UPDATE...post #35 - Would you propose this offer or not?

[DaniB]

If it was one of my kids being asked to come with another family, I would not feel comfortable with that family footing the entire bill. Personally, I don't think we even know anyone that could afford to pay the entire cost!

I would totally be prepared to pay for:
- park tickets
- contribute to food (ie, cover her own cost or cover her portion in a DP)
- get DD to earn & save her own spending money
- if they were flying, then we would cover DD's airfare as well

We have talked about letting the kids invite a friend on a future trip when they are much older. We would cover:
- accomodation costs
- transportation costs if driving there (maybe even flying) or rental car cost
- extra food, snacks & water cost outside the DDP
- extra souveniors we purchase for all kids
- photopass photos (they'd be included on our card) plus many from our own camera

And of course:
- the parents would be kid-free (or 1 less) for a week (trust me, that alone would thrill me! )
- life-long memories for the child

 

[mtblujeans]

I would scrap the idea. We have found that when we can afford a vacation, is not necessarily the same time another family can afford a vacation....or to send their kids on vacation.

In our family, we have asked a friend of DS to go on a couple of trips with us. Our kids are older (college age). We paid everything. There seemed to be resentment from 'friend' because our family rules and values apply when we are together. (That can be a rough age.) One of the parents seemed to be resentful, too, presumably because we took a trip that he could not afford to take his family on. We have since stopped asking 'friend' to join us on trips. I realize this may be a very different situation from your own but I wonder if, sometimes, things don't work out as well as you hope no matter how well everyone gets along....and it may be best to leave things as they are. Good luck with your decision.

 

[sookie]

We always travel with an extra BFF or two and I have NEVER asked the parents to pay for any part of the trip. The only thing the BFF needs their own money for is spending money - I pay for plane tickets, meals, park admission, extra hotel rooms... If you are going to ask the extra BFF's to go you should be prepared to foot the bill. IMHO - I think it is in poor taste to ask someone if their child can go on vacation with you but then tell the parent that their child will need $500-$1000 to go with you. If someone were to suggest this with one of my children I would be offended.

i totally agree!
if i invite someone out - i pay.
that goes for vacation too.

 

[JennCa]

Do you trully have enough and are willing to pay for all the kids to get souvenirs? Food that they want? We once footed the bill for my niece, flight, tickets, clothes, food, etc but they sent with her a couple hundred to pay for souvenirs! (this was very awkward because we don't let our daughter buy them usually and now her guest gets to spend lots of money and then we had paid for all the rest!)

What happens if someone gets sick? Will part of the group go and the other stay at the hotel? My niece ended up getting sick early on in the trip and luckily she was a real trooper, but it did change our plans.

I think if you think through the possible scenarios then you will know what you are willing to do. For us, in hindsight it was still worth it because she didn't really know who paid for what, she just enjoyed a vacation that she would have never been able to go on with her special aunt, uncle and cousin that she would have never been to with her family.

Just a thought.

Jenn

 

[ilovefh]

I think if my two kids we that close to your two kids and I felt comfortable with you I'd love the idea. To be totally honest, since DH and I are Disney people too I'd probably try and book the whole family. But then again a week with no kids sounds nice!

I wouldn't be comfortable having you pay for the whole thing. So I'd either pay for park tickets and then some or just say no if I couldn't contribute anything (even if you offered to foot the entire bill).

 

[ceecee]

This depends on a lot of factors that people can not advice you on. Age of kids, financial status of parents since both kids are from the same family, right? So many variables. Normally when we ask a friend along for DD we pay.

 

[The Iron Giant]

We always travel with an extra BFF or two and I have NEVER asked the parents to pay for any part of the trip. The only thing the BFF needs their own money for is spending money - I pay for plane tickets, meals, park admission, extra hotel rooms... If you are going to ask the extra BFF's to go you should be prepared to foot the bill. IMHO - I think it is in poor taste to ask someone if their child can go on vacation with you but then tell the parent that their child will need $500-$1000 to go with you. If someone were to suggest this with one of my children I would be offended.

