I don't care how many times you write "cute," having my vacation time programmed with that level of granularity and imposed obligation sounds like the definition of "dystopian."

If I got one of your cute schedule cards while visiting you, I'd tear it up, check into a cheap motel, and spend the rest of my vacation actually enjoying myself.

Edit: I'm not an outlier here. There have even been sitcom episodes about overbearing hosts over-programming their guests' visits, going back at least to the Brady Bunch.

> If I got one of your cute schedule cards while visiting you, I'd tear it up, check into a cheap motel, and spend the rest of my vacation actually enjoying myself

Okay. I'd be confused why you didn't voice up while we were planning everything as a group, but those people absolutely exist. (Unless it's someone's, read: a best friend or my partner's, birthday. Then I'm a dictator and nobody gets a choice over or preview of anything.)

I like to have a group activity planned on most days. If we're going to drive to get in an afternoon hike in before a dinner reservation (and if I have 6+ people in town, I need a dinner reservation because no I'm not coooking every single evening), or if I've paid for a snowmobile tour or a friend is bringing out their telescope for stargazing, there are hard no-later-than departure times to either not miss the activity or be respectful of others' time.

My family used to resolve that by constantly reminding everyone the day before and morning of, followed by constantly shouting at each other in the hours and minutes preceding and–inevitably–through that deadline. I prefer the way I've found. If someone wants to fuck off from an activity, myself included, that's also perfectly fine.

(I also grew up in a family that overplanned vacations. And I've since recovered from the rebound instinct, which involves not planning anything and leaving everything to serendipity. It works gorgeously, sometimes. But a lot of other times I wonder why I didn't bother googling the cool festival one town over before hand, or regretted sleeping in through a parade.)

> There have even been sitcom episodes about overbearing hosts over-programming their guests' visits

Sure. And different groups have different strokes. When it comes to my friends and I, generally speaking, a scheduled activity every other day with dinners planned in advance (they all get hangry, every single fucking one of them) works best.