**Edit I caved put the trip back on. I guess I cannot expect certain reactions/actions from my family. I do not want to be remembered as the dad that cancelled a family vacation. I am doubtful they would ever see things my way anyway.**
I wanted to surprise my family with a trip to Disney World/Universal Studios/Sea World. All in we are talking about $10K USD for flights, hotel, park tickets. (Not counting food).
I spent a lot of time with my wife planning things and setting things up. After I committed to trip made all the reservations. Etc. We told our kids. Not one thank you, no real excitement from any of them to be honest. One kid actually told me “I might have fun or could have fun” another one said nothing all….
To top it off this morning my wife wakes me up complaining about the short notice to her employer, the weather down there this time of year, getting someone to watch the dog, complaining about the flights, and having to get school supplies….
All of this really got to me. I thought what an ungrateful bunch of people. So I took it into my own hands and cancelled the whole trip. Why should I spend 10K, and a week with my family down there if my kids are going to be this ungrateful and my wife complaining to me about everything? I thought I was doing something nice for my family just to get in my opinion complaints, and indifference, and no gratitude.
AITAH?
Comments
I mean I have my answer. But how old are your kids?
How old are your kids?
Yeah, this seems like a bit of an overreaction. Maybe they don’t realize what a big deal it is, or how expensive it is. I will say, though, Disney is ridiculously overpriced.
BTW… I know this has nothing to do with your question, but… don’t spend money on SeaWorld. It’s cruel. Watch the documentary Blackfish. There’s a reason a lot of countries have banned captive orca programs. SeaWorld has said they’re going to phase out those programs… but that was years ago they said that, and they don’t seem to have made much progress.
NTA I don’t know when y’all were planning on going but as someone that lives in the south I can’t imagine going this time of year! It is Hell outside.
You sound like a very emotionally immature person. You’re the adult but you’re acting like a child.
YTA and I’d strongly suggest you go to therapy before you ruin your relationship with your kids.
NTA
How is your wife part of the planning but also complaining about it? That doesn’t add it. Did she agree to a plan and you completely ignored her? Did you change a timeline and make it too close to start of school year? Sullen teens are normal but what you say about your wife makes me think you may also be the AH.
YTA of course there are things to work out but now you are the dad who cancels trips. They will definitely remember this forever
NTA if you put the money to something the family is more enthusiastic about. Disney sucks! Why not sit down as a family and decide on a better vacation?
NTA. Your kids are ungrateful and spoiled.
Yta
Does your family even like Disney??
Do you like your family enough to know what they do like?
Yta. That’s really emotionally abusive to cancel a family trip because you didn’t get the reaction you wanted out of your young children and because your wife had the audacity to have feelings that didn’t match what you wanted them to be.
Having a conversation with your family about gratitude makes sense, but going scorched Earth because they’re not performing for you is AH behavior
INFO: what timeline were we planning? Was this a trip for a year out? two?
Honestly if you went ahead and booked the entire trip without consultations, sprung the surprise and were met with complete indifference…… well if it were me I would’ve reconsidered as well.
BUT I would have talked to my family and asked, “are you really interested? because if you aren’t – and you don’t seem to be – then I will cancel and we can find something that we can all get excited about”.
I think a lot of this would rest on the reaction of your family. If you tell them you cancelled and they just shrug and move on, then ok whatever I guess this is your dynamic. But if they are shocked upset disappointed then YTA.
Cancelling out of spite, because your family didn’t give you a big reaction, is not a good motive.
edit to fix grammar
INFO: Did any of the kids ASK to go to Disney World? Was this something they told you they wanted to do?
Spending a lot of money doesn’t automatically make it a nice thing to do. Effort doesn’t equal impact, and I guess you’re now finding out.
I haven’t been so I don’t know much about those theme parks beyond the fact there’s a lot of them and they’re ridiculously expensive.
Do the kids like Disney? Are they the right ages to appreciate the cartoon aspect? Are they old enough to go on the fun rollercoasters?
