Andrea Lewis (Vacation Nation): Jill, Ryan, thank you for taking the time for this press conference. You guys just came off an eight-day visit with Jill’s parents in Florida. You went into this vacation with high hopes. It seemed like you’d put the Disney cruise behind you and had addressed some holes in your game, in terms of prioritizing Chloe’s nap time and making Jill’s mom feel appreciated. But you came up short. Can you talk a little bit about what went wrong, and about your plan going forward?

Ryan Kass: I mean, honestly, this one’s gonna hurt for a while. We’ll rest up, and then Jill and I will huddle, we’ll entertain the fantasy of staying in a hotel next time, and we’ll take it from there.

Andrea Lewis: Looking at some numbers here, you finished Friday with four door-slams, one meltdown at a Tommy Hilfiger outlet, and one screaming match at a P. F. Chang’s. Obviously not the game plan you had drawn up. How did the drive down to Fort Lauderdale affect your mind-set going into the matchup against Mr. and Mrs. Weinbaum?

Jill Kass: No doubt about it, the P. F. Chang’s misstep set us back. We tried to appease the kids, and we ended up playing their game instead of ours, which is more Wendy’s drive-through. The banana spring rolls ate valuable minutes off the clock, and that left us tired going into the series with my parents.

Scott Kendall (Tripologist): Speaking of Jill’s parents, they seemed to be tougher competition than usual—especially her dad. What did Stu Weinbaum do differently, and was it hard to adjust to his level of play?

Ryan Kass: Look, S-Dub’s got a lot of ways he can hurt you. For instance, we know he’ll burst into our room and yell “Waffle time!” at 7 a.m. But he brought new heat on this trip, and it was hard to adjust. At the end of the day, you can go over strategy again and again, but until you’re actually in the car with Stu and he’s insisting on driving seventeen miles out of the way to show you the brand-new Publix, you don’t know how you’ll react.

Scott Kendall: Just to clarify, you didn’t actually buy anything at the Publix—

Ryan Kass: Nope. Didn’t even get out of the car. He just wanted us to look at it.

Mike Cooper (Pro Trip Talk): Let’s turn to one of the strongest moments of the vacation: when you perfectly timed out Jill’s mom bringing the kids to the library and her dad’s CVS run to have sex.

Jill Kass: That was just an instance of clearheaded thinking, where you know what needs to get done and you execute. It also helped that we’d run a version of that play at home, when Max went to speech therapy and Chloe started a new episode of “Peppa Pig.”

Stefanie Delgado (Vacation Machine): The Weinbaums took an early lead on the first night, when they offered to pay for Chloe’s private school. Looking back, is that the moment things started to get away from you?

Ryan Kass: Yeah, that definitely gave them the upper hand. And, I have to admit, it’s a beautiful play. We were so grateful that we didn’t even argue when, the next morning, they suggested visiting the Chihuly exhibit we’d already been to three fucking times.

Jill Kass: From there on out, we were playing catchup.

Andre Gaines (Trip Daddy): It seemed like the parents broke it open on night four, with the surprise visit from the Lassers. Bob and Rhonda stayed for seventy-four minutes, thirty-eight of which were spent discussing water damage to their condo. Ryan, you asked a follow-up question around minute nineteen that some folks are saying cost you the conversation.

Ryan Kass: That’s on me. Jill had been doing a great job of making little sympathetic noises that were polite but showed no real interest. In that situation, it’s all about shutting down the attack with one-word responses. We know surprise friend visits are a part of the Weinbaums’ game.

Lois Halberstatt (Real Clear Vacay): Jill, what’s your message to your teammate after this kind of loss?

Jill Kass: Just get focussed on Thanksgiving. We’re better than this. And we’re going to have to really buckle down and get to work if we want to be ready for Christmas with Ryan’s parents. Joyce and Alan are the defending champs for a reason. ♦