Has anyone done an extended family trip?

[Ashleybritton]

We're in the process of planning an extended family trip for the week of Thanksgiving 2017 or the first week in June. I'm trying to wrap my head around how a trip will work with a group of 12.

Did you all stay together during the parks, or did you go separate ways, but meet up for fast passes?

Similarly, did you do all lunches/dinners together?

The different families have kids of different heights so I would imagine there's going to be some splitting up, but we also want it to feel like a family vacation.

Any tips and advice for large family vacations in Disney World?

 

[ATLMinnie]

I think it totally depends on your family. We are doing an extended family trip in a couple of weeks, and my DH, kids, and I are frequent Disney visitors, but other members are not. So, we are tying to do at least one meal together every day, and we have some same fast passes, but it is understood that we do not have to stay together for everything. Also, we are morning people, and we like to be at the parks early, while other family members won't surface until 9:30 or 10, but they will be at the parks all night.

I have tried to provide guidance for other family members regarding what they may like or not like, but I didn't want to reserve fast passes for them because I don't know what their kids will ride, etc. We also have some pool time built into our trip, and some time for just the girls.

 

[Tara1988]

It will depend on a lot, especially how many days you plan on spending at each park. We have done extended family trips where everyone stays together the whole time and also where we all split up. A combination would be ideal. We liked having one sit down meal together each day, meeting up for parades and shows, and doing a couple rides together. But staying together the whole time made people grumpy because so much time was spent waiting on other people to do things that they couldn't do or didn't want to do. We also prefer to rent a house for big family trips instead of staying in hotels. It makes the non-park time feel more like quality family time

 

[Nancyg56]

We travel with extended family most of the time. We stay in the same resort, and we tend to dine together for most meals. One of us (me) makes all of the plans and ADR's but we do have small meetings ahead of each planning stage to confirm the likes and dislikes of the group. WE also make sure that everyone in the group knows that meals and parks, etc are not command performances. I will book whatever folks want. Dinner as a couple one night? Done. You say you do not want Frozen Sing along FP????? Okie doke.

We all tend to stay in the same park but we split off and often a portion of our group leaves before the rest of us. We have never had grumps but I think it is because we never try to make everyone do the same thing, stay together the whole time, or eat at character meals they want to avoid.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Not Disney, but we did Branson with my sister's family & my parents. Over 8 days, the only time we were ALL together was maybe 7 or 8 meals (usually breakfast), plus the one day on my brother-in-law's boat - and even that day, we took turns on the SeaDoo. It worked out really well. I know I was part of the following "sub groups" at various times:

Just DW & I
DW, my parents, and I
DW, my 2 DDs, and I
DW, my 2 DDs, sis, youngest nephew, and I
DW, sis, BIL, and I
DW, both DDs, both nephews, and I
Oldest nephew & I


We all had different interests and it was nice to split off every day to do our own thing. We didn't "all" ride a single ride together at Silver Dollar City, not one. And that's okay

 

[PurpleKomodo]

We have done extended family trips with my Dad and step-family. Last summer we went with a group of 9 that included my family (DH, DS who was close to 3, and myself), my dad, stepmom, step-sister (30) and her son who was 10, and my step-brother (35) and his girlfriend. We stayed in a villa all together which worked out pretty well. We were able to easily start and end days together and by splitting the cost, we were able to afford a higher category resort than we usually do. We had the dining plan and had our table service meal all together every day. We also did small meetings leading up to the trip to get an idea on everyone's preferences and tried to book at least one dining experience that everyone would want. Sanaa for the adults, Hollywood and Vine for my kiddo, etc. No one minded going to a meal they did not necessarily pick since there was something for everyone to look forward to. We had park hoppers. We also had 2 cars since we drove to Florida. We would all ride together to a specific park in the morning, but then we would often split up some and some might even choose to use Disney transportation to hop to a different park. Getting out of the villa and to the park when I wanted to be there (rope drop) was the most stressful part of the day. I think every day I told the group that we needed to be ready to leave 15 minutes earlier then the previous day to get out the door on time. We never did.

For Fastpasses, I booked all of them as well but told people they were free to change their own later (but don't change anyone else's!). We wanted 7DMT so I booked that all together. Most of the things we wanted Fastpasses for, we all wanted to do so I booked them together, but several in the group would skip or change passes the day we were in the park if they were engaged in something else or in another park. No big deal. It was essentially like this... I booked you guaranteed rides on headliners that we all want to do. You do not have to show up to do it, but I can't help you if you want to do it later and the line is huge.

Overall, it was really fun and everyone had a really good trip. It felt like a family trip because of the time we spent together, but we always emphasize that this is everyone's vacation and they should do what they want. No one should get home and say, "I didn't get to do X because the family insisted on doing Y." The only thing we insisted on was sit down meals and that was decided together as a family. Good luck! It can be really fun!

 

[happymommy]

Yes, I have done a trip with extended family - my folks, my sister and her husband and 4 kids ages 13 to under one year old, and me and my family.

It is a LOT of work, and we don't have similar styles of vacationing. Lucky for me, I had APs so we weren't too stressed about getting to do what we wanted.

