My son is missing his first disney trip

Nsaudra

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 7, 2018
I have kids 24,23, 21,11,8 all boys we have made it every year no matter what to meet in orlando for a week. This year my 21 year old has a gf who doesnt want him to go with out her. We said no it's the one week it's just us. She doesnt make him a better person. She treats him badly. I would like to see her go but it's not my choice. He said he will not go cause she cant come.
 
I’m confused - you go to Orlando every year and this is his first trip to disney?

Bummer he can’t reason to go without his GF!
 
I’m sorry you’re missing one of your boys. Sounds like a fun tradition!

Was the girlfriend attempting to go to WDW with your family without paying her way? Why couldn’t your son and the girlfriend visit WDW at the same time, on their own dimes? That way you could all still be together at least part of the trip (maybe meet up for dinners). If the girlfriend is going to be in your son’s future going forward, maybe that could be an option next trip. Just my 2 cents though.
 
Yes we go to florida every year in march.
It all started when he had cancer and we went for a wish trip, then it was 1st anniversary and so on. We have had this planned longer than she has been around. We took her on our ski trip in december. Just so our son would go. But my husband doesnt olay that way. He said if he can't brake away for 6 days we have new issues, she is the one saying you cant leave me the you want to break up so on
 
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Is the Wish Trip son the one who doesn’t want to go? I could see that might sting a bit more since the whole tradition revolves around him.

My DD19 skipped her first family trip in January so I do feel your pain. She went to Costa Rica with her boyfriend instead. We did invite him but asked him to help pay for the trip but he couldn’t because they were spending too much on thier own vacation.

Bottom line: kids grow up and do things on their own. They meet people and start emotional relationships outside the family. If you want to continue the family tradition you’ll need to open it up to girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, and husbands. He may be the first to put his foot down on being able to bring a sweetheart but he won’t be the last.
 
Unfortunate choice of his to sit out. He actually might really hate sitting home knowing he’s missing out, seeing your pics and such on Snapchat or wherever. It might be a good thing in the long run for him. You never know. One can hope. :(
 


As kids get older I think it’s reasonable to assume the “spouses” want to come or they will skip. But you can absolutely make them pay especially as they will want their own room. As in we only have $xxxx to contribute to you and xxxxx. and then it is up to them to decide.
 
I think its unreasonable to expect your adult son to go on a trip without his significant other. It seems the bigger issue is you not liking her. If you liked her would you have an issue including her?

I also couldn't imagine my husband going on a weekly trip with his family without me. There aren't enough vacation days in the year for that.

I agree its a neat tradition but traditions are meant to be fun...this seems full of drama.
 
I think its unreasonable to expect your adult son to go on a trip without his significant other. It seems the bigger issue is you not liking her. If you liked her would you have an issue including her?

I also couldn't imagine my husband going on a weekly trip with his family without me. There aren't enough vacation days in the year for that.

I agree its a neat tradition but traditions are meant to be fun...this seems full of drama.
I agree with your first part of the post that maybe a lot of it has to do with the OP not liking the GF, but I do think that the word "drama" has a pretty negative connotation. I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but she posted in the "Coping and Compassion" board which is usually pixie-dust supportive.
 
I agree with your first part of the post that maybe a lot of it has to do with the OP not liking the GF, but I do think that the word "drama" has a pretty negative connotation. I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but she posted in the "Coping and Compassion" board which is usually pixie-dust supportive.

I can see your point. I meant it more in that by OP not allowing son to bring SO it creates drama that makes the tradition less likely to continue because the son won't want to participate.

Unfortunately kids don't stay kids forever and vacations with them, and only them, have a limited life span.

I'm probably oversensitive to this as my dh is the only one of his 4 siblings to marry and have kids so I'm often made to feel as if I'm keeping him from his family when we visit my side of the family for Christmas or when we don't want to vacation with them.
 
I think its unreasonable to expect your adult son to go on a trip without his significant other. It seems the bigger issue is you not liking her. If you liked her would you have an issue including her?

I also couldn't imagine my husband going on a weekly trip with his family without me. There aren't enough vacation days in the year for that.

I agree its a neat tradition but traditions are meant to be fun...this seems full of drama.


