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When done right, it can be a great experience to get siblings and cousins and old friends reconnected.
Ideas from years of renting mcmansions at the beaches.
I recommend not blending too many categories of people. All family, all old friends, all golfers, etc.
It's hard dealing with the bedroom situation at times. The newer mcmansions have several master suites with ensuites nowadays so not so much trying to decide to gets the best room.
You should pay more for the best room/best fantastic view.
We liked best the houses where every adult couple had their own room. (If needed, good to be able to retreat to that private space for some peace and readjustment). And then the boys bed room and the girls bedroom. Cousins love reconnecting like that through the years. And were even nice to the new step child or two along the way. Some parents were hesitant that the younger ones would hesitate but they all loved it. A great time apart. No fights. And the toddlers on down would stay in the parents bedroom.
Do consider though your kids and those ground floor rooms and sneaking out if yours are so inclined.
Advance notice and 'jobs'.
About paying their fair share, go with the principal of letting people 'fire themselves'. Set rules. Payment a month or more before going. No, you can't soandso. Soandso knew in advance payment is due, perhaps even on the first downpayment and then the payment a month before occupancy. In advance they know what will happen otherwise. They can't go. They fire themselves from the trip. Then it is their fault. And you know well enough in advance to invite someone else....or at least relax because you don't have a freeloader to get frustrated with.
OR, you can realize soandso has always been a freeloader so it's okay for him to come; maybe he is a great musician, a good cook. Or maybe, nothing except that he's family. But know this going in well before so that you won't be seething during the trip.
Jobs...each family has a night to be responsible for the dinner. They should ask about allergies or anything that makes people gag. In advance. They can cook, order pizzas, get it catered, take everyone to a restaurant. Everyone should be in touch with the general meal so there are not two one after the other. Mexican, Italian lasagna, fish, Italian spaghetti.
Breakfast and lunch are as you like and as it happens.
Everyone cleans up every day, sweeping those crumbs after every meal.
Jobs...someone might plan side trips; someone rainy day activities...yes, there's that; someone evening family entertainment like skits and singalongs, crafts.
Last night Awards...just silly things but making memories. Who came the furthest. Who came with the most kids. Who caught the biggest fish. Make up an award for everyone...at least every child.
There's a ton of things to do in Ocean City, Md. Or just relax on the beach.
Oh, and bring coolers with lots of meal items. The grocery stores are packed packed packed on check in days.
OMG, did we go on the same vacations? We were at OBX.
I would also agree to this rule: kitchen has to be clean before the last person goes to bed.
We did the 'each couple takes turns cooking while the others clean,' and also each couple gets a night out per week while the others babysit. Grocery receipts were kept and reconciled to be divided up mostly evenly at the end (adjusted by extraordinary expenses). We never argued...greed and entitlement wasn't the vibe.
OMG, did we go on the same vacations? We were at OBX.
I would also agree to this rule: kitchen has to be clean before the last person goes to bed.
We did the 'each couple takes turns cooking while the others clean,' and also each couple gets a night out per week while the others babysit. Grocery receipts were kept and reconciled to be divided up mostly evenly at the end (adjusted by extraordinary expenses). We never argued...greed and entitlement wasn't the vibe.
We did ours much the same way. One of our traditions over the 12 yrs we did it, was a huge seafood boil the last night. It seemed to get bigger each year. Our kids still talk about the Friday Seafood Boil which has now surpassed Legendary Status in our family Family Folklore.
OMG, did we go on the same vacations? We were at OBX.
I would also agree to this rule: kitchen has to be clean before the last person goes to bed.
We did the 'each couple takes turns cooking while the others clean,' and also each couple gets a night out per week while the others babysit. Grocery receipts were kept and reconciled to be divided up mostly evenly at the end (adjusted by extraordinary expenses). We never argued...greed and entitlement wasn't the vibe.
These are good guidelines, ad if my family (well, mostly my inlaws) could stick to it I'd be game. For the most part they can...a couple notable exceptions, though, which probably means I'd be a 'no.'
I'd also want to discuss ahead of time the "friends or no friends" issue, as far as whether friends can be invited or not, whether overnight or day visits.
The relatives want to get a group of us together in late June for a week at a beach house in Ocean City MD. It is just shocking how expensive beach houses are in Ocean City so the sister who is organizing the whole thing is working hard to get all the brothers, sisters and husbands and wives to participate and share the cost. If everyone participates there will be 8 adults and 6 kids all living in one house for a week.