More than that, if they didn’t sound excited, maybe it’s because they weren’t. Maybe it’s just not something they’re interested in.
Or it could just be at the wrong time, they have other plans, who knows.
Communication could come into play here, like asking them for ideas about family vacations or what they want to do. Could have happened before all of the planning and booking too.
Ultimately you planned a surprise but you got surprised. So did they. No one reacted well, yourself included.
Does someone really need to be TAH here or can we just learn from this and do better next time?
I think you did the right thing. Disney is a horrible thing to spend money on anyway. Overpriced and toxic and fake.
How about letting them think about it for a while, then next year take them to something real? You can take them to the real Florida Keys, the real Yellowstone, instead of a fake version. Natural wonders are good for the mind, body and soul. Disney is bad for all those things.
Nta…id love for my hubs to plan a disney trip for us adults only. Thats sounds fun to me
Nta
NTA. They would complain the whole time and your wife will be annoying about everything leading up to it. Spend that money on a hobby you enjoy instead.
I love Disney. I couldn’t take my kids too much when they were young because of the cost. It is brutally hot this time of year (I live less than two hours away).
Consider a cruise. We started cruising when my youngest was 10. My kids loved the kids camp. For $10k, you should be able to do a week, two rooms, everyone will be able to do their own thing as well as lots of family time (dinner was mandatory for my kids, and that was about the only time we saw them!). It’s still hot this time of year, but you’re not waiting in lines all day.
Discuss it with everyone – ask what they would look forward to.
As a Floridian, I’m always shocked that people pay money to go to Disney and Universal in July and August.
It’s like being in an air fryer right now, plus humidity.
Save yourselves.
Honestly Disney is not a fun vacation.
Hawaii is
NTA – I’d cancel too if no one was excited and just complaining. It’s a lot of money.
Nta. Id have done the same thing.
Maybe this will make them wake up and realize what a great dad they have!
I would be beyond pissed if my husband planned an expensive trip without involving me in the planning process.
There is nothing worse than spending an incredible amount of money and time in something and needing a very specific type of acknowledgement for your troubles. The expectations from the recipients become almost as important as the event itself. And unless they are incredibly over the top in grandiose compliments, you will feel taken advantage of or taken for granted.
They will never be able to live up to your needed specific response.
Much better you cancelled the vacation than resenting and punishing them forever for letting you down in their response to your over the top “gift”
NTA for cancelling the vacation. YTA for doing something with a specific cost to your recipients that they won’t be able to live up to.
Maybe stick to cheap long weekends and do it because you love them and want good memories. Not because you need validated in a specific way.
Good luck.
It sounds like you guys don’t know your kids or their interests and blindly went into planning a disney vacation because some kids are disney super fans. Sounds like you don’t have the target audience, but YTA for canceling after you made the plans and announced it to the kids. Sounds like neither of you contributed to raising grateful happy children and now you’re reaping the benefits of the quality of parenting you’ve delivered, and are unhappy with the results.
YTA. Big difference of watching Disney movies and wanting to go visit Disney.
I watch Disney movies but the idea of all that walking in the heat with large crowds is just off putting. I’m just not an amusement park person.
While I understand the frustration of spending thousands of dollars to coordinate a trip, if it’s a trip that doesn’t hold the fancy of your family, it was a trip that was doomed to fail.
If you’ve already pulled the trigger and gotten all your money back, sit down with everyone and get their input as to what they’d like to do. Make it an actual family vacation.
Did you actually ask the kids if they wanted to go to Disney?
Nta. That sucks. I’ll go with you, though. 😁😁 I LOVE Disney!
Should have had a family meeting about a vacation and get everyone’s input. because for some reason, you take it upon yourself to choose the destination, travel and expect others to fall in line with your expectations. Perhaps respecting other’s opinions is a good lesson for you.
