I really do think a lot of the problems on this trip stemmed from the following:

(a) two weeks of unrelieved family time without anyone else around for distraction,
(b) the fact that 4/5 of the people involved had been to every island on Hawaii a billion times, versus the 1/5 who hadn't been to either island before,
(c) not always having 2 cars so people could do different things, depending on b,
(d) two groups of people having somewhat different preferences as to what they liked to do on vacation.

(a) is something I usually have a problem with every time I go anywhere for a week, but I think it was also backing up on other people as well. You couldn't make a phone call to a friend without someone commenting on it and getting annoyed at you (plus you always had an audience hearing your call), you couldn't really go off by yourself, you always had to have someone with you, if not everyone. I am flabbergasted that I got as much time lounging on lanais ALONE as I did in the mornings- I suppose I should be thankful to Wimbledon programming for that.

(b) In some ways, it's really nice to go with people who have been a billion times before because they know where to go and it might be somewhere you wouldn't have thought of (for example, Waipio). In other ways, it's a pain because they know where to go- and if you want to go see something else that they have deemed as being boring or sucky or "for honeymooners and old people", fuhgettaboutit. I don't feel too cheated about Big Island (though like I said, a little more time at the volcanoes would have been nice), but I do feel fairly cheated about Kauai. Next time, we're doing more stuff, dangit.

(c), the car situation, well...I think this is why the first week wasn't as bad personality-wise as the second week was. We had the option to go places alone on Big Island, and didn't on Kauai, and that just got frustrating. I was glad I got to go into Koloa twice with Mom, but I would have liked to have hit some places farther away, and when they let us have the car, it was only for a couple of hours and we really couldn't go farther away.

(d) Given (b), that they'd done everything there was to do before, they wanted to spend most of their time snorkeling on the beach. And they were willing to drive quite a ways away to go to "special" beaches that took up all day. Mom and I would rather have gone swimming for a few hours nearby and THEN gone off to other places. They got mad if we wanted to do anything else, we got mad if that was all they wanted to do. Everyone stewed and snapped at each other. Not pretty.

At any rate...we're never vacationing together again, that's for sure.

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