Vacation Dictators.

[Julian]

She only cruises with Disney. Anyone who can't afford a Disney cruise should simply not take a cruise at all, because all other cruises are hotbeds of filthy sex acts, 24/7 drunkenness, and immoral gambling.

Ooh, which cruise company is this?  Sounds like fun to me!

Me too.  I need a bit of <all the above>!

[weeblewobble]

I hate it when people freak over what I spend on hotels- that terrace room I had on my first trip to NYC set me back well over 2k for a week. But it was worth it, I used that terrace a lot, and it was a beautiful room! But I have had people freak on me, saying how ridiculous it was to spend the money. I guess I should stick to roach motels, or hotels in lousy locations where I have to commute every day, just because they're cheap.

We have a sort of opposite issue regarding our hotel choice when we stay in NYC.  We go once or twice a year and we always stay in a moderately priced, unremarkable chain hotel just off Times Square.  We've had quite a few people criticize us for "cheaping out" and "being boring" when we could stay at any number of historic, swanky, boutique hotels nearby. 

Here's the thing.  We've tried a historic hotel.  The surrounding neighborhood left me feeling really unsafe, the whole building smelled, and the elevator was so tiny I had the choice of riding with my husband or my luggage, but not both.  We tried a swanky "new wave" place, which turned out to be an old hotel that only redid it's lobby to look like the W, but the rooms above had filthy carpets, sheets with holes in them and dead cockroaches in the tub.  The chain hotel we frequent is clean, refurbished every three years, has a friendly staff and is literally one block away from everything we want to do and see.  Why would we go anywhere else?

[Arrynne]

I used to love to travel.  I still do, but airports stress me out.  Don't get me started on the TSA, they snag me every time.  They take one look at the cane, and it's handsearch the luggage time.  I always allow LOTS of time to get through, but it's a near thing to make connections a lot of the time.   

I figure that if I want to do it, I better do it while my body can still cooperate, so I put up with it.  It's infuriating though sometimes, especially when business travelling.

Lorelei, try traveling with a special needs child.  My son uses a feeding pump and very special formula that cannot be purchased in a store.  We had to go through the security checkpoint with a bag containing a kitchen scale, 12 cans of white powder (formula), several large syringes, and lots of his feeding bags that are attached to a couple of feet of plastic tubing (think empty IV bag).  It must have looked -really- interesting on x-ray and got us pulled aside for a hand search and a quick test to ensure the white powder wasn't anything illegal. 

Next time we'll have a special walker and possibly a transport chair to add to our carry-on luggage. 

[weeblewobble]

I hate it when people freak over what I spend on hotels- that terrace room I had on my first trip to NYC set me back well over 2k for a week. But it was worth it, I used that terrace a lot, and it was a beautiful room! But I have had people freak on me, saying how ridiculous it was to spend the money. I guess I should stick to roach motels, or hotels in lousy locations where I have to commute every day, just because they're cheap.

I hear you. My theory is if you have to nickle and dime it, don't go until you can afford it. I've been on 2 cruises and loved it. yes, they can be pricy when you add in excursions, alcohol, etc. but had I only been able to afford the actual cruise, and no extras, it wouldn't have been any fun, and I would have stayed home. I even budgeted for laundry so I could pack less.

Same thing with Disney; never been, and I know its pricy, so I'm not going until I can afford to do it the way I want to; staying on the Disney property, and being able to eat out at some of the nicer restaurants. I don't want to have rent a car, and drive there every day, eating in my room on the cheap.

I have some friends who enjoy going to Disney and trying to save as much money as possible.  For the husband, that's part of the fun, finding deals and discounts and 'secret freebies.'  When we went a few years ago, part of the fun for me was saving up enough money so that when we got there, we could just relax and not worry about what everything was costing us.

[Lorelei_Evil]

*nodding* 

We'd be quite the group, wouldn't we?  Add in my mother who is a menace on a Jazzy scooter and you have a Britcom episode in the making.  I just get there an extra 45 minutes to an hour earlier than advised and hope for the best.  Any trip where it's about equal doing the flying dance vs driving and we drive. 

[weeblewobble]

To the previous poster who's going to the Louvre: check out the ceilings.  And you can spend a month in the Louvre and still have something to see. 

My EX was the vacation dictator.  He had a hard time facing anything different.  He would even turn the car around and come back home when I fell asleep in the passenger seat.  He just would not consider anything except going to his dad's cabin.  I hated that place with a passion. 

Would you mind sharing a little more detail, please?  I have so many questions.  Are you saying that you spent weeks/months planning a vacation and then on the drive down, you fell asleep only to wake up back at home?  What did ex say when you asked what happened?  Did you just not do anything during your scheduled vacation week?  Did you ever consider flying?  Did you ever consider getting back in the car and going without him? 