Speaking as a Central Florida resident, this is a lousy time to go to Disney. It’s hotter than hell, and the humidity is miserable. Spending days hiking around the parks in this climate is just asking for heat stroke and exhaustion. If you want to waste your money on the stupid high prices they charge here, at least wait until later in the year, October or November. Even I will admit that Disney dressed up for Christmas is pretty nice to see.
We took our kids to Mexico when they were teens. Had traveled with them there and internationally many times.
Something must have changed with them because this time all they did was complain, hang out in the room on their phones and sulk.
After that we just did local and drivable get aways.
Now they’re 18 & 23 and excited about going to Mexico with us at Christmas. My husband took our 18 year old to Japan in June and had a great time.
My point, it’s the age. Don’t waste your money, do something low key and drivable. They’ll grow out of it eventually.
Fla Disney this time of year? Why?
NTA.
For $10k, people have to be excited, and if they legit aren’t- they do sound ungrateful, but Disney isn’t for everybody- then you shouldn’t be spending that much time and money on a trip people don’t want to go on.
I am sure you are being a little petty/acting out of anger that the excitement you expected didn’t happen, and that’s totally fair. But you didn’t cancel it all right then, you slept on it, and during that time, things got worse, not better. You aren’t acting just out of anger, but the reality that this isn’t a good use of money. If people legit don’t want to go, you shouldn’t go. If you add to that your wife will spend the next month or longer worrying and complaining, well that means she will be unhappy during that time, you will be unhappy because no one is happy, and the kids aren’t excited. That feels like a double waste of money- unhappy in advance of the trip, unhappy on the trip.
So cancel it, and very calmly lay out what happened and how to go forward- and think about what you want before you do it. Tell your wife first, and I’d suggest having some alternatives thought out. Do you want to have the family decide at trip together NEXT year so this doesn’t happen again? Maybe allocate a portion of the funds for a day trip, or a weekend away for you and your wife or some smaller vacation. What will you do when everyone cries they wanted to go? Hold firm or cave? I’d say hold firm, but decide now what you want their reaction to be and how you want to handle various reactions. Also really think about how to approach this without being angry or vindictive, and if what you want is for them to wail and moan and be sad, then you aren’t in a good place either.
Center on this: Family trips should be fun, and they are complicated. If no one got excited for Disney, no you shouldn’t all go, and it is fine to cancel, but not out of just spite. Your kids maybe aren’t great with surprises, your wife is a worrier, so tell them no Disney since no one was jazzed, but you’d like to talk about what WOULD make them excited, how do they want to spend time together, and how can you all do a better job of planning a trip. Also, that people should be a bit more grateful in general, and need to learn to be considerate and appreciative when they get ANYTHING that is a nice gift, even if it isn’t exactly what they wanted.
So you made all the reservations
Ok, an hour online. Pin a rose on your nose. Now it sounds like your wife has to do the heavy lifting with the details, i.e., the pets. Maybe your kids had plans of their own? Disney is not that great in the summer. I’ve been there. It’s hotter than hell and rains several times a day
Im not saying you’re an AH for wanting to do something with your family but it also sounds like you did it for selfish reasons in that they would see you as a hero and since you got a cool reception you’re bitter. If your kids were little i bet you would have gotten a different reaction. Plus you knew your wife doesn’t do well with changes. If she was so involved why would she feel blind sided? I don’t think you are being honest about what went down.
have the kids been to disney before? if no, they dont know enough to get excited as it’s just some abstract place. If they have been, it’s a very tiring vacay with lots of rules, hot weather, and dad complaining about the expensive food. Plus, they’re kids. They dont even really understand what gratitude means fully.
As for wife, you could have just said “we planned this together, so let’s make it happen”. Boss is mad? too bad. Need a dog sitter? hire one! school supplies? yeah, go buy them ffs. Flights suck? yeah, they ALL do. And the weather is shit down there ALL THE TIME. It’s hot, muggy, and it only cools down in the rainy seasons.
