Family Member Flop :-(

[Mickey'sApprentice]

I can relate to OP.

My sister still believes that having a free studio at Boardwalk Villas was something that I did TO her, and not FOR her.

On the bright side... She doesn't want to go back, and I don't want to be there with her. Problem solved!

 

[utahkennedys]

DW and I planned a week at the THV. As a wedding gift to my brother and his wife we invited them to come and purchased their 7 day park hopper passes. Brother hasn't been to Disney in 15 years, his wife has never been. In the months leading up to the trip they were very excited about the parks and spending time at WDW. Returned home last night, and confirmed we will never invite them again. SIL only went into the parks a couple times and would only stay a couple hours...the parks were keeping her away from the pool. I am disappointed things turned out the way they did. DW and I love the parks and the experience on a whole. I feel slighted because she didn't give the parks a chance and just kept saying she didn't want to leave the pool. We love the pool too and usually spend a couple hours each day swimming and relaxing. She could have just told us 6 months ago she would prefer to sit by the pool and not do the parks, we would have understood. In addition to the lack of enthusiasm no gratitude was shown either.

After going on several trips to WDW with family members, we have decided we are no longer playing tour guides to family and friends. We are tired of providing DVC and Marriott Vacation Club accomodations to people who aren't grateful and we work too hard and it costs too much to make other people have a magical time.

 

[Sammie]

We don't have this kinda problem, we don't invite guests.

Us either, as I know it would be stressful. I am glad it works out for some, but I know my friends and worse I know my family even better. Their idea of fun and mine would never match.

 

[tinkerbell 766]

I know just how the OP feels. We are recently returned from our latest trip during which we renewed our wedding vows. We took a party of fourteen guests with us and paid for all their first five days accomodations using our points. Everybody had the time of their lives - except MIL!!! I was prepared that she was older and would get tired and need days off from the parks. We rented a wheelchair for her as her feet give her some trouble. We took turns to push her in the chair which was fine and not a problem at all. My disappointment was her attitude complete lack of interest in anything at all!!! I went out of my way to plan attractions I thought she would like and restaurants I thought she would enjoy. To no avail. She complained about everything, food, weather, absolutely everything!!! This was her first visit to WDW and whilst I understand it is not for everybody, I think she could have at least given it a chance. The saddest thing is her partner tried everything and really enjoyed himself, but on several days she insisted on staying at the resort and he felt compelled to stay with her. He missed out on so much because of her attitude. I was fed up with looking at her sour face and even my husband got to the stage where he could barely talk to her without getting angry!!! I was never looking for gratitude for my gift, I just hoped that everyone would have a good time (or at least try to)!!
I have learned my lesson - never ever again!!!!!

 

[crisi]

I'm not even sure its about "giving it a chance" as much as its about being polite. You don't go to dinner at someone's house and criticize the food. You don't look at the sweater your mother in law gave you for Christmas and say its the wrong color. You don't get treated to a vacation by someone else and criticize the location once you are there. Not to their faces.

After you leave dinner you can look at your spouse and say "I forgot Beth was a terrible cook." You can donate the sweater to Goodwill or return it. You can say "I don't know what they see in Disney, that was not my idea of a vacation." But while you are someone's guest, or receiving their gift, you show appreciation.

If the OPs relatives wanted to lay by the pool, the time to mention that was when the trip was offered. "Disney? No, my idea of a vacation is a beach and a margarita. Thanks so much though, its a really generous offer. We'd love to vacation with you sometime - maybe Cabo?" It shouldn't have surprised the OPs guests that a trip to Disney involves days in theme parks, going on rides, waiting in line. If it were surprised, they've been living under a rock.

And there is nothing in the OPs post that this was the couple's honeymoon. If they accepted a trip from their relatives WITH THEIR RELATIVES ALONG for their honeymoon, they sort of deserve the honeymoon they got.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I'm not even sure its about "giving it a chance" as much as its about being polite. You don't go to dinner at someone's house and criticize the food. You don't look at the sweater your mother in law gave you for Christmas and say its the wrong color. You don't get treated to a vacation by someone else and criticize the location once you are there. Not to their faces.

After you leave dinner you can look at your spouse and say "I forgot Beth was a terrible cook." You can donate the sweater to Goodwill or return it. You can say "I don't know what they see in Disney, that was not my idea of a vacation." But while you are someone's guest, or receiving their gift, you show appreciation.

If the OPs relatives wanted to lay by the pool, the time to mention that was when the trip was offered. "Disney? No, my idea of a vacation is a beach and a margarita. Thanks so much though, its a really generous offer. We'd love to vacation with you sometime - maybe Cabo?" It shouldn't have surprised the OPs guests that a trip to Disney involves days in theme parks, going on rides, waiting in line. If it were surprised, they've been living under a rock.