I think the OP mentioned that they took the GF on a ski trip a few months ago, so I don't think it's that unreasonable to want to spend time together as a family without any SO's.
 
I think the OP mentioned that they took the GF on a ski trip a few months ago, so I don't think it's that unreasonable to want to spend time together as a family without any SO's.

I actually think its unreasonable to expect your adult children to go on vacation with you every year, let alone stipulating that they can't bring a SO. We can agree to disagree on this point :)

I am sad for OP however as clearly a life chapter is closing and that can be very emotional.
 
I think the OP mentioned that they took the GF on a ski trip a few months ago, so I don't think it's that unreasonable to want to spend time together as a family without any SO's.
He's 21 though. An 18 year old sure understandable that one trip significant other comes and another trip not.

I will say I understand the position the OP is in. I lived it with my husband's family. I am however coming in from the significant other's position rather than the mother of the son. Anyways my husband's mother had a very very very hard time letting him go (and still hasn't completely but it's sooooo much better now).

I met my husband when he was 18 and I was 19. Every year his family went on vacations which was something that I didn't do with my mom and did a few trips with my dad growing up but never as often as my husband's family or to as nice of places (in general that is).

I saw how difficult it was for my husband's mom to understand that:

1) he was no longer interested in leaving me behind after the first trip and

2) he wasn't up for going if his mom wasn't up for me going (which admittedly I don't know that she ever didn't want me to go aside from the first yearly trip of my relationship with my husband when it was honestly still pretty new--they went to Key West that year, if there were any other trips I was unaware I was not quite invited) and

3) he wasn't up for going if I was unable to go with respect to time off from work and expenses

It's understandable that to the OP this is a trip by their own words has been planned since before she's been around but I can also see how that could be hurtful to the girlfriend if it was phrased that way to her (not to mention the comments regarding the girlfriend not making her son a better person).

Expenses aside (in terms of who is paying or not) this may be more of an understanding of how adult children branch out and make decisions with concern to other people in their lives not just their own blood relations. It may be even harder for the OP if the other older siblings haven't quite done this yet with the yearly trip.
 
I think the OP mentioned that they took the GF on a ski trip a few months ago, so I don't think it's that unreasonable to want to spend time together as a family without any SO's.
I didn’t see that. Honestly, I think once you start inviting significant others it’s hard to stop inviting a person without someone getting hurt along the way. I’m sorry the OP is sad but I can also sympathize with the kids.
 
Thankyou all..
After talking to you all i need to kill her with kindness.... we invited her. I was truly hoping she would say thankyou but i would never intrude but that did not happen. She was a little put off that we are staying at a 300 night hotel. We will see where this goes. I guess we have to be reminded what it was like being 21.
 
Thankyou all..
After talking to you all i need to kill her with kindness.... we invited her. I was truly hoping she would say thankyou but i would never intrude but that did not happen. She was a little put off that we are staying at a 300 night hotel. We will see where this goes. I guess we have to be reminded what it was like being 21.
Glad to hear it the update :)

Just to give a quick viewpoint regarding the hotel costs:

If she was expected to pay for the hotel I get her viewpoint. At age 30 a $300/per night hotel would put me off..as in my husband and I wouldn't do it. That's way too much for us personally and we make a decent enough living honestly. The most we've spent was on our honeymoon at Sandals all-inclusive (that was really the only true splurge we've done). When I was in college heck to the no could I have afforded that though that is me personally speaking.

If you would have paid for the hotel costs completely then I don't know about the feeling put off unless she was feeling like it was 'too much' in terms of the style of the hotel.
 
I'm afraid my advice is to say nothing and just go ahead without him. My daughter met a guy online when she was 16 and it was a waste of four years of her life, they met up twice in that time and her life went down the toilet and never recovered even though she is now 28. She blames me for everything because I questioned what she was doing during that time when her grades went down, she refused to go on a once in a lifetime school trip to Japan because she wouldn't be able to talk to him, not to mention the Disney trips because I refused to let a virtual stranger join us, at my expense, no doubt.
Time does come when family traditions like vacations to Disney do start coming to an end, that is a fact of life. I remember the first time I went to Disney on my own, 10 years ago, because she didn't want to come, sorry, but, best trip ever! First time it was about me, something that never happened before.
 

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