What would you do... cruise without oldest child

sillecruisers

Dreaming of the Dream
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
So my oldest is graduating high school in May. He has 2 very best friends; they have been friends for years. One of the friends moved away to CA a few years ago, but he comes back to visit at least twice a year, the two boys here have been to see him in CA. They are tight. CA friend is coming here to see my son and other local friend graduate, then CA friend's family has invited my son and the other best friend, to fly out to CA to see CA friend graduate, then they are taking all 3 boys to Disney's Aulani resort for a week.

I think all of that is awesome and amazing. Here is my question: I was thinking of booking a Disney cruise for me, hubby, and my younger two children (14 and 13) to go on while older son is in Hawaii. Older son wants us to wait and let him cruise with us after he gets back. My thought is, we are paying his airfare to Hawaii, so it would be cheaper for us to cruise without him, as we would have to fly to the port, plus we could get a cheaper room for 4 if older son didn't go with us. His graduation gift is the Hawaii trip. I wish we could all go to Hawaii, but we can't afford it. And we are trying to get him a decent car for graduation also. (He drives a beater that needs work done more often than not).

Am I a bad mom to consider cruising without him while he is in Hawaii (at a Disney resort, no less!!) having the time of his life, with his best friends, right after his graduation? I just really want to go on a cruise and it would be much more affordable for 4 than 5.

We have been on one Disney cruise before as a family of 5, back in 2015.
 
I am sure you are going to get plenty of comments where people say you should wait and take the oldest along. I think what you are doing is okay. He is going to Hawaii and getting a car. Sometimes not everyone can be included in everything.

Would you be able to afford the vacation and take him or would taking him make the vacation so expensive the rest of you would stay home?

While I am not a parent, I am a child. Once I graduated high school, my parents continued to vacation with my brother while I stayed behind and worked.
 
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I don't think you are a bad mom at all. My first reaction was how many more trips will you all have as just the five of you. If he is graduating high school now, who knows what his future holds and that includes the fact that he may not be able to go with you in the future even if you want to take him. However after I thought about it, I thought heck he is having fun with his choice to go to Hawaii and you all should as well. It doesn't mean you all are any less of a family.

I think only you know what is best for your family.
 


Does he realize that since he won't be able to go to the clubs anymore he may not like it as much? My daughter just started college this year and she is not coming with us on our fall break cruise. She is fine with it because she can no longer attend the clubs anyway. I did take her on a last-minute trip to Disney World just me and her for a couple days in August to make up for it.
 
My initial gut reaction is go ahead and cruise without him. He's getting a vacation at Aulani and potentially a car for graduation. For him to expect another vacation on top of that is unreasonable. But there is this tiny voice in my head saying the time with our children flies by so quickly and if he wants to be on the cruise with the rest of his family, then include him.

I don't think you are a bad mom no matter what you decide on this one.
 
Bad parent? Nope. I can try to see all the different sides. If it is a family vacation, it should try and be as accommodating to all family members, but we know as kids go off to college or work and become adults, that gets more challenging to do. He does want to be part of the family trip after all! But it sounds like it would be a great opportunity to discuss being an adult and having to make choices (granted I think he has a sense of obligation to see his friend graduate as part of reciprocity). He doesn't HAVE to go to Hawaii if I am reading it, though it is like you said a graduation trip.

I think he may be a bit disappointed, but if you articulate why you are cruising that particular week and the impact financially he may be ok with it. I mean, the siblings shouldn't suffer because he gets to go do the fun stuff!
Not a fun choice no matter. I look forward to reading more comments.
 


Wow! I feel your pain. On the one hand, a possible last family vacation. On the other hand, reality of limited funds and responsible budgeting.

I don't think you're a bad mom for wanting to go without him. These things are part of being an adult. However, if he wants to go and will feel slighted, it might be something that makes him feel like he's being kicked out of the family now that he's out of school. Assuming your kids have been raised to understand choices and limitations and this isn't an entitled feeling, you might ask him more about how it would make him feel. Will he feel like he got a gift and then you all also got a gift, but didn't include him? Or will he, after thinking about it, decide that you should also go and have a great vacation, but make sure to miss him and bring him something?

Can you wait and cruise with him? What if you offer him the choice of the newer car or a cruise? He might decide the bus isn't so bad or he might decide his own cruising machine is better than a cruise.
 
Our son LOVES cruising on DCL. But once he graduated from high school (2010) he has only cruised with us once. And only because it was over Christmas in 2016, it didn't seem right to leave him behind over the holiday.
We've done Panama Canal, Alaska and four night cruises without him.
Obviously we don't feel guilty leaving him behind once he turned 18. And I especially would not feel guilty if he had a trip to Hawaii in the future and I was paying for his flight.
 
Wow, you have all given me such good perspective already!

The thought that our family vacations from here on out will be very limited, with him off in college, makes me want to try really hard to budget for the extra cost of bringing him along. I was really only looking at it like, he gets a trip, we should get a trip too. But this may be the last time the five of us go on a trip together once he starts school.
 
I'm the mother of a 22 yr old with a super crazy school and work schedule so I'd wait and cruise all together as a family of 5 if you can swing it. The older he gets, the harder it'll be for him to go (college schedule, internships, work, etc) - if given the choice, I'd definitely choose to travel as a complete family while you still can.
 