And there is nothing in the OPs post that this was the couple's honeymoon. If they accepted a trip from their relatives WITH THEIR RELATIVES ALONG for their honeymoon, they sort of deserve the honeymoon they got.

I agree, and I too don't think this was a "honeymoon" trip. It was a wedding gift trip...not honeymoon. I'm not sure which would bother me more...the brushing off of the trip in general, or not showing appreciation for it. You are absolutely right that the guests should have expressed their concerns (likes/dislikes) before the trip, but my guess is that it might not have been an offer, but rather an out and out surprise gift. If that was the case though, the recipients COULD have politely turned it down and avoided the hard feelings that are obviously now present on both sides.

 

[LCoulter]

Our DN19 begged us to take her to Disney and since we were taking my MIL and she would have a studio all to herself and after getting the ok from MIL, we agreed to take DN19.

From the start DN19 was talking about riding Hulk and Dualing Dragons and Mummy and I explained to her before we even booked her flights that she was thinking of Universal and we were not going there. I told her what rides she could expect at WDW and about the few “thrill” rides there are which we would try to get to but we were spending most of the time on things that our DD4 could go on. She said she wanted to go still. By the way, she has been to both WDW and Universal a few times, the last time with a high school band. So we book flights and get her 7 day Park Hoppers and Xmas Party ticket.

Shortly before we go on the trip, she is again talking about riding all of the Universal rides and I have to explain again where we are going. She then thinks she can just take Disney transportation over to Universal. At this point, I am thinking that once she gets there, she will at least enjoy the rides and shows that Disney offers.

She slept every day until 10:30-11:30 am and then joined us at the parks expecting a table service meal for lunch and for dinner. She would stay at the park for an hour or so after lunch and then head back to the resort. We thought she would at least be nice company for her Grandmother but she ditched Grandma at the resort and headed to the pool. Oh, and all she did all week is text…even on the rides…she wouldn’t even look up from her phone to see what was passing by on the rides, even on rides she has NEVER been on. She left the Xmas party right after the parade so she was only there for a few hours. She had sour puss face all week like she didn't want to even be there.

I didn’t expect MIL at 75 to keep up with us or spend as much time in the parks with us, but I expected the 19 year old to.

Never again will I take the niece or if we do, she is on her own to pay for flights and tickets.

 

[BEASLYBOO]

I learned a valuable lesson several years ago, seldomly will you vacation with someone who wants to do everything you want nor go every where you want. I got all wrapped up in the planning of it all and they went along with it, but when they arrived guess what? They did what they wanted, and you know what, it's the way it should be! After all it was their vacation as well!

When you gift someone a trip like this, what your likes and dislikes are shouldn't enter into it! If you ask them now, your family would probably say they had a wonderful time.

My very own son, is not he Disney fanatic that I am, imagine that! We try to please both sides and we negotaite so that we both enjoy our time off! We share our DVC and bring friends with us quite often and we have a group discussion so that everyone gets to go or do something they want. Just because the timeshare is mine, doesn't give me the right to dictate how my family and friends should spend their time.

I'm sorry your feeling s are hurt, but in future, gift with no expectations other than a thank you! I feel you were entitled to a than you!

 

[dbs1228]

The OP said SIL had never been to Disney so how would they really know Disney was not their type of vacation????

We had friends, who we have traveled with before come with us last Dec. and before the trip DH's friend kept saying "my type of vacation is just laying by the pool" our response was "fine with us we can meet later in the day" I started regretting inviting them to come because HE seemed a bit ungrateful and kept harping on not wanting to do anything on vacation (which really was okay with us as long as they knew we were doing what we wanted). Well..... He had a blast, and I do not think I have laughed that hard in a long time. We all felt like kids again. We wanted to leave the parks before he did. Just goes to show, you never really know. DH and I learned long ago vacations are way too short and when I am on vacation I am going to do what I want, and I expect others to do the same.

 

[ChickieToo]

OP, sorry you were so disappointed, and that they appeared to be so unappreciative.

I know this was a wedding gift, but are they still newlyweds? Maybe they wanted some privacy and thought they could have alone time if they knew you were in the parks.

Did you have your baby along? People without kids are often in a different place than those with children, and perhaps they just wanted some quiet time without worrying about the needs and desires of a child.

I've learned along the way that it's true ... you can't control anyone's behavior but your own. Try not to let their actions impact you too much.

 

[dianeschlicht]

DH and I learned long ago vacations are way too short and when I am on vacation I am going to do what I want, and I expect others to do the same.

We feel that way too, and it's one of the reasons we never invite guests to share our ENTIRE vacation. We always make sure we have at least a couple of days to ourselves after they leave. Of course, that's not always true, and we do have some guests who do share the whole trip with us. For example: In March we are inviting friends who we travel with often to share our 5 days at Disney before we go down to Fort Myers for spring training. We will also share that portion of the trip as well, and we are driving from Minnesota together too. It might end up being too much togetherness, but we'll see.