There is four bedrooms and ten beds so some of us will be sleeping on the floor, on the sofa or doubling up in double sized beds. It's going to be tight.
It could be a great opportunity for lots of good food, drink and conversation or maybe lots of fights, little sleep and general conflict. We have never done this before.
If you and 13 other family members had a chance to share a beach house, would you be interested, and if so, what would happen?
we have done this type of thing more than once, hell a lot of times.
The keys are privacy , down time and costs .
each party has some privacy
setup a break or two where everyone goes off and does their own thing.
And remember if you ask everyone to pay then everyone should have very similar rooms, beds , bathrooms.
We often did 3-5 families until they got too big. We found places with a few bedrooms and bunkrooms etc but most important is bathrooms, you need enough for high demand times and nobody wants to shower with uncle franks pubes overall the shower..... Get a house with a bathroom for each family.
When the baths are not ensuite we make sure everyone sticks to their own and this way nobody is cleaning someone else's pee off the floor....
As a property owner, I would refuse to rent to a group that large in a 4 bedroom house. I would restrict the number of guests to the number of bedspaces (queen/ king equals 2 people). The wear and tear on a place with that number of people is awful and crowded conditions equal accidents and spills. We are buying a vacation rental, and it will be relatively small (2-3 bdrms) and have a max occupancy of 4-6 people for just that reason.
I've seen 1 bedroom vacation rentals in places that say they sleep 6 people...I'm like wth...queen bed in the bedroom, pull out sofa, and air mattress to put down in the living room..I just can't imagine that many people crammed in a 1 bedroom place. Especially since they usually only have one bathroom! Definitely stick to your guns.
Also, I would go on vacation with SOME of my relatives. My cousin and his wife, definitely. My other cousin...probably but I don't know her husband well enough to know if we could vacation together. Everyone else..I really would not want to share a house with them. If it was financially feasible to rent units together, like how some property owners have multiple listings that are next door or one street over, and each family did their own thing, I'd definitely be amenable to that. I just get antsy sharing a living space with other people besides my bf after a week or so, and that's usually only with 1-2 other people. And when we do go we make sure everyone has their own bedroom so they can chill out there if need be. When we go on vacation with our two friends we get a 3 bedroom house for example.
We've done similar trips with my husband's family, especially when the kids were small. One week, we took my au pair with us, and paid her double for the week with two days off for her own 'vacation' so that she could keep an eye on all the kids while the adults went out to eat, go to a play, go dancing. She would take them to the pool early in the morning, and was generally an extra pair of hands -- we didn't dump the kids on her full time (that would drive anyone beserk!), but it was very helpful to have someone there who knew the kids.
Just my opinion, but no way I'd sleep on a floor for a week. Even the kids -- you're always stepping over them, there's no place for "their" stuff, sandy/dirty . . . yuck.
My wife wants to do this for a week on a houseboat with it being her side of the family. It would work. We have not been with her family for that lenght of time but we did have Christmas at our place once for 4 days with 21 of them plus my mother. Sure the kids had to sleep on the floors in common areas but the kids were mostly in their 20s and 30s plus some that were pre schoolers.It would be fun as we all get along and are also independent enough to know that we would have to go elsewhere for time on our own, some to a golf course, onto the water, for a bike ride, hiking whatever it takes.
My wife and I are in our 60s and would be willing to sleep in sleeping bags if required, we do it for our camping vacations as there are no beds in our two man backpacking tent.
I have done this in the Outer Banks with couple friends (groups of 8-12) and it was OK. I was always picking the house, so I would try to find one where most of the bedrooms had great views and many private baths (6 bedrooms/5.5 bathrooms).
I would NEVER EVER EVER do this with in-laws, seems like a recipe for disaster. I would rather that we all rent our own separate condos or something like that.
We did ours much the same way. One of our traditions over the 12 yrs we did it, was a huge seafood boil the last night. It seemed to get bigger each year. Our kids still talk about the Friday Seafood Boil which has now surpassed Legendary Status in our family Family Folklore.
That is so awesome. We had something similar, and it came with a ceremony where everyone received a shell necklace one of the dads would make from all the shells the kids had collected over the vacation. I still have all of mine!
It would be hell for me, but there wouldn't be yelling and screaming.
I'm extremely introverted. I just had a four day vacation with two close friends and after day two I was done. As much as I enjoyed hanging out with them, the lack of quiet or alone time really wore me down. With 14 people, I could last a few hours. After that I'd be spending most of my time thinking of excuses to leave the house on my own for a certain amount of time.
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