This is one of the most selfish, controlling things I've ever read here!  I'm so glad he's an ex!

[Lady Snowdon]

My mom is a terrible vacation and excursion dictator.  If you go on vacation with her, this IS what you will do, and this IS how it will be.  She doesn't scream or throw a temper tantrum if she doesn't get her way, but the rest of the day/night will be filled with martyrdom, and anything that goes "wrong" (by her standards) will be met with commentary on "If only we had done *thing she wanted to do*...".  She'll also try and push you through activities you want to do, in order to get to activities she wants to do.  What is it that she wants so badly to do?  Shop, for the most part.  When I was a kid, we would make plans to go to the Colorado Renaissance Festival "for the day".  We'd leave the house at 8 am, get to the fest around 10 am.  We'd almost literally run around the whole thing, and two hours later she'd declare that *I* looked tired and we should go home.  Of course, somehow "going home" entailed spending three hours at Castle Rock Outlets shopping. 

If I'm excited about doing something on vacation, and I don't catch myself, I will start to turn into a dictator myself.  My DH and I are going to Gettsyburg this year for the 150th anniversary.  Reading up on it, I discovered they have horseback tours of the battlefield.  I love this idea - I want to see as much as I can, but walking isn't always a good method for me, since I get blisters very easily.  I think I mentioned it to my DH about six or seven times with the wording "I think we're going to do this horseback tour" before he finally had to bluntly say, "I don't want to do that, and repeating yourself won't make it happen".    I'm fine with him not coming on the tour, just got carried away and assumed that whatever I wanted to do, he would also want to do!

[magician5]

I have a relative who is a vacation dictator. In her view, if your life choices (career choices, vacation choices, family choices) are different than hers, you are automatically wrong.

She would *never* go to Vegas, so she is derisive about the loose morals of anyone who would choose to go there.

She only cruises with Disney. Anyone who can't afford a Disney cruise should simply not take a cruise at all, because all other cruises are hotbeds of filthy sex acts, 24/7 drunkenness, and immoral gambling.

She likes active vacations, where you are on the go 12 hours a day in order to do as much as possible, so she cannot compute that some people want to go on vacation to relax, sit by the pool, have a margarita and bask in the sunshine. "If all you're going to do is lay around, you might as well stay home."

She is very judgmental toward anyone who would "waste" their money to go to a tropical destination--if all you're going to do is lay on a beach, go to a local lake instead. (Never mind that there is absolutely no comparison between a muddy midwest lake and the beaches of, say, Hawaii.)

People should vacation in places rich with history, but only the right kind of history. Munich, Barcelona, Prague, etc. are great. Paris is terrible and filthy and perverted, and anyone who would choose to vacation there is both wasteful and questionable. London is "pointless", so anyone who goes there is wasting their money.

Ancient sites are worth seeing. Modern sites are garish and filthy and worthless.

Vacations require a rigid itinerary. Anyone who travels without a written itinerary (including wake times, bedtimes, meal plans, and precise times for each activity) is foolish and wasting their money.

ETA: And if you don't pinch every penny until it cries, you are wasteful and foolish. No one needs restaurants or decent hotels. Eat plain bread and fruit two meals a day, and cook the third meal in the crappy kitchenette of your interstate motel. After all, food is food, and you should only use your hotel to sleep (and thus you have no right to care about anything else in the hotel).

Your relative is 100% right ... for her. That's her definition of a "good vacation" and anything else is unsuitable. Your definition is your ideal (personally I prefer your definition) and if people are going to go together on vacations, there needs to be a thorough discussion, in advance, of this very issue.

[Lynn2000]

If I'm excited about doing something on vacation, and I don't catch myself, I will start to turn into a dictator myself.  My DH and I are going to Gettsyburg this year for the 150th anniversary.  Reading up on it, I discovered they have horseback tours of the battlefield.  I love this idea - I want to see as much as I can, but walking isn't always a good method for me, since I get blisters very easily.  I think I mentioned it to my DH about six or seven times with the wording "I think we're going to do this horseback tour" before he finally had to bluntly say, "I don't want to do that, and repeating yourself won't make it happen".    I'm fine with him not coming on the tour, just got carried away and assumed that whatever I wanted to do, he would also want to do!

Oh yeah, a lot of it is communication styles, too. My dad will never say he doesn't want to do something, until we're absolutely at the point of no return for it--like we think we're all going to the museum, he drives us there, and then as my mom and I are getting out of the car he says, "I don't think I'll come in." As far as I recall, he never gets guilted about choosing not to participate, it's just that when he waits until so late in the game to announce it, it throws us off. Suddenly, at the curb, with cars going by us, we have to think about, "Where are you going instead? How will you know when to come back for us? Do you feel okay? Should we get our own transportation back to the hotel? What about lunch--we were going to eat at the museum?" And, we didn't have to go to the museum; we just wanted to do something with everyone together, and now we can't.

