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Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 10:28 AM by radwriter0555
5 days early from Playa Del Carmen because our travel companions pretty much changed the rules and ditched us.
My idea was to make a spring break vacation for my 11 year old daughter and a friend; it was to be all about THEM. So I brought it up to my daughter's friend's mom and she said she had been thinking about getting a house in Merida MX for holiday. I suggested she check our PDC and would she like to go together for the girls.
She looked into it, found a hotel she liked and we agreed to go together and stay seperately. I told her where we normally stayed and the things there were to do, and what we liked to do as well, so we agreed to basically go together but to stay seperately, since I wasn't in the market for a $1,000 per night hotel. We had a couple of discussions about things to do, including the local natural water parks that the girls would love, as well as pool and beach time, since that IS what kids like to do... I asked her if she wanted a spa vacation or an adventure and she was adament that she wanted adventure! We set up a general schedule of adventure one day, resting/beach/pool the next, alternating the events.
We made these arrangements around xmas time.
So 3 weeks ago, she tells us that it turns out her best friend's family is going to be in PDC too, and they have a daughter the same age. So she's going to be spending time with them as well. I had no problem sharing them, we were told they would spend a single entire day with them, on Sunday, no problem.
But then it all started changing. We get there on Thursday night, and had dinner. We were then told that they were spending the day on Friday with their friends, which left us on our own, and totally bored, while they spent the whole day with them; we finally met up on Saturday, which was supposed to be our relax by the pool day, and ended up being spent with their friends... including a dinner which was most unpleasant, as the other mom made subtle attempts to gain the superior position in the group and to force me out of conversations and interactions. I felt very excluded and totally like a 3rd wheel.
The mom kept making noises about changing the schedule again, to just do nothing and avoid us all, (and there I was feeling left out of the loop again) She kept saying how TIRED she was, and how exhausted she was, and made one comment about how she just wanted to be alone with her daughter. I had suggested that I could take the girls on the water park adventures and that was agreed to, but she didn't want to go, which was fine by me. I kept stressing this was about the girls, this vacation wasn't for me.
We had scheduled on Monday to all go (including the other friends) to Chichen Itza at 7:30 am, and the thought of trailing along behind the group, being excluded from conversations and chit-chat, and generally being ignored was not appealing. My kid was really bummed about sharing her spring vacation with the other child, who wasn't particularly appealing, but harmless... so we were anticipating continuing to have a lousy time. We had spent more time in our hotel room than doing anything else, and this wasn't our idea of a vacation.
After the events of Saturday's interaction with the other friends, I decided I wasn't interested in waiting around to see if our friends would "make time for us," to change the schedule again, to change outting events again, etc... We had been there for 3 days and hadn't had more then 2 hours of time for the girls together and we were BORED. It felt like we were waiting for an audience with the queen.
The people we went with had changed the rules. We had determined one course of events, and they changed everything. Our friend had said she had forgotten that her friends were coming to the same place for their holiday. The mom said her friends were leaving Wednesday.
So after discussing the whole scene with my daughter, I changed our flight to come home home on Monday -- 5 days early. We just didn't want to wait around hoping they would make time for us. We felt like we had been ditched and we were having a crappy time. I don't lay in the sun and swim in pools and on the beach. I'm very fair and don't do well in the sun. And in reality, an 11 year old girl doesn't want to play with her MOM, so my poor kid was really bored.
The mom called me on monday morning; I had been trying to send her hotel a fax to beg off, and the phones weren't working either. When we finally talked, she got upset of course that we were leaving, and apologized for spending so much time with her friends. I begged off saying my recent oral surgery had become infected and that I was in a lot of pain, so I should come home and get it handled. She then said that her friends were leaving TUESDAY. (Again the story changed) and I just insisted this wasn't about that, it was about my tooth problem, which was in fact slightly real. I insisted it wasn't about her friends, but she kept apologizing, so clearly, she was aware of her actions.
So, we left. My daughter is glad we came home, and I am trying to teach her to not allow herself to be taken advantage of, or to be a doormat, no matter the access or privilege to be gained. People should treat her right, or she should have the dignity to walk away and not let herself be insulted like that.
I would love to hear other vacation horror stories. I know ours wasn't the worst, these are good people with poor judgement it seems, that made some errors. I'm lucky I was able to extricate myself without wasting a lot of money.
GIVE ME STORIES!
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