Am I expecting too much?

TLDR my dad’s girlfriend doesn’t like me and keeps booking cruises back to back taking all of his vacation time from work and scheduled them around the time I’m giving birth to my 3rd and 4th babies so I can’t count on him to help with my older kids if needed. He never comes to my kids games, meets, or school events and won’t have any time off for the entire summer/my maternity leave to spend with us. I just want my kids to spend time with their only grandfather, they get so excited when he’s around and are so disappointed when he can’t come to things. Am I expecting too much?

The much longer version. I’m 38 years old. My parents divorced when I was 2. I saw my dad every other weekend, and 2 weeks in the summer/every other holiday, as he lives about 2 hours away. He didn’t come to my games/events with few exceptions. Not a super important fact, but my dad is a millionaire and my mom has nothing to her name, I was abused by her significant others and severely neglected while living with her, and ate lobster and went on disney vacations with him. I’m his only child, I have two half siblings from mom that I basically raised since I was 7.

My dad started dating this woman in 2022. I actually like(d) her. She was funny, smart, kept my dad active and social, good to my kids. The only complaint I had was she was disrespectful of people’s time. Example, we would have plans for them to come to a baseball game for example, game starts at 11am, she would stay up till 4am watching TV and then oversleep and miss the game, leaving me to explain why grandpa wasn’t here. Or we would have plans for them to come for Christmas and be here at 2pm. And she would then make additional plans to stop 4 places on the way here making them hours late. Or they would come on our annual beach vacation, and obviously we have kids, they are up at 7am wanting breakfast and to go to the beach and she would keep my dad up all night watching TV and we wouldn’t see them till 2pm so we would barely see him on vacation. There were also times when she would have afternoon plans with us, and typically my dad would get here for 2pm stay for dinner and leave by 7pm, but she would make other plans for them to go to concerts or with her friends and they would only stay for an hour. (The drive here is almost 2 hours, so an hour is honestly a waste of time). My kids, especially my oldest, are very family oriented. In their perfect world grandparents, aunts and uncles would be around everyday. They are disappointed when visits are short, or meals are missed. Of course they understand if plans get cancelled or changed with a good reason, but ‘sorry we overslept’ is not one of those excuses they understand. I’ve had to explain where grandpa is dozens of times and see them watch for his car in anticipation only to be let down.

It all came to a head on our beach vacation in 2024. They were staying for 3 nights because physically my dad can’t keep up on a really active vacation, we were there a total of 6. Their last full day, they slept through breakfast, we went to the beach for 10am, set up our area, didn’t hear from them until 1:30pm. My dad couldn’t physically make the walk, so she showed up at 2pm without him. At this point my kids were ready to pack it in and go to the hotel pool. We didn’t intentionally leave when she got there, we had just been there for 4 hours and everyone was ready to go. So we went back and went to the pool. My dad came to join us around 3pm. We had a big group of 13 people, so rather than going to a restaurant we planned to order takeout, the restaurant quoted us 4hours for pickup so we decided to do a fend for yourself eat whatever you want on the boardwalk night and let the kids ride rides. Because of how late it was getting, the plan was for my dad to ride his jazzy and her to walk with him and meet us at a certain spot on the 3 mile long boardwalk where we would drive and pay the $30 to park. The jazzy obviously didn’t fit in our car and we would have needed an additional vehicle to fit her. She didn’t like this plan, so she called me screaming about how inconsiderate I am telling me she was going to drive and park on her own and how rude I am because my dad rented this jazzy and we ended up not walking in with him. This was ridiculous to me, because our dinner plans changed because the restaurant couldn’t accommodate our order in a reasonable amount of time. We did the best we could to feed everyone, and accommodate 13 people. For her to call me inconsiderate after the dozens of times I’ve had to explain where grandpa is, why he missed breakfast, why he isn’t answering his phone or the hotel door when they knock, why he’s not coming to the beach, seeing how disappointed they are it really pissed me off. So at this point I tell my dad they should just go to dinner at a restaurant without us, because I want to enjoy the rest of my night with the kids and not be told how awful I am. She continued to blow up my phone which was in my purse while I was on rollercoasters with my kids.

They left the next morning. When the dust settled, I told my dad we wouldn’t be traveling with her again. We had a cruise scheduled for 3 months later and I told him we would still go, but not with her, I will cancel if she’s going. She doesn’t keep the same schedule we do, she stays up all night, and sleeps all day, and the purpose of him coming on trips with us is to spend time together, not for him to be on her schedule and my kids to be constantly disappointed. And for me to be gaslit and told that I’m the inconsiderate one when there have been dozens of times when I have to explain where they are.

So she didn’t go on the cruise in October 2024. And not surprisingly my dad made it to every single meal, and show and activity on time without any issue. He literally spent the entire week with us and the kids LOVED every second of it. By the end of the week my oldest had my dad’s room phone number memorized.

Since that cruise, they have gone on 3 more. For a total of 4 weeks away. She hasn’t spoken to me and through my dad has demanded an apology for how I treated her.

Here’s what’s also pissing me off. I’m pregnant with twins, due in March via c section. I had asked my dad if I could count on him to potentially help with my older kids in the event the twins are early and have to be in the NICU. He works from home, so he got special permission to move his computer to my house and stay here as needed and take kids to school and practice and just help where he can. I have a list of people I enlisted for this job so no one is stuck here for weeks in the event my husband and I are having to juggle NICU and home. He agreed to this.

Last week he tells me they have a cruise scheduled next week that is a week long. He will miss my oldest in the championship swim meet he attends every year, and won’t be available if the twins come during that time (I’m 35 weeks pregnant at that point, so it’s possible) They also have a 3 week cruise scheduled for April where my dad will miss my second’s 5th birthday, and Easter. I think she’s intentionally scheduling these trips to be hurtful.

I want my dad to be happy, and have fun, but I don’t understand why he would do that at the expense of me and my kids. I hurts me that I can’t count on him, it hurts me that it hurts my kids when they’re constantly disappointed. He throws money at us to make things better, but presents will never replace presence. I should also note prior to this relationship, he was not a world traveler. He’s had the money and opportunity to do it forever, this is just something she enjoys. And he tolerates.

So am I wrong here? Am I being entitled to think he shouldn’t be world traveling with her at the expense of spending time with my kids? Maybe I’m the asshole here. If you read this whole saga, thanks!