Beach house experiences--tips and 'best practices'
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Anonymous
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My family is getting a beach house this summer for the first time with some other relatives. We'll be there one week.
What are some beach-going travel tips/packing tips/best practices that you have? I want to make the most of this trip, but since this is our first long-stay beach vacation, I don't want to make any rookie mistakes! Big house, we'll be bringing in all our own food and supplies. |
Anonymous
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How many people? And how many family units?
We have always had a "chore chart". It's been more and less involved at times, depending on who was coming. Each family takes turns cooking dinner every night. The chart has three spaces a day for kitchen cleaning. One for after breakfast (9am), one for after lunch (2pm), one for after dinner (8pm). That way one person doesn't get stuck ALWAYS cleaning the kitchen or unloading the dishwasher. It also means that if you want to stay late on the beach one night, you aren't worried that you should be back at the house helping to cook dinner. You know you can relax and still pull your weight. When we have kids who are able, they get chores like "empty all the bathroom trashcans" and "check all bathrooms for toilet paper" or "kitchen helper" where they assist whoever is cooking that night. |
Anonymous
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We did that for the first time every last year. Oh god, the real habits of people shows. Overall, we ignore the bad stuff that happened and made it memorable. Will we do it again? no one has mentioned it. We ended up with 4 more more people than we anticipated.
1. Keep kids who tend to whine, cry and fussy away from the others, isolate them. Give that family their own room and bathroom if possible. You don't want to hear crying at night. 2. I hope everyone knows one another habits. There are always at least 1 person that is all about him/her. Always one person that tend to take the most time in the bathroom, in the middle of the night, late to the gathering, late to get into the car, can not follow directions or be on time, and complaining about something every day. I would isolate this person too. Meaning, get this person their own bathroom. Flexible personality can share bathrooms, difficult ones are not fun to deal with so might as well give them their own bathroom. 3. Food/eating was our major gathering. Everyone did not wake or sleep at the same time so breakfast was not always at the 7am, 8am or 9am. Some were at 10am when food was nearly all gone. Not everyone have the same taste bud. Figure out who will cook for that meal for the day. They can either cook or order take out. Don't over buy from Costco. Don't cook more than what others will eat. Divy up the cooking, and cleanup. 4. Give people enough warning about going out to the beach, or an outing. 5. If your family is like mine, they will not pay until the last minute, so you are left to deal with the payments and if you have a constraints, you will be complaining. So, most importantly, get everyone to pay first, like now. Someone will always count to the pennies and pay the week before. |
Anonymous
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Get there early so you can pick a decent room.
Pack some baby powder for ease of getting sand off of you after leaving the beach. Like pp said, figure out a chore list and dinner menus at the onset. A large group will have different schedules. Don't wait around for everyone to get ready before heading out to the beach. You'll lose a lot of time and get resentful. Instead, suggest some group activities for when everyone is available, but also carve out your own time. If you're going to Rehoboth, parking near the beach is free before 10am and we're early morning people so this works great for us. We'd get a couple of hours in while everyone is just waking up and getting ready back in the house. Bring play cards and other group games for the evenings or down time. |
Anonymous
| Find out well ahead of time if you need to bring your own linens, soap, dish soap, etc. |
Anonymous
| Bring more phone chargers than you think you'll need! It's good to have one in the kitchen/public area so you aren't tied to the bedroom all the time for that. |
Anonymous
This is the biggest variable of all Is everyone paying their own way? Completely? |
Anonymous
OMG don't obligate me to having dinner as a group if I don't want to. The best time to sit out on the beach may be late afternoon/eve. It's my vacation. I don't want my schedule " planned". I'll pick up after myself and contribute. But if you have specific plans for my time, it's not happening. |
Anonymous
| Work out the room situation ahead of time and those who require more space pay extra. Each family should get their own room. If parents want kids in a separate room they should pay twice as much. |
Anonymous
Ugh. I'd like to hear how others have managed this. . . .should it truly be on a first dibs basis? |
Anonymous
As a childfree couple that has traveled with families with 2-3 kids, this is really important to agree to before the trip. |
Anonymous
Perhaps break down the cost by room and folks pay for what they use? Or you can cross fingers that it breaks up nice and evenly and no one complains. (My family is easygoing like that. We split the rent evenly even though some have different numbers of children. The kids all bunked in various places but each adult couple had their own room unless they chose to have a child in with them) |
Anonymous
Not PP, but I don't think this is as much about making people sit and eat together as it is about knowing who is in charge of food for that meal. On the few beach trips I've been to with groups of 12-16 adults (plus kids), we planned in advance who was in charge of meals for each day, so that group/person/couple left the beach early before that meal or did what prep work they needed to do in advance, put together the food, and then others eventually showed up. It wasn't ever an issue of waiting around for others to show up, as people just tended to congregate around the kitchen when food was being prepared. And if someone's not there, fine, they can eat leftovers or put together a sandwich if there isn't anything left. |
Anonymous
Also, you would be surprised that some houses for some reason don't have vacuums, brooms, coasters, or other things that they should have. I have been to OBX enough times, and there are times where someone ends up going to Food Lion to buy a broom. A side note, some houses have journals, and people leave stories in them from their stay. They can be interesting reads. |
Anonymous
Unclench lady, it's vacation. If you want to skip dinner, that's fine! Our family beach trips everyone does their own thing all day, but everyone also actually ENJOYS eating dinner together at the end of the day. If a different groove works for your group, great! |