Sharing a vacation home with another family - question about choosing rooms

[Anonymous]

I disagree that whoever books gets first dibs, because when we have travelled with other families, often the family that books the place is the one who is most demanding and has the most restrictions about where we can stay. So in that case, we are already compromising and being flexible by allowing them to book the place that works for their more stringent requirements. I don't think they should ALSO get to pick the best room for themselves as well.

Though I will also say that usually room assignments kind of work themselves out. Often the age of the kids and the sleep needs of those kids sort of dictates everything. Like if one couple has an infant, they get the master suite because they will want the baby in their room, need space, and also will be most likely to struggle with sleep. Plus it's nice to sequester the crying infant away from others.

Likewise, if a family has more kids and thus requires more rooms than the other family, I think the family who needs fewer rooms should get the "nicer" room or rooms, assuming they are splitting the cost of the house down the middle.

And so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would the person who books automatically get the best room? I say that as someone who is always the person who books everything for any group trip. Seems ridiculous to get some sort of reward for relatively minor labor, though.

I don’t know where you book, but I spend considerable time finding a house that meets everyone’s needs and I’m the one putting down the deposit. When things like a pandemic occur, whoever booked it and signed the lease is the one who has to deal with the headaches that follow. I put in the time, deposit and risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Person who books gets first choice.

We once shared a house with 2 other families and got there last. The family who had not booked picked a nice room for themselves (fine) and gave their 2 kids the other room with a kings sized bed. DH and I got a room with a full. That was annoying.

In that case, I would have asked to switch.

They suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Person who books gets first choice.

We once shared a house with 2 other families and got there last. The family who had not booked picked a nice room for themselves (fine) and gave their 2 kids the other room with a kings sized bed. DH and I got a room with a full. That was annoying.

In that case, I would have asked to switch.

They suck.

Agree! Kids pick last AFTER the adults

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always offer the better room to the other family.

You may call me a doormat but being gracious, having a chilled out vacation where we are not bickering over petty things is more important to me than the room I am going to be staying in for just a few days. If I am going on vacation with someone, I am pretty close to them, and I am happy if they are happy.

Almost all the time when I offer the better room to the other family, they insist we take it instead, so we end up doing a coin flip or deciding based on who has the need for the bigger room (for example, they have a small child, more people etc).

This is me, too, and I’m surprised it took 3 pages to see a comment like this.

We always try to take the less desirable room. We’re not typically staying in places that have crappy rooms, and I’m not talking about situations where we’d end up with the sofa, but I’d rather have a queen instead of a king if it also absolves me of any guilt about getting the nicer room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems the last person gets worst pick.

We recently went on a trip with 2 friends. Our one friend paid for it. He owed DH money so instead of paying DH back, he rented this vacation home. This was a large house so we invited a mutual friend. Mutual friend agreed to come and no financials were discussed. I think the third friend expected to pay 1/3.

We got there last. Booking friend took the master and other friend took prime bedrooms. We were told the basement rooms were available.

I am still pissed about this trip. Our friend who owed us more money than the entire damn rental took the best room and the non paying friend took the prime other rooms. I think what annoys me is that I am not even sure the wives knew we were the ones treating everyone for this house.

I think if it was a split evenly type situation, the booker should get first pick.

I think you should have quietly pulled booking friend aside and told him this was unacceptable and that you’d be taking the master. Up to him to explain why to his wife. Don’t let people get away with this shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would the person who books automatically get the best room? I say that as someone who is always the person who books everything for any group trip. Seems ridiculous to get some sort of reward for relatively minor labor, though.

It isn’t relatively minor to me. I spend at least 15-20 hours searching for houses that meet the requirements, emailing everyone the finalists, interacting with the rental company, and calculating what everyone owes. No one else EVER offers to do this part.

Consequently, I’m done booking multi family houses. No one appreciates it or offers to help.

[Anonymous]

DDs rental for a year was staggered prices for the rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We go to the beach every year with two other families. We always book a house with multiple masters. We also always go over the floor plan in advance and decide who will get which rooms. We have done this for years to avoid kid fights but apparently many of you need help avoiding adult fights

Same. So weird to have to tiptoe around this kind of conversation (or to have friends who show up first and think it’s okay to pick without everyone there). We vacation with two other families and we always look at the layout and decide beforehand - sometimes someone has a new baby and needs a certain room, sometime someone is in a phase of life where a kid is sleeping with them more often than not… but everyone is involved in the decisions and it’s easy because we pick people we like that are easy to vacation with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. This family is like our family and we generally don’t nickel and dime. (We bought groceries; they bought drinks and it may not be even but it’s fine for all). In fact, that’s why I was surprised everything was already decided so I came
here to see if I am unaware of etiquette. Their room is like three times the size of ours but I guess one of us had to get it. And they booked and paid deposit. Now I know and like PP said, I will explicitly say, “let’s pick the rooms once we’re all there,” the next time we vacation together because I do enjoy their company. And our kids like each other. Thanks for validating / acknowledging my feelings. We are paying a ton of $ for this house so I was kind of annoyed.

But if there was such a difference in size of rooms, why didn’t you discuss beforehand?

Also, I hate getting the nicer room bc then I know everyone else is talking behind our backs about how we got the nicest room. We always just defer to our friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did this before and it was declared/agreed upon just before we booked that the booker was claiming the best room.

"Hey Larla, we're about to book the beach house, just as a heads up we're claiming the master suite--looking forward to vacation!"

If someone sent this to me I would cancel the trip. It sounds so passive aggressive.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, who cares?

This. If you're spending that much time in a room during vacation, you're doing something wrong.

Yea, we vacationed for several years in a row with two other families with whom we were very close -- and one of the couples really, really cared about getting the best room. We thought it was pretty lame, but whatever.

We like to hook up while on vacation

[Anonymous]

The one who tend to do alot of cooking on vacation will get the Master suite unless they don't want it. There's always one mom, dad or person that offer to cook more than 1 designated meal. In our extended family, it would be my SIL. She tends to cook a giant pot of delicious stew that can lasts more than 1 meal. Then, there is my lazy sister who is late to everything and will not and do not understand the distribution of some chores...and will not cook for anyone else. She gets last choice. We only invite her out of pity. She helps with nothing each time. And each time we hope she changes but she doesn't. She complains the most too.

The laziest one, and you know who it is sometimes, gets the smallest or ugliest room. And noisy couple get the isolated corner room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would the person who books automatically get the best room? I say that as someone who is always the person who books everything for any group trip. Seems ridiculous to get some sort of reward for relatively minor labor, though.

It isn’t relatively minor to me. I spend at least 15-20 hours searching for houses that meet the requirements, emailing everyone the finalists, interacting with the rental company, and calculating what everyone owes. No one else EVER offers to do this part.

Consequently, I’m done booking multi family houses. No one appreciates it or offers to help.

20 hours over the course of, what, several weeks? So you expect compensation from your friends for four extra hours of searching AirBnB, sending email, and popping some dollar figures into Excel a week? Again, I always do all of this leg work for group vacations, and it would never dream of me to demand that I get the best room for it. Sort of surprised this is such a commonplace sentiment here.

[Anonymous]

Coin toss every single time.