We all stayed in the same resort (the my sister chose, not me).

Would I ever do it again? Not even if you paid me.

 

[MommyBryn]

We have never gone with less than 13 people, and that was our smallest group (last trip). We've had up to 27 twice (from infants to great-grandparents), and we all travel from Idaho. *phew*

We love it, for the most part. It's a really unique time for memories with grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc, especially for my children. I do highly recommend not doing more than a few things together each day, as it's just plain too hard to please everyone for the whole vacation. I tend to be the planner and I hated having to change things around to accomodate everyone, so we just end up usually doing at least a handful of meals together during the whole trip, and ending up at the same parks most days (but not staying together). That gives us flexibility but we can choose what specifics we want as individual families. We used to take advantage of the Grand Gathering options, but they don't seem to have those anymore.
For accommodations, we do usually all stay at the same resort, which allows us to hang out during our down time, which is a lot more carefree.

 

[mkla2015]

I think it will just depend on your family. We've gone multiple times as a party of 11- our last trip together was in 2015 and we had 3 adults in their 60s (my mom, dad, and aunt), 4 adults in their 30s (myself, DH, cousin, cousin's wife), and 4 kids 3-5yrs old. We make our reservations together- rooms next to each other, same dining reservations, and same FP because we all plan on staying together for the most part. There were a few nights where the grandparents went to have dinner in Epcot while we took the kids back to MK and also a couple of nights where the grandparents stayed in the room with the kids while myself, DH, my cousin, and his wife went to MK late- EMH. I can definitely see us splitting up as the kids get older and grandparents get older.

We have fun going just as a family of 4 but it's to me it's even more enjoyable with more family! But, we tend to do most vacations, holidays, etc. with lots of family.

 

[Lori74]

we are going in august with 14 of us. my husband and I are doing all the planning. we rented a house and are taking them to mk for a day and universal for a day. I told everyone I want one pic of all of us in front of the castle first thing in the morning, and then one meal a day together would be great. other than that, im making everyones fp, and they can change how they see fit. we are renting 3 cars, so they can come and go if they need to. hopefully all will go well. good luck to you! feel free to ask any questions!

 

[kwdw]

My group hasn't been quite as large, but yes. I'd suggest staying at the same resort, and trying to plan one meal together per day. Beyond that - find a handful of things you will all do together -- like ALL watch the parade at MK on this day, or get the group photos in front of the castle, or all ride IASW this day at this time, or whatever. But don't plan TOO much of that - or you may go nuts. We would chat briefly in the morning or at night to figure out when we were joining up each day - but staying together, for us, would have driven everyone insane. Some shared memories are good, but too much togetherness can be bad for relationships.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Yes, I arranged a family reunion for last month, which included both WDW and offsite activities and meals. Not all the people went to WDW. We had seven people at our Animal Kingdom day, and ten people at our Epcot day. We had a couple of meals with some of the people, and the other meals, everyone did their own thing. We all got Fastpasses together, but other than the Fastpasses, there were some times we split up, usually because some people wanted to go on rougher rides that other people weren't up for. And there were other times we went around together. I had a detailed plan in advance, but when some people wanted to go do their own thing, that was OK. I think the key to success in this kind of gathering is to offer opportunities to do things together but don't expect or demand that everyone participate in everything. Let people split off and then get back together as they please. We ended up with times when the larger group was together and other times in smaller groups, and it was all enjoyable.

 

[brockash]

We're in the process of planning an extended family trip for the week of Thanksgiving 2017 or the first week in June. I'm trying to wrap my head around how a trip will work with a group of 12.

Did you all stay together during the parks, or did you go separate ways, but meet up for fast passes?

Similarly, did you do all lunches/dinners together?

The different families have kids of different heights so I would imagine there's going to be some splitting up, but we also want it to feel like a family vacation.

Any tips and advice for large family vacations in Disney World?

We go with my mom and 2 sisters and families every year. At this point we're at 11 going and we generally stay together. We always do the same parks each day and we eat most meals together and so far have always done the same fastpasses at the same time, but there are times that we split up into smaller groups and there are times that we eat at different places/times. As far as fastpasses, what we do is just make 1 MDE account that everyone (all adults) have the user name/password for and do the fastpasses together...that way if something does come up and something needs to be changed, anyone can go in a change all or just some ppl.'s fastpasses. We also almost always stay at the same resort and basically have a time to meet up in the morning to head to the buses together.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

We too usually travel with other people - from 8 to 16 people. We are planning a trip for this summer with 11 people. We make 1 meal together each day. We will try to make FPs together but not all of them. We make our ADRs at restaurants that are big and you can make that many with one group. A few restaurants we had to call - Sanaa and Garden Grill being 2 of them. It wouldn't allow us to make an ADR for that size but once I called I got the reservation.

Have fun!

 

[powellrj]

We went with my extended family a few years ago and it went OK. We rented a large house together so each couple had an ensuite and the kids shared bedrooms. We got together for one meal a day and did one park day together, but the rest of the time everyone was on their own. A few did Universal and some did water parks and some did the beach. My DS visited friends the whole trip. It worked out well for our groupl

 

[Elliemay2]

Great Question! We are planning on a group of 10 going in Dec (2 Families of 5). I have been doing the planning so I have added them as friends to my MDE and linked our resort reservations. We all have free dining and I will be making our table service meals together except for maybe one.