I don’t think you’re an AH so much as a jerk who jumped the gun, but I think they will think you’re an AH as your reasons are pretty selfish. Did you really expect full blown excitement from the kids and zero frazzled thinking out of a worry wart? You could have been more patient with and supportive of your wife. And kids? the hell do they know about adult-level expectations?
I don’t blame you.
Idk. Surprises don’t always work. May have been better to involve everyone in the destination, timing, and planning. If no one seemed excited it’s probably better just to cancel and try again with everyone’s input. Disney is cool but not everyone’s cup of tea.
A trip like this should be agreed to beforehand with kids as well. How old are they? How old are the kids?
Also if your wife has second thoughts and anxiety don’t plan trips this massive.
Do a few weekend trips to some water parks close to home. Drive, mid price hotel, etc. test the waters.
Or not if the kids are ungrateful and your wife isn’t sure. NTA.
Genuinely not being sarcastic: OP, are you ok?
This feels like a big emotional reaction for what it is. I want to give you a hug and say your feelings are valid, but the reaction doesn’t seem proportionate. Has these sort of feelings been bottling up for a while? Do you not get validated or appreciated a lot in day to day life? (Happens a lot especially with 3 young children!!)
I think some sort of family heart to heart needs to happen, maybe with counsellor mediation. I just feel sad reading this.
You’re only an asshole to yourself. Your kids probably don’t care that you cancelled. Your wife could benefit from treatment for her anxiety.
Either you planned a trip that you wouldn’t have enjoyed or you cancelled a trip that you would have enjoyed. If you had planned a trip that you would have enjoyed, other people shouldn’t have affected your enjoyment of the trip and you could have fun regardless.
Everyone kinda SH. If you’re planning this with your wife, part of planning should be timetables, work logistics, and weather. Then if all that aligns then the actual trip. How old are your kids? Springing this on them, then yanking it away because of a lackluster response is kinda crap.
10k????? God almighty.
Reads like you were a shitty dad and are now trying to throw money at your family to make them like you and expecting them to be grateful.
YTA.
NTA I understand the sentiment completely. Its a difficult balance creating grateful present and unjaded kids these days. Sometimes you need to go with your gut. If theyre old enough sign the kids up for some service and volunteer work this fall. Easy to do around the holidays.
As a committed non-Disney adult, OP I celebrate your intentions. At the same time, I totally support your reaction. I simply couldn’t move forward with a $10k vacation dragging along a family who seems to feel they are doing you a favor and inconveniencing themselves to come along. Adding it all up ESH.
INFO: Did you give any consideration to the timing of your idea? I mean, if you have pets and a job, it takes advance notice for things like pet sitters and to get PTO days approved. Were the dates going to be close to when the kids go back to school, or would there have been time to shop for school after the trip?
I’m old enough that when I was in school, it started after Labor Day. My family had a travel moratorium from August 20th until Labor Day because of the logistics of school shopping with four kids.
We would never surprise our kids with a vacation. Kids honestly don’t always love surprises. We involve them in the planning and also make sure they know when it’s happening way ahead so they don’t make any other plans. I don’t know how old your kids are, but for some, travel and not being at home can be stressful and uncomfortable. Always involve your family in the big stuff. Save the surprises for the little things (for us it’s always like how much they have as a souvenir budget)
Some people don’t like surprises. I’m one of them and would not be grateful for anyone making my choices for me even if it was intended to be nice.
Honestly, i believe you are more hurt about the fact no one cared about the surprise trip to Disney, which is understandable. But i wonder why did you think it was a good idea to go to that place specifically, like, are you 100% sure you could bet your hands that your children liked anything related to Disney so they would be excited to go? Or is it that they just weren’t in the mood to go to any trip?
I get you wanted to do this as a surprise trip, but honestly, these things need to be planned in advance and proceed once ALL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED on this confirmed they wanna go.
Cancelling was your best option here, so NTA for that. But now I think you should have handled this better. Now you know you need to let them know in advance to see if they are willing to go (but for real OP), because if i was one of your children and you asked me if i wanna go, i’d say no.