What would *I* do:

Likely tell him he gets to go to Hawaii and as someone entering adulthood we have sacrifices and choices and everything doesn't always work out. Then the next night, when DW got emotional that her boy was all grown up and convinced me that we have to wait and take him with my I'd change my mind.
 
I understand the perspective of this is a last family trip. I would try to include the older son just because of last family vacations kind of thing. Is it possible to even look at another cruise line or a shorter Disney cruise to be able to afford the 5th person?

I also understand about treating the kids fairly...if two kids get a cruise, it seems unfair to exclude the other until you consider that the other is going to California and Hawaii.

However, if it is not in the budget, then I don't think that you are a "bad mom." If the question was "I am making my senior choose between Hawaii and a cruise as his graduation gift...am I being a bad mom for not doing both?" If that is the case, there are a lot of bad moms in the world because most (90% of the world's population or more?) can't afford either.

ETA: Also, if the question were "My son's friend is going to pay for Aulani, we just have to pay airfare. We have two other children at home who are not invited and we can't afford to take them to Hawaii. Should we not give permission for older son to go since younger ones won't have that opportunity and we try to keep everything fair?" I'm sure people would say to let the older one go.
 
I definitely do not think you are a bad Mom. It's just reality that as children become adults it becomes more and more difficult to schedule family vacations. Also, everyone has a budget and a limit to what they can spend and no one should feel guilty about that. However, if it is at all possible financially I'd recommend trying to get a family vacation in while you can. You just don't know what lies ahead. Our son is a sophomore in college and is applying for internships in the hopes of landing one for next summer. Therefore, anything we do next summer will most likely be without him. Even this past summer we were very lucky to be able to squeeze in a couple of trips due to our son's various commitments, but it wasn't easy.

All that being said, my husband and I have travelled / will travel without our son when he's not available. He gets that. It's just part of growing up.
 
But there is this tiny voice in my head saying the time with our children flies by so quickly and if he wants to be on the cruise with the rest of his family, then include him.

That's a huge voice for me. My mom died suddenly when I was a new 30 and she was merely 55. I am so incredibly grateful that she always made time for my phone calls once I left home and late night talks when I was home from college (she moved east and I stayed out west so the first few days of visits involved me being on a very different time zone than where I was), etc. I only traveled once with her as an adult though. And I wish I'd been able to travel more with her.

But this may be the last time the five of us go on a trip together once he starts school.

Winter and summer breaks will always be there. :)
 
No I wouldn't feel guilty. I've taken my youngest on two cruises without my oldest and he's only in high school. My oldest has other trips he wants to take and there's only so much money.
Im sure many people would like to go to Hawaii and a cruise in one year, but sometimes you have to make choices.
 
Wow, you have all given me such good perspective already!

The thought that our family vacations from here on out will be very limited, with him off in college, makes me want to try really hard to budget for the extra cost of bringing him along. I was really only looking at it like, he gets a trip, we should get a trip too. But this may be the last time the five of us go on a trip together once he starts school.
I'm the mother of an only child - our 20 year old daughter - who has just entered her junior year of college. I feel incredibly blessed that she still WANTS to vacation with us. To date, DH and I have only taken 1 vacation (cruise) without her...a 3n Bahamas last year. Next year, we will take a Panama Canal Cruise without her, but only because she'll still be in college sessions when the cruise sails. However, the vacations we take when she's on break from college always still include her. We've planned out our family vacations for the next couple of years, and our final big family trip together will more than likely be a 14 day Tour of Italy that we have planned for the month she graduates college. After that, she will join the "working world" and will not only have very limited vacation available; but will also at some point be forming a new family and making vacation plans on her own. So...in the meantime, we vacation together every opportunity we get, knowing that we will not be able to count on so many opportunities to do so after she's "flown the nest." :sad:
 
Good or bad parents are defined by our efforts and success in raising children to be responsible, independent adults who contribute to society. Now that he's graduating, a good lesson might be that he pay for the difference if it's that important to him that he visit Aulani and take a Disney cruise all in the same summer. I'm sure his siblings would enjoy a trip to Hawaii (as would his parents, no doubt).

Most of us worked and saved for years to be able to take trips like these. While it's wonderful to be able to provide these experiences for our children, the risk we run is that they expect this is what life is like without understanding that they will have to work hard to get there just like we did.

I wouldn't judge anyone to be a good or bad parent based on these boards, but on the surface I'd say the decision to take him on the cruise is a much more questionable bit of parenting than using this opportunity to help him gain independence and learn about trade-offs that come with decisions.
 
I would be thrilled that he WANTS to be part of the family vacation and wait for him to all go together. There will be less and less opportunity to do that as he gets older and has more responsibilities.
 
Our adult kids still like to travel with us but it is not always possible. We are now taking the next generation (granddaughter) on a cruise (her parents can't go due to work and pregnancy but they want to!). Two of our adult children have cruised with us when the third could not go. It was hard but she totally understood due to her work commitments.

I love when we can all travel still as a large family but sometimes it just can't be done. At least he will be in Hawaii enjoying himself and not sitting at home alone!!! You are not a bad mom at all!!!

MJ
 

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