 

[heatherwillmom]

I wouldn't feel comfortable with someone paying for my child's vacation to WDW even if they ask my child to go. We actually took DD's BF this year. When I invited him, his mother said she wouldn't care for him to go but she couldn't afford it. I told her we would pay for his ticket. It wouldn't cost anymore for the room & we drove down. He helped us around the house to "pay" for his ticket. He also helped loading the car, unloading, etc. He brought his own spending money & we had added dining to our tickets so there wasn't any extra oney for food. The ticket was the only extra expense that we had.

 

[cm8]

I wouldn't feel comfortable with someone paying for my child's vacation to WDW even if they ask my child to go. We actually took DD's BF this year. When I invited him, his mother said she wouldn't care for him to go but she couldn't afford it. I told her we would pay for his ticket. It wouldn't cost anymore for the room & we drove down. He helped us around the house to "pay" for his ticket. He also helped loading the car, unloading, etc. He brought his own spending money & we had added dining to our tickets so there wasn't any extra oney for food. The ticket was the only extra expense that we had.

I bet they both were grateful too

 

[pixiewings71]

We always travel with an extra BFF or two and I have NEVER asked the parents to pay for any part of the trip. The only thing the BFF needs their own money for is spending money - I pay for plane tickets, meals, park admission, extra hotel rooms... If you are going to ask the extra BFF's to go you should be prepared to foot the bill. IMHO - I think it is in poor taste to ask someone if their child can go on vacation with you but then tell the parent that their child will need $500-$1000 to go with you. If someone were to suggest this with one of my children I would be offended.

I completely disagree with this post. I would never expect anyone else to foot the entire bill for my child to go with them on vacation, never, that's just not practical IMO.

We took 2 of our girls' friends when we went to DLR one of our trips. I spoke with the other girls' Mom's and let them know what we could cover and asked them to get the kids' their own tickets and send a little money for food and souvenirs, we covered some of the meals for the kids but neither parent had any problems buying the tickets or sending money for the kids. In fact they both tried to give me what we returned when we returned the kids. I refused it. We covered the gas (we drive, we are 6.5 hrs from DLR), the hotel, some of the meals, we also gave our guests each a lanyard and numerous pins for trading. In our case these friends are girls I've known since they were in Kindergarten with my kids, of course I've known the parents as long and we are all quite close. I was given POA for both girls just in case but we didn't need them at all. OP speak to the Mom and make the offer, if someone offered to take one of my kids to DLR with them I would do everything possible to make it happen but I would not expect or ask them to cover my child's expenses completely. I hope you're able to do it, you'll have a GREAT time!!! It was more work to have 4 kids instead of 2 but it was so much fun!!!!

 

[heatherwillmom]

I bet they both were grateful too

They were both very grateful. He is a good kid (for a teenager). He is always grateful that we take him places & include him in our family events. his parents are divorced. He always helps with things like carrying stuff or loading the car. He had never gotten to go to WDW before even though he had wanted to since he was small. It worked out good for his twin brother too. He is in the high school band & they went while we were there too.

 

[mikkishelles]

We always travel with an extra BFF or two and I have NEVER asked the parents to pay for any part of the trip. The only thing the BFF needs their own money for is spending money - I pay for plane tickets, meals, park admission, extra hotel rooms... If you are going to ask the extra BFF's to go you should be prepared to foot the bill. IMHO - I think it is in poor taste to ask someone if their child can go on vacation with you but then tell the parent that their child will need $500-$1000 to go with you. If someone were to suggest this with one of my children I would be offended.

I absolutely agree with you. Whenever I invite one of my sons' friends somewhere, I always foot the bill. They are coming as our guests, and I would never ask a guest to pay. We are not flush with money by any means, and if I could not afford to foot the bill, I would not invite anyone extra. Period.

 

[Tink9295]

I have done this. My DS brought his best friend with us to DW. I asked him to pay for his park passes. We drove so that was no extra cost. I pretty much paid for all his meals. Many of the meals were in the cabin at FW. He paid for snacks/junk food.

