by Renee Roorda

Created on: August 27, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

What do you do when your mother-in-law says she would like to go to the beach with the whole family? You try to please her and come up with a solution to satisfy everyone in the family, but does it ever really work? Probably not, but our experience did not work out half bad. Here is what we had to think about. There are 5 different families - 4 couples, and my sister-in-law. Of the 5 families, 4 of them have dogs. Wow - how are we going to find a place to stay at the beach with all of these dogs? Wait - there is the issue of coordinating schedules with everyone. This will never work. Here is what we decided. I was going to take the lead, and find a place to try to accommodate as many of us as possible with the dogs, and whoever wanted to come could come.

I found a great site that allowed me to search North Myrtle Beach, where my mother-in-law wished to stay, with the option of pet-friendly homes. The site was very helpful with lots of descriptions, pictures, maps, etc. to understand the house we were getting. We found a place across the street from the beach that sleeps 10 people, accepts dogs, was available for Labor Day weekend at a very reasonable price, and when I called to inquire about it, the customer service could not have been nicer. As the vacation approaches, we decided to add an extra day to the beginning of our stay, and they were very accommodating, giving us a great rate for the additional day with late check in and everything.

Now, hopefully, the house will turn out as good as everything else. My mother-in-law is happy that at least 6 and maybe 7 of us will be there for the weekend, and my husband, daughter and I are going to stay a couple days longer at a very reasonable price. Let's just keep our fingers crossed!

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