 

[rocketriter]

To the poster (not the OP) who said they uninvited one wing of the family who wouldn't stay with the group every minute: I'm not with you on this. We have travelled with family and wouldn't dream of making their constant attendance a condition of joining us. (In fact, it would make us crazy.) I'd certainly expect everyone to get together for key events: dinner, Cirq or whatever. But we find that tempers relax when people also have some freedom and don't owe it to us to constantly pay court. You might reconsider your attitude toward the folks who go off by themselves sometimes.

 

[LVSWL]

Sorry about your trip OP. To me, part of the fun of taking guests is the anticipation and planning. It is such a let down to have things go differently than you expected. Like you, I feel that she could have given you a heads up before you bought the tickets.
We took my BFF and her husband two years ago. She had just received a scary diagnosis and had never been to WDW, her husband hadn't been in 25 years and had a lot of sentimental reasons for wanting to go back. We let them pick the resort & the week to go (Easter-UGH!) We booked the villa with our points, helped them on their tickets and saved them $$ with our Tables in Wonderland card. I discussed the plans many times with them and sent them copies of the menus. They wanted to stay 8 nights. All they kept saying was for us to plan away, they were so excited to be going with the Disney experts.
Long story short, on day 6 my bff got ticked because we checked to see if they were ready to leave, let my DH have it, then after dinner that night they checked out and drove home. We lost two days of points/Easter/weekend! Fast forward one month and I receive a nasty letter in the mail, and another a week later. 35 year friendship over. We will very careful before we take anyone else, and that makes me very sad to say that, but people are "different" when they are tired/cranky/ and when you spend a lot of time with others in a very intimate setting if you don't usually spend that many days in a row together. I imagine that unless it is our family, we will book a villa for friends but let them pay us the going rate for the points. That way they might appreciate it a little more, and if not, their loss.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Sorry about your trip OP. To me, part of the fun of taking guests is the anticipation and planning. It is such a let down to have things go differently than you expected. Like you, I feel that she could have given you a heads up before you bought the tickets.
We took my BFF and her husband two years ago. She had just received a scary diagnosis and had never been to WDW, her husband hadn't been in 25 years and had a lot of sentimental reasons for wanting to go back. We let them pick the resort & the week to go (Easter-UGH!) We booked the villa with our points, helped them on their tickets and saved them $$ with our Tables in Wonderland card. I discussed the plans many times with them and sent them copies of the menus. They wanted to stay 8 nights. All they kept saying was for us to plan away, they were so excited to be going with the Disney experts.
Long story short, on day 6 my bff got ticked because we checked to see if they were ready to leave, let my DH have it, then after dinner that night they checked out and drove home. We lost two days of points/Easter/weekend! Fast forward one month and I receive a nasty letter in the mail, and another a week later. 35 year friendship over. We will very careful before we take anyone else, and that makes me very sad to say that, but people are "different" when they are tired/cranky/ and when you spend a lot of time with others in a very intimate setting if you don't usually spend that many days in a row together. I imagine that unless it is our family, we will book a villa for friends but let them pay us the going rate for the points. That way they might appreciate it a little more, and if not, their loss.

Holy Cow! Now THAT is an unappreciative guest!

 

[Judique]

DW and I planned a week at the THV. As a wedding gift to my brother and his wife we invited them to come and purchased their 7 day park hopper passes. Brother hasn't been to Disney in 15 years, his wife has never been. In the months leading up to the trip they were very excited about the parks and spending time at WDW. Returned home last night, and confirmed we will never invite them again. SIL only went into the parks a couple times and would only stay a couple hours...the parks were keeping her away from the pool. I am disappointed things turned out the way they did. DW and I love the parks and the experience on a whole. I feel slighted because she didn't give the parks a chance and just kept saying she didn't want to leave the pool. We love the pool too and usually spend a couple hours each day swimming and relaxing. She could have just told us 6 months ago she would prefer to sit by the pool and not do the parks, we would have understood. In addition to the lack of enthusiasm no gratitude was shown either.

What a wonderful gift you gave them!

It's nice to get feedback when you are expecting it...ie at the time. But sometimes that comes later. They were excited to go and to plan. Give them a chance to settle back and perhaps you will hear glowing reports of what a great time they had.

It's not easy to travel with others. Sometimes its down right stressfull.

As some others have stated, everyone has their own idea of what a great vacation is.

 

[jodifla]

I invite guests all the time. ALWAYS have fun. But I have little expectation. I give them a place to sleep. We have breakfast and often dinner...or at least end of the day drinks together.

The rest of the time is for them! A gift is not a gift if it has a lot of strings attached.

 

[TisBit]

I will relate the story of some friends that went with us. We always have the understanding you can do your own thing, but we do have plans and can get you through the parks/rides so you see it all.