Here are a few questions that may help us both to have answered:

Should I be able to make all of the reservations and fast passes without issue or does the other family need to create their own MDE account?

Should I be able to get ADR's for everyone easily or will I need to break up the group and do 2 reservations of 5 at the same time at each place?

6 or more gets an auto 18% gratuity too, right?
Do they just charge the room with that?

Also, do we only need one Memory Maker for the group?

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Great Question! We are planning on a group of 10 going in Dec (2 Families of 5). I have been doing the planning so I have added them as friends to my MDE and linked our resort reservations. We all have free dining and I will be making our table service meals together except for maybe one.

Here are a few questions that may help us both to have answered:

Should I be able to make all of the reservations and fast passes without issue or does the other family need to create their own MDE account?

Should I be able to get ADR's for everyone easily or will I need to break up the group and do 2 reservations of 5 at the same time at each place?

6 or more gets an auto 18% gratuity too, right?
Do they just charge the room with that?

Also, do we only need one Memory Maker for the group?

You need to connect with the other family members on MDE, unless they bought their tickets in such a way that there is no account associated with them (for example, at a AAA office in person). If their tickets are not already associated with an account, they may provide their ticket numbers to you, you can associate their ticket numbers with their names, and you can manage all their plans for them. As a further complication, there may be one person in another household managing the accounts for their entire household. If so, you need to connect with the "manager" once for themselves, and again for each household member whose account they are managing.

In theory an ADR can be made online for a group of up to eleven people without having to phone for special arrangements, but some restaurants may not have a seating setup to accommodate a group of this size (for example, Sci Fi Dine In, and possibly Yak and Yeti).

Yes, six or more people get the automatic 18% tip. (Don't know regarding room charging.)

If you get only one Memory Maker for the whole group, the person with the Memory Maker must be present when all the pictures are taken, and after the trip, the person with the Memory Maker can download the pictures and send them to the other family members.

 

[Ladcassidy]

My extended family traveled as a group of 12 last August, and we had a blast. We all stayed at the Wilderness Lodge, but each family had its own room or villa. I planned lots of group meals and activities, including FP+ for everyone, but the groups also spent time separately. My family goes to the parks and bed early. My sister's family goes to the parks, and bed, late. We each adopted the other's approach at one time or another over the trip so that the kids could spend more time together.

Edited to add: Make sure you get Memory Maker and link everyone on the trip as "Friends and Family" in your MDE account. That way, you can see all of their pictures (including ride photos) whether or not you are there when they are taken!

 

[Elliemay2]

My extended family traveled as a group of 12 last August, and we had a blast. We all stayed at the Wilderness Lodge, but each family had its own room or villa. I planned lots of group meals and activities, including FP+ for everyone, but the groups also spent time separately. My family goes to the parks and bed early. My sister's family goes to the parks, and bed, late. We each adopted the other's approach at one time or another over the trip so that the kids could spend more time together.

Edited to add: Make sure you get Memory Maker and link everyone on the trip as "Friends and Family" in your MDE account. That way, you can see all of their pictures (including ride photos) whether or not you are there when they are taken!

We went through a TA. We got reservations for 2 rooms. I have an MDE account and they don't. I added their 5 people as Friends and Family to my MDE account and added their reservation conformation number. At that time we opted to buy Memory maker and I have both our conf. and their conf. numbers, but I read somewhere that if our accounts are liked that we would only need one memory maker for the entire group. With them linked would I still have to be there for all pictures?

Thank you all!!!

 

[Heidi K]

We are going with 24 people in October (my husband's family, 13 adults/11 kids). We do not have Park Hoppers, so we've planned to be in the same park each day. We also have two meals planned for the entire group, plus a few more meals for "sub-sets" of the group. We are all staying at the same All Star resort.

My husband and I purchased Memory Maker for the entire group. My understanding is that as long as we're linked properly in MDE, we'll all be able to see each other's pictures, then after the trip, I'll upload them to a shared Shutterfly site so people can order prints at will. If anyone has any advice in this area, please share!

I am a little concerned about how it's all going to work out, though. My husband's philosophy is, "my parents are paying for half of this trip, so we should do everything their way" and my philosophy is, "WE are paying for the other half so we shouldn't neglect our nuclear family's wants." So we'll see how it plays out, I guess. We definitely have more Disney knowledge than anyone else so we're trying to be helpful but not overbearing. I think my biggest worry is that I can picture all 24 of us planning to be at Magic Kingdom, for example, at rope drop. But then a few people are late for the bus so we wait for the next bus. So we miss the welcome show. Then we get into the park and people want to use the bathroom, look in shops, wander around . . . while I'm thinking we need to hit the rides! Then we all have a Fastpass for the same time, but we wait for everyone to get there, so the "Fast" pass actually involves 30 minutes of waiting.

There are a lot of layers involved in an extended family trip! I do think it's helpful to think through them.