Summary
Planned a 6 day vacation to Singapore with family. Included my wife’s parents, wife’s sister, husband, two kids, and her in-laws, my parents and sister - A group of 13 people. We made sure there are things for everyone to do, food for everyone’s preferences and enough time to chill and relax. It was also the first time when all the in-laws were travelling together - so there was additional variables of the group never having spent and extended time together.
Planning
It has been more than one year of us getting married. And one of things that has happened is that every time we travel back to India, we now have half the time with our families - given we split the time between her parent’s house and mine almost equally. This is a sub-par experience for everyone as we only get to spend time in the evenings mostly, and shuttling between the two houses optimising for time spent with each set of parents. This is due to:
- we manage a month long trip to India by combining work-from-home benefits and some leaves
- parents operate business as usual - with their daily obligations - so we work around their schedules to maximise time spent with them
This is a fairly exhausting experience for us - and we are really tired at the end of the trip - with incessant context switching and constantly trying to find time in the schedules given there are friends and other relatives to meet.
So in November we thought that we should plan a trip with everyone together, so that everyone can be present - mentally and physically - and to have single purpose of meeting everyone. The sole purpose would be to have fun together, and spend quality time with our family, as opposed to us being flies on the wall, when in India.
In order to plan a trip for people of all ages, we had to ensure the place we travel to has diverse things to offer for everyone. This includes food as people had different dietary preferences (my parents are vegetarians and my wife’s parent are not) and things to do for all age groups as we had two kids too (6 and 4 year old) and they should not feel bored with the adults.
After a lot of thinking and researching - we landed on Singapore as it qualified a lot of criteria for us:
- Not a very long flight from India
- Relatively easier Visa process
- Lots of diversity of things to do
- Diversity of food
- Easy to get around the city
- English as a functioning language
So in order to get things in motion - We (my wife and I) booked our tickets to Singapore from London, and started to plant this idea in our family’s head.
From November until March - everyday we would talk with our parents and nudge them towards this idea as if the plan is already happening, and they just need to book tickets. This gradually, over time, like propaganda, became embedded in everyone’s head.
And since our travel dates had been fixed already ( we had considered which would be dates they would most likely to travel) - they slowly began to accept that they were all going on a trip.
Bookings
Around March / April, our families began to consider that in order for this to happen, we need to start making the bookings and planning an itinerary. Since everyone trusted and expected us to come with the itinerary, the only thing we really had to do was to draft a proposal with a tentative itinerary and the possible options for the trip.
So we came up with a budget that we expected our families were going to be okay with and proposed the following:
- Stay at a decent hotel with pool with all rooms on one floor or close to each other
- A day trip to Universal Studios
- Night Safari
- Sight seeing to include Merlion, Marina Bay Sands, and key shopping areas
- East coast park and other neighbouring parks to show around
- Hawker centres for food
Once this was okayed in-principle, we created a 6 day itinerary from start to end, along with short listed hotels, and shared a detailed itinerary with each person of the family for opinions.
Given we had covered a lot of what people typically tend to do, we did not receive a lot input!
We outsourced the job of booking the hotel, flight tickets and the visa to a travel agent, to reduce the admin and made rest of the bookings to universal studios etc ourselves.
And now we had a trip on our hands!
The Trip
From Day 1 - since their arrival, we had prepared every thing. We managed the group, ensured no one was ever hungry, and had something to do or relax.
Our parents had brought with them tons of snacks from India along with chai, so all the moments when everyone was in the hotel, someone would call tea-time and everyone would congregate in one room to enjoy tea and varied snacks to go with it.
Our breakfast each day was also a group event, as it was a great time for everyone to socialise, chat, relax with the buffet on offer having stuff for everyone’s preference.
Once we would leave the hotel, we ensured the group stayed well fed and occupied, in order to prevent anyone feeling tired or bored.
In this process, we were able to get everyone to try out the different cuisines and food throughout the trip.
For dinners, we had planned each day at different restaurants that Gunjan knew were great, from the time she used to live in Singapore.
Universal Studios and the Night Safari were a massive success both with adults and the kids - as everyone loved the fact that there was something for everyone to do, without the compulsion of having to do everything together.
Shopping and tourist sight seeing were pretty usual - you get what you expect from it. The few photos and the standard tourist stuff that everyone buys - with some eating interspersed through the process.
We also got to spend time in the pool, with everyone joining in. It was a great activity for everyone, even though most people in the group didnt know how to swim. Since the pool was only 4 feet deep, everyone got in the water, and well once your are in - who doesnt like water!
It was something everyone really enjoyed, and was a great highlight moment of the trip.
Wrap up
Our initial fear of everyone not getting along was quickly resolved, as all the family got along like they had always been travelling for years. It was really rewarding to see all the hard work that gone into the planning of the trip culminate in a way that visibly brought everyone together emotionally. I was very happy that got to spend time with both sets of parents, but also spent a lot of time with my nieces, who I only speak on the phone very occasionally.
Our goal always has been to do such trips or activities where everyone is together for only one purpose: being together. And we want to do more such things as much as time and budgets allow us to.
But this was an extremely heartwarming experience and would remain as one of the great fun trips for all the families to remember. And gives us a a benchmark to exceed, the next time we do this. And I expect to do this sooner than later!