The trip started out a bit rough, with our friends not understanding why we would skip certain things, etc...regardless of how we explained it. They seemed to be a little frustrated and the normal feelings started to develop. On the second or third day into the trip, I ended up sick and going to the hospital. My wife and kids with their family went to DHS for the day. By the end of that day they had done just about nothing and were doing the typical new to a park standing in the street staring at a map scenario.

The next day was great, they suddenly realized that we did have a good plan that might not have made sense to them at the time, but by the end of the week we had rode all the rides people wanted to (plus a few extras and multiples of the good ones) and had time to shop/wander about and use the pool at the house we rented! Often times, it just takes letting someone try it on their own and see how they want to do the parks, without feeling you have to be together at all times!

 

[Cajun28]

Sorry about your trip OP. To me, part of the fun of taking guests is the anticipation and planning. It is such a let down to have things go differently than you expected. Like you, I feel that she could have given you a heads up before you bought the tickets.
We took my BFF and her husband two years ago. She had just received a scary diagnosis and had never been to WDW, her husband hadn't been in 25 years and had a lot of sentimental reasons for wanting to go back. We let them pick the resort & the week to go (Easter-UGH!) We booked the villa with our points, helped them on their tickets and saved them $$ with our Tables in Wonderland card. I discussed the plans many times with them and sent them copies of the menus. They wanted to stay 8 nights. All they kept saying was for us to plan away, they were so excited to be going with the Disney experts.
Long story short, on day 6 my bff got ticked because we checked to see if they were ready to leave, let my DH have it, then after dinner that night they checked out and drove home. We lost two days of points/Easter/weekend! Fast forward one month and I receive a nasty letter in the mail, and another a week later. 35 year friendship over. We will very careful before we take anyone else, and that makes me very sad to say that, but people are "different" when they are tired/cranky/ and when you spend a lot of time with others in a very intimate setting if you don't usually spend that many days in a row together. I imagine that unless it is our family, we will book a villa for friends but let them pay us the going rate for the points. That way they might appreciate it a little more, and if not, their loss.

All I can say about this story is "WOW".

Reading threads like this makes me realize how fortunate we've been with our trips with friends. We have friends who live in the Tampa area and for the last few years we have been "trading off" vacations. We invite them to meet us when we go to WDW on our points and they invite us to join them when they use their timeshare (usually on the beach somewhere). In all of our vacations together so far we have never had even a cross word between us. (Knock on wood, I hope I didn't just jinx our August trip...lol) We always buy each other dinners to say thank you for inviting us.

Sorry this has happened to OP and other posters but it sure makes me appreciate our friends!

 

[LVSWL]

Thanks for the comments guys I think in many cases, not just mine, everyone has to be honest from the get go about what they want to do on vacation, how late they think they want to sleep, how late they might want to stay up. That being said, things can change once you get there. As some have experienced, the parks just might not interest everyone or someone might realize how much FUN they can have and it is a pleasant surprise. I do think that it's hard for people who have never been, or haven't been in a long time to grasp things like fastpasses/ADRs/EMHs. The husband of the friend we took had not been to WDW in 25 years. Our first night in Epcot, while waiting for the fireworks to begin, I overheard him grumbling to his wife that he didn't understand WHY we were waiting to see the fireworks there, everyone knows the fireworks were in MK. Understandable since he hadn't been in a long time, but we had explained it over dinner, and it was more the ATTITUDE he had about many things like that. Sort of like we were idiots It was humorous at first, then got to be hurtful/aggrevating. I guess our 18 trips trumps 1 trip 25 years ago for knowing how to navigate the parks. He grumbled about everything from "why are we taking the boat from the WL to the Contemporary" to why are we getting fastpasses for Buzz if we have already done the ride once. Maybe if he wasn't so discontented about the small things, then things would have worked out differently. Like others have said, we will be very careful before we invite others again. We have two great kids/young adults and our time with them is very precious. No need to add drama to our vacations with them. to all the posters who have been disappointed/hurt about their vacations and a big to those who have had those wonderful trips we all "dream" about. When we bought DVC we had all kinds of drems to take lots of friends and share our favorite place. We still hold our hope for that. I think it really is about expectations as I said before, but also about being considerate, us with our guests and them with us. I do recognize that just because it is our DVC points we can't call all the shots, but I don't think our guest should be snarky or as some have mentioned, ungrateful. We are all adults, and I think adults should try to be considerate and talk about things if they feel differently about something. Vacations are too short for passive-aggressive behavior

 

[Dean]

Sometimes things come out of left field but in most cases where there are problems, it seems there were reasons to know ahead of time. I think many people con themselves into thinking that because Disney is a Magical Place, that people will simply lose their usual difficult nature. I'd venture that MOST problems could have been avoided if the members were realistic and took into account past issues/personalities.