actual vacation and DH sometimes talks about saving some so he can just take some days off around Christmas. 2 weeks isn't very much, so I think we will use them all up for vacation.

Luckily, we live close to both of our families and it is a good thing. I've told DH that if we moved, I don't want to use all of our vacation time to visit our family, I like real vacations. Let the family come visit us. It really doesn't matter as we are not planning to move.

If we had more vacation time, we'd definately be visiting WDW and cruising more often (I guess that takes more money too).

Best wishes with your DH's job and with your vacations. Maybe you can find another cruise opportunity (and be able to save some $$ as well). Enjoy WDW in February!

 

[dgaston]

I totally can understand your frustration at having to cancel the cruise. And I still feel the need to point out that family may not be around forever. At almost 55, I am the oldest in my family. In 2002, we answered a family edict to go to Texas for Christmas "with all the family" and I'm glad we did. DH's dad passed away from prostate cancer in 2003. We never could convince him to join us at WDW. He'd been to DL and just was convinced it was all the same. He would have loved the golfing and Epcot. So here's pixie dust for you, no matter what!

 

[Disneyhappy]

I can understand your frustration but as others have said, you are doing the right thing. Make sure your DH negotiates for more vacation with a new job. Things like that are definitely negotiable as long as there are other employees with more than two weeks vacation. If your DH gets another job, you may still be able to do both the cruise in August and MIL in December. I just started a new job iat the end of August and had been saving most of my vacation for later in 2005 from my other job. When I was offered the job, I was offered 3 weeks vacation to be prorated for the rest of 2005. I countered with request for 4 weeks annual vacation and 10 days for the remainder of 2005. They met my requests. Anything is possible depending on the job position and company. It never hurts to ask! Good luck to you and your husband!

 

[Jen D]

Sleepy, I totally understand your frustatration about family obligations. We have parents in three different cities and visiting them eats up a lot of vacation time! DH actually is up to four weeks now but it still seems to get sucked up. It's so hard, we do want to visit our families plenty so that our kids grow up knowing their grandparents and their aunts and uncles and cousins... but we need our own family time too.

We just bought into DVC and I actually don't know when we can plan our first trip home. We have a trip we're taking next week to WDW (not DVC, planned ages ago) and now we're spending the vacation time this year visiting family. I'm still holding out hope we can make it down later in the year... but more likely it will be 2007. We'd love to go down for Thanksgiving or Christmas but I think we'd get a little attitude from the family... they believe if we're spending time and money to travel over the holidays we should come see them.

Of course no one ever wants to visit us... NYC too expensive and our place is too small, or so they think...

 

[tmt martins]

I don't have limited vacation time (31 days total) but we have to do our planning 10 people in workgroup the 1st week of jan every year.So thats the problem planning DVC if someone with more time picks the week I already booked at 11 months out then it's time to scramble.
I usually take off in June so it's not a highly desired time but it does come into play but we wanted to do X-mas and as it's DD 8th grade in 06 I really didn't want to take her out of school this year so that left us with just the last 2 weeks of the year and 1 guy always takes x-mas week his 1st week and he has 37yrs with comp. so he always gets it.

I hope it all works out for you I could think of worse things to worry about for sure.

 

[vascubaguy]

I was about to say, tell him to look for a state job with a university because of all the vacation days, personal time, and annual leave. I've been full-time at a university here for around 2 years (3 years part-time too), and every year I get 4 days of personal leave, 8 days of sick leave, and every 2 weeks I get 4 hours of annual leave. I think I have around 200 hours now (approx 5 weeks).

And after 5 years, the amounts go up. Plus we get all the major holidays off, and almost 2 weeks off for xmas and new years... it's wonderful! The only thing that would be better was if I was teaching. Then I could be on 9 month contract, have all summer off, almost 3 weeks for christmas and new years, and Spring/Fall Break too!

But alas, if you don't enjoy the work, you are better of elsewhere. (I just happen to really enjoy my job!) Just wish it paid more.... That cost-benefit analysis though... that's the reason I'm still there.

Sorry to hear about having to cancel the cruise, but everything works out for the best.