How would you handle..? (A traveling with others budget question) About This Page:

[Nyreak]

OK, so a little background first. Last year, my parents joined us at our timeshare (off property) for our post-Thanksgiving week trip. They brought along my niece (14) and nephew (8). Since the room was on us, my parents insisted on paying for Jocelyn's park ticket even though we had already purchased it. It had been their decision to bring my niece and nephew (though they did ask if it was alright first), so they paid for theirs as well.

Now, this year, my husband's parents are coming along. We let them know that they could bring Elizabeth (15) and Lia (13 1/2) if they wanted. Mil and Fil decided that they did want to bring them along and invited them. So, one day, I'm texting back and forth with Mil about getting tickets and she starts talking about having to pick up extra shifts/overtime so she can pay for the trip. This both annoys me and makes me feel a little guilty (yeah, I don't know why...), so we somehow wind up offering to pay for one of the tickets for the nieces. We had already said we'd pay for the MVMCP tickets for all three girls (our 4 year old and both of them), and so now we're doing that, plus the 2 adults and 1 child for us, plus another adult ticket for them. No big deal, it was our decision (if somewhat guilted) to do so.

Here's the thing, though. A lot of the time, my husband will pick up the check when we go out to eat with them. I told my husband that if we are paying for a 6 day adult pass for one of the girls, then we are not covering any of their meals. (Note: my parents paid for my niece and nephew and themselves, and we paid for us, except for us maybe covering one meal and them doing the same in return later on.) Ken says he's fine with this, but it will boil down to me somehow making sure they are aware of this before we arrive.

After doing some number crunching where I put in the cost of meals at each place we are planning to eat, (including tax for the counter service and tax and 18% tip for the table service) plus an average cost of meals for those not set, like counter service meals, I came up with a pretty good set of numbers. I even did a 'high' and 'low', with the low side being more inexpensive meals and the high side having the bigger pricier dinners. The numbers actually wound up coming out about even. (Here's the spreadsheet, if you want to see how crazy I am.)

I was thinking that I could send it to her, as I have done with the schedule. Should I point out that the amounts come out to just about even, give or take a few dollars, with us paying for the tickets we agreed on and our meals and them paying for their tickets and food for the 4 of them? Should I just let her look at the paper and figure it out? What would you all do?

It's such an eggshell walking situation, discussing money with people, but I refuse to pay for everything, especially since it's our time share and they aren't having to pay a single cent to stay with us.

ETA: We are considering getting APs for us, but I didn't include that anywhere in the estimates because I didn't want to mess up the comparison. I know that it will be an extra $800ish for us.