OT - Family reunion

[calena]

We have our trip planned to Disneyland for late October. The reason we are going to California is because DH's cousin is getting married and we had promised we would go so we are going and combining it with a family trip. Now the other side of DH's family is planning a last minute family reunion in October. Here is the clincher. They have rented a hall and our costs to go for one day including hotel and the two meals at the reunion would be around $550-600. (Each adult pays $110 and each child $60 so for our family of five this is the breakdown with a hotel stay.) Plus we have to drive to get there which is about five hours from here and there goes Sat and Sun. So we aren't going for $ and time. I figure we can use the $600 in California and Vegas. I also need the time here at home to deal with stuff before we go on our 10 day trip. So I was wondering... does about $440 for a reunion cost seem a bit much per family or how do others do reunions? In my family (in the US) we just meet at someone's house and have a pot luck!