I'll bite. We go on a vacation to a beach with friends almost every year. It's been roughly the same 5 families since before we had kids (a few were single, and now have married). Been happening for over 10 years now. It helps to have a meal planning spreadsheet, where people are responsible for certain meals. And we have learned to keep the first and last night as takeout/leftover nights, respectively. Everyone who goes is also a pretty great human, so we all cut each other a lot of slack, don't mind when a family wants to do their own thing, don't mind another family's kid tagging along if someone has to stay behind with the napping kids, etc. So far kids have gotten along well. We will re-evaluate if the need ever arises.

But we don't stay up drinking all night like we did pre-kids. The adults might have a drink or two after the kids go to bed, or make a cocktail with dinner. It seems like you are describing a husband problem, not a families-who-vacation-together problem.

We have only traveled with people we're not related to in small groups, 1 other family at a time. How big was the rental that you could fit 5 families? I guess some super big beach houses exist in the OBX.

You have to go into these trips with different expectations than a family vacation with just your nuclear family. Go only with people you know very well. Have a rough plan for meals before you get there (are you eating out all the time or are some people cooking dinner?) Are there activities that everyone is excited about? There needs to be a lot of communication before the trip begins so that everyone's expectations are in line.

If you're someone who wants to do what you want to do, wants to only eat what you want to eat, these trips are not for you.

They can be super enjoyable. As adults, we don't get the opportunity to be with other adults (other than family) in intense settings like this much, it can really strengthen relationships. However, if your expectations are off, then yeah, relationships can also be ruined.

The issue I have with these kinds of trips is that people with “outlier” situations tend to expect others to accommodate them, rather than acknowledging they are the outlier. Gluten-free mom should let everyone order in the pizza and just be prepared with a salad for herself rather than expect everyone to cook a gluten-free meal. Early rising family should quietly take a stroll on the beach rather than expecting everyone to be up cooking breakfast at 6am. Dad who drinks a lot should poll the audience before buying 3 cases of beer no one else drinks and hogging fridge space. Workout couple should not drive to the gym all morning leaving everyone else without enough cars. Sunscreen family should not expect everyone else to stay indoors and go to movies or mini golf between 10 and 4. Healthy mom who refused to buy sugar cereal should not let her kids house through everyone else’s Frosted Flakes and bacon without re-stocking. Etc.

Anonymous wrote:I always see these beach photos of huge groups of friends and family and it always looks like such a good time. We went to the beach with five other families and I came back really disliking two families. One family I barely knew but like previously. Another wife I always wasn’t a fan of and now actively dislike. Another family had a kid who was violent and hitting, tantruming and making parents miserable. All the couples seem to be fighting, wives mad at husbands for drinking too much.

I do think the kids had a great time.

The last time we went on a trip like this, my very good friend’s daughter was being mean to my child and it ended up escalating between the parents and my very good friend and I had a falling out over this. We technically made up but we don’t hang out the way we used to.

Are these beach vacations enjoyable for others?

While it wasn’t a huge deal, the eating together was also unnecessarily difficult with the gluten free healthy eating mom, early meal family, late dinner family, family who doesn’t pay, contribute, or clean.

I think I want to travel with just our family or with one family at a time.

Of course pictures will look like a blast! Not only is it just 1/60th of a second, but what you see are curated moments. Rarely will someone post pictures of tantruming kids, drunk husbands, checked out wives or friends fighting.

I prefer going on vacation with just family but I will also go with friends, but not share a house. We are very close and like each other, warts and all. It can be so much fun but also have it's moments.

Anonymous wrote:I don't do beach vacations with others. Not my jam

Nope. Learned the hard way and I’ll add we haven’t done family reunion-type beach trips in decades.

My ILs were in charge of finding a “beach” “house” several years in a row and it was increasingly miserable to terrible - they are cheapskates and were always on the hunt to find the cheapest rental possible; this meant miles away from the beach, no pool access, in a rickety old townhouse under renovation with a leaky roof…

I do enjoy these types of vacations but I can understand why you didn't. First of all five families is ALOT and the fact that you went in knowing you didn't like some of them means it was already a letdown from the beginning. I only travel with families where I like the whole family and have similar (not identical) parenting styles, vacation styles, and spending styles. I also don't travel with families where the dad doesn't help out because I don't want to get stuck helping the other wife because she has to act like a single parent.

Growing up our church would go to the beach all at the same time, but maximum of two families would stay in a house together. The group would meet up on the beach and hang out all day, but each house did their own thing for meals and in the evening. It seemed to be a nice balance of having a big group to hang out with, but not being completely in each other's space (except maybe one family that you picked and typically knew well).

It't the mindset you bring to vacations like these. If you know and make peace with the fact that some people will inevitably annoy you and you have a plan how to deal, for example, you pour a glass of wine and go seat on the beach while other work it out, you're going to have a great time. Last thing you want to do is control everything and everyone - that's a recipe for the disaster.

I go on vacation to have peace and quiet and dealing with other families, their children, eating/drinking habits, allergies. Etc. would not contribute to my peace.

Quite frankly , I cannot imagine anything more that I would rather not do that to vacation
with other families.

Anonymous wrote:This is so interesting! I’ve always assumed people were super close if they go on a trip together because we only ever vacation with extended family (in part because we just wish we saw them more so prioritize inviting them). I absolutely can’t imagine 5 families. Even all my siblings on a single trip with two houses was so much negotiating and it was still like herding cats. I think it really works best with one other family with a friend for each kid.

I felt it was a lot of compromising. I guess it wasn’t THAT bad. I often feel annoyed by the gluten free wife but she is always kind of annoying. The other people also were not that bad I guess. I mean I don’t know them so I shouldn’t get upset at them.

This is so interesting! I’ve always assumed people were super close if they go on a trip together because we only ever vacation with extended family (in part because we just wish we saw them more so prioritize inviting them). I absolutely can’t imagine 5 families. Even all my siblings on a single trip with two houses was so much negotiating and it was still like herding cats. I think it really works best with one other family with a friend for each kid.

Anonymous wrote:We don’t stay in one house. We do stuff not together on certain days.

Then it’s fun.

Agree. We go to the same beach with a few other families but all get our own places and we don’t do everything together. Even then it can be a lot.

Vacations aren't vacations with other families. F that.

I enjoy beach trips like this because I love the beach and pretty much always enjoy it but I'd hate say a ski trip or lake trip like this. For me the mere presence of the ocean makes everything bearable.

We have had fun on trips like this, however like others, I find them logistically exhausting and we don't do them anymore. I especially wind up disliking the food arrangements and it's always more stressful than it feels like it has to be.

But I've never gotten into a falling out over one of these trips or came away feeling unhappy. We've done the big group photos and they accurately reflected the fun time we had. It's just a lot of work to make it all happen and at this point we'd rather do easier trips with just our family and maybe meet up with other families for shorter visits at one another's homes.