My parents have taken to going to Branson every year for the Christmas shows, and the shopping. They both go to the shows, but when it comes to the shopping, my dad will literally sit in the car in the parking lot for hours, listening to the radio or reading the newspaper, while my mom walks around some shops. That's what he wants to do. He doesn't want to stay at the condo while she goes out, he wants to drive her... and then sit in the car. You know, whatever. It works for them, and at least now she knows to expect it, even though he never talks about it ahead of time.

[CakeBeret]

I have a relative who is a vacation dictator. In her view, if your life choices (career choices, vacation choices, family choices) are different than hers, you are automatically wrong.

She would *never* go to Vegas, so she is derisive about the loose morals of anyone who would choose to go there.

She only cruises with Disney. Anyone who can't afford a Disney cruise should simply not take a cruise at all, because all other cruises are hotbeds of filthy sex acts, 24/7 drunkenness, and immoral gambling.

She likes active vacations, where you are on the go 12 hours a day in order to do as much as possible, so she cannot compute that some people want to go on vacation to relax, sit by the pool, have a margarita and bask in the sunshine. "If all you're going to do is lay around, you might as well stay home."

She is very judgmental toward anyone who would "waste" their money to go to a tropical destination--if all you're going to do is lay on a beach, go to a local lake instead. (Never mind that there is absolutely no comparison between a muddy midwest lake and the beaches of, say, Hawaii.)

People should vacation in places rich with history, but only the right kind of history. Munich, Barcelona, Prague, etc. are great. Paris is terrible and filthy and perverted, and anyone who would choose to vacation there is both wasteful and questionable. London is "pointless", so anyone who goes there is wasting their money.

Ancient sites are worth seeing. Modern sites are garish and filthy and worthless.

Vacations require a rigid itinerary. Anyone who travels without a written itinerary (including wake times, bedtimes, meal plans, and precise times for each activity) is foolish and wasting their money.

ETA: And if you don't pinch every penny until it cries, you are wasteful and foolish. No one needs restaurants or decent hotels. Eat plain bread and fruit two meals a day, and cook the third meal in the crappy kitchenette of your interstate motel. After all, food is food, and you should only use your hotel to sleep (and thus you have no right to care about anything else in the hotel).

Your relative is 100% right ... for her. That's her definition of a "good vacation" and anything else is unsuitable. Your definition is your ideal (personally I prefer your definition) and if people are going to go together on vacations, there needs to be a thorough discussion, in advance, of this very issue.

It's not her definition of a good vacation that's the problem, it's her nasty, judgmental attitude towards others' vacations. I vacationed with her once and never will again, but that won't stop her from judging each of my vacations, as well as the vacations of everyone else she knows.

[Diane AKA Traska]

if we had Star Trek transporters that could instantly beam me from home to the final destination it would be great

Except for the drive to the transporter bay and the three-hour line to use it...

You could solve both of those problems with Site-to-Site transport and a system of reservations.

Then again, I'm not too sure how I'd like having my molecules scrambled...

How about death?  Transporters don't take you apart and reassemble you, they disintegrate the real you, and spawn a clone of that exact person on the other side.    So flawless, it isn't even aware it's not the original.  Poor shlub.

[gingerzing]

My FIL and his wife are Vacation Dictators. 

Many times when DH and I have got to FIL's house, Step-MIL would have the WHOLE weekend planned out.  Which would be okay, but often it was for events that we weren't real hip on.  Especially when it included driving more than an hour away for something. DH and I would have already travelled about 3 hours to get to FIL's house.  Then we would get into their car and drive for 2 hours to get to event. 
There was the trip to a religious destination.  Unfortunately, we had been there once before with them years before and it gave DH the willies.  So when Step-MIL announced on our arrivial that the next day we would be going the three-hour trip to the RD, we told her no thank you.  They had taken us there before and we didn't want to go again.  So the next day we ended up driving the entire day trying to find the spots in these rural towns that were in some book of hers.  No lunch either.  Added bonus, was that I get car sick when I have to ride in the backseat.  Step-MIL was annoyed that I wasn't chatting.
(Added bonus - for several years when we visited, they would have a normal size breakfast at about 8AM and then not make plans to eat until suppertime 6PM.  Me almost passing out because I had eaten lightly at breakfast, got that to stop.)

There was the year that we were able to get over to FIL's for DH's birthday and as a treat FIL and his wife had planned out where they were taking us.  Hooter's.  Really? First off, we were trying to get into eating healthier (they knew this).  Second, this was the wife's idea.  Third, the waitress found out that DH was older than her dad.  Oh and then took us to go to the movies and decided that even though we wanted to see one movie, they had already seen it so we HAD to go to see this Mel Gibson movie.  For some reason, StepMIL didn't realize what it was about but ignored our protests.  Then afterwards she complained about how dark and violent it was.  ESH! If the title didn't give that away  Edge of Darkness.  