It worked out very well. I bought his tickets with my AAA and he paid me back before we left on the trip. I would definitely do it again. If fact he keeps asking when he can go back with us.

 

[Friendly Frog]

OP, I really hope you ask the mom and let her decide. My parents rarely went anywhere ( mom didn't drive and Dad never wanted to leave the house.) They had no problem with sending money with me when other parents let me go with them, as a matter of fact as a thank you for letting me go, they would often pay for the other child as well. So I hope you ask and let the other parent decide. Everyone is different and you might just make another child's dream come true!

 

[leagirl12]

I talked to the mom and she loved the idea. We decided that the kids would go with us for Spring Break instead of waiting until June. With summer camps that all of the kids want to go to it could end up that our June schedule could change and trying to find a date that worked for all would be difficult.

I told her I was nervous about asking since I was asking her to pay for the tix and she said she was glad that I asked and felt we were comfortable enough with each other to be honest about if they could afford it or if we could afford it. She also said her and her dh would not have let us pay for it...they would have wanted to buy the tix.

She also said that her and her DH would also be giving us extra money on top of the ticket money because they know how expensive feeding teen/pre-teens could be. I told her that since it was a surprise trip our kids would be given a set amount of spending money since they won't have time to earn/save up spending money. She said we should get together before the trip and agree on an amount and she will send her two with the same amount of spending money.

We were going to do our trip reveal the morning we left...but now that the friends are going we are going to do a dinner with both families and do a big reveal. So now to plan that!

Thank you so much for all of the responses!!

 

[Katy Belle]

So exciting! Have a great time!

I went on vacation with my BF when we were 13. It was so much fun!

 

[VAfamily1998]

I talked to the mom and she loved the idea. We decided that the kids would go with us for Spring Break instead of waiting until June. With summer camps that all of the kids want to go to it could end up that our June schedule could change and trying to find a date that worked for all would be difficult.

I told her I was nervous about asking since I was asking her to pay for the tix and she said she was glad that I asked and felt we were comfortable enough with each other to be honest about if they could afford it or if we could afford it. She also said her and her dh would not have let us pay for it...they would have wanted to buy the tix.

She also said that her and her DH would also be giving us extra money on top of the ticket money because they know how expensive feeding teen/pre-teens could be. I told her that since it was a surprise trip our kids would be given a set amount of spending money since they won't have time to earn/save up spending money. She said we should get together before the trip and agree on an amount and she will send her two with the same amount of spending money.

We were going to do our trip reveal the morning we left...but now that the friends are going we are going to do a dinner with both families and do a big reveal. So now to plan that!

Thank you so much for all of the responses!!

What a fabulous update! You all are going to have so much fun!

 

[My5Mouseketeers]

I am so happy that you let the parents make the decision. I was really bothered by the fact that you wanted to do a good deed and were worried about offending someone for not doing enough of a good deed!

Happy New Year!

 

[DaniB]

Awesome that it all turned out so well!!

 

[horseshowmom]

I talked to the mom and she loved the idea. We decided that the kids would go with us for Spring Break instead of waiting until June. With summer camps that all of the kids want to go to it could end up that our June schedule could change and trying to find a date that worked for all would be difficult.

I told her I was nervous about asking since I was asking her to pay for the tix and she said she was glad that I asked and felt we were comfortable enough with each other to be honest about if they could afford it or if we could afford it. She also said her and her dh would not have let us pay for it...they would have wanted to buy the tix.

She also said that her and her DH would also be giving us extra money on top of the ticket money because they know how expensive feeding teen/pre-teens could be. I told her that since it was a surprise trip our kids would be given a set amount of spending money since they won't have time to earn/save up spending money. She said we should get together before the trip and agree on an amount and she will send her two with the same amount of spending money.

We were going to do our trip reveal the morning we left...but now that the friends are going we are going to do a dinner with both families and do a big reveal. So now to plan that!

Thank you so much for all of the responses!!

Great! That's pretty much it always worked for us. I hope you have a wonderful trip. We never had a bad trip when we carried other kids with us on vacation.