The worst however was last year.  DH had convinced me to make a stop at FIL on our way to our vacation to Colorado.  We get to the house and before we can even put down our overnight bags - seriously, we had just taken 5 steps into the house - Step-MIL asks what our game plan is.  Huh?  There were terrible fires in Colorado and the town that we would be staying in had just been evacuated.  Apparently, we were suppose to change plans within the nano-second of her announcement.   So FIL starts bringing out different books about travel that he has and then they bring out this folder of stuff that they have done in Branson, MO.  And telling us how much we could save doing package deals and what shows would be the best.  They knew all the good shows and deals since they go there every couple of years.
Here's the deal.  I am not interested in Branson, MO.  Not now, not ever.  It is fine for folks who like that sort of thing, but it isn't my gig.  DH is not interested in it either.  Yet within 10 minutes of hanging up the phone with the CO folks to cancel, Branson was mentioned THREE times.  Seriously, I timed it.  By the fourth time, I stopped polietly saying no and bean dipping and told Step-MIL that I was NOT interested in Branson.  She acted like I had just said that I kicked kittens and informed me that they enjoyed the shows.  It was only through great training of my childhood that I didn't say "bully for you". 

Was that the kind of Dictators folks were thinking of?

[Slartibartfast]

My mom's family has always been of the philosophy that everyone must do everything together at all times, and that every vacation must include EVERYONE.  As in, 2 grandparents + 3 kids + 3 spouses + 8 grandkids.  Now Babybartfast and Bittybartfast are adding 2 great-grandkids to the mix, and there are 5 grandkid spouses/significant others to add to the mix.  Not surprisingly, it's hard to find things that 23 people (ages 9 months to 92 years) can do.  Even when I was in high school and it was "only" 16 of us, everyone had to do things at once.  Dinner had to be at a place everyone would eat (which is hard since one family member is an evangelical vegetarian who gets offended if someone eats meat in her presence), we all have to go see the same movie at the theater, etc.

My dad - who did NOT grow up in this kind of a family - finally put his foot down.  Our immediate family stayed at a hotel, not in sleeping bags on Grandma and Grandpa's floor.  We sometimes did things with just our family.  And (although I believe it took a stern talking-to from my mother) we kids were no longer berated for spending time with a book instead of being in the living room playing board games with the extended family.

Things have gotten worse as my grandparents got older - my grandfather was always the one who got input from everyone and helped decide where we'd go and what we'd do.  He was always really good at it, until alzheimer's slowed him down a bit.  Now everyone will have come to a decision but Grandpa won't let anyone walk out the door until HE has listened to all the opinions and given a verdict.  Usually one he would have had no trouble deciding on twenty years ago 

Now DH and I are going to visit my grandparents this spring, and we're running into family problems: everyone (other than me and DH, my sibs, and my parents) live within an hour or two of my grandparents' house.  We planned to come visit my grandparents overnight for ~24 hours, then go to the nearby big city and spend a week there seeing the sights and visiting other friends.  My aunt and uncle interpreted this to mean "Slartibartfast and her family will be staying with us for a week, visiting Grandma and Grandpa for a day or two, and spending the rest of the time in our living room playing board games!"  I'm now having to find a delicate way of saying "We'd love to see you the evening OR the morning we're with our grandparents, but we want the other one to ourselves so we can actually interact with them!"

[Lynn2000]

if we had Star Trek transporters that could instantly beam me from home to the final destination it would be great

Except for the drive to the transporter bay and the three-hour line to use it...

You could solve both of those problems with Site-to-Site transport and a system of reservations.

Then again, I'm not too sure how I'd like having my molecules scrambled...

How about death?  Transporters don't take you apart and reassemble you, they disintegrate the real you, and spawn a clone of that exact person on the other side.    So flawless, it isn't even aware it's not the original.  Poor shlub.

For some reason, this thought does not bother me nearly as much as the thought of sitting at the airport and on a plane for hours. ::shudder:: But I'm not afraid of flying, either, I just get stressed being crammed into an uncomfortable chair surrounded by strangers in a flying germ tube.

[stargazer]

I'm another one who can't abide the over-schedulers. I live by enough schedules at home, and am at the mercy of other people's scheduling enough of the time, I don't need it while on vacation. Could I have seen more in NYC or San Francisco had I set some strict military itinerary? Sure! But would have I had as much fun? I doubt it. Some of my happiest moments were when I was just relaxing somewhere- sitting on my terrace admiring lower Manhattan, or just spending some quality time with the Golden Gate Bridge.

I'm just curious, can you expand on the bolded?  What qualifies as quality time?  You mean walking across it or something (can you do that)?