Family trip - Grand Gathering

[TyGuy]

We are planning a family trip in November of 2010 for the following group.

Myself
DW
DS (28) and his girlfriend
DD (24) and her boyfriend
DS (19)
DD (17)
MIL (a very young 75)
FIL (a very young 78)

I have the accommodations figured out and am just waiting for our 11 month window to open up at BLT. I'm looking for any advice you can give me for planning for a large group like this. I've also heard the term "Grand Gathering" but I'm not sure what that includes...

Thanks in advance for everyones help... I love the info I get from Disboards... It also helps keep the magic alive between trips

[wildernessDad]

I wrote the below up a long time ago. Not sure how valid it is now. Grand gatherings lets you take care of special events. Also check out this link.

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw...ngsLandingPage

How DVC Members Can Set Up Grand Gatherings (GG's)
Hi, all! I thought that I'd post a procedure, that I basically discovered by trial and error (mostly error), on how DVC members can set up grand gatherings. I will list it as steps.

1. Think about who you want to invite and what DVC resort you want to stay in. I will assume in this procedure that your party will all be staying at your home resort. I assume this because that was the case for me. If you have a different plan, please post here with how my procedure should change.

2. Assuming that you are the 'group leader,' make sure that you get all of the names AND addresses of everybody in your party AND also get their ages. Disney needs their ages so they can put in whom in the party can officially check in. Nobody under age may do so.

3. Plan out what GG special products (GG events), if any, your group wants to experience. This step can be quite significant if you are informing others about these events. You may be dealing with people who have never been to WDW before or have not been there 'like this.' So, you may have to do a lot of explaining to them on what it's all about. You are the expert! They are not! Tell them what it's all about!

4. AS SOON AS YOU CAN, call DVC Member services (MS) at 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx to make your room reservations AND tell them that you have a GG. Give MS all of the information about your party. MS will then contact the GG folks and inform them of the upcoming GG. DVCMS will get a magical gathering (MG) number back to you in a few days. It was only a day wait for me. Remember that number. It will be very important.

5. Call the GG people at 1-407-939-7526 to make reservations for your GG 'events' using your MG number. The Safari Celebration dinner, the International Dinner and Fireworks show, and the Good Morning Gathering can be placed on the Disney dining plan (DDP). If the DDP is not available yet for when you are going, my recommendation is to call the GG people and make the reservation BEFORE the DDP becomes available. If the DDP IS available when you want to make the GG event reservations, then skip this step ONLY for all reservations for which you want to use the DDP and see step 7 below.

6. After the DDP becomes available, and assuming that you want to use the DDP, call MS to add the DDP and also to tell them that you will be placing one or more GG events under the DDP. At that time, MS will call the GG people and transfer you over to them. They will have to rebook the reservation, if you had one, under a new number and cancel the original reservation. If you had to go to step 6, then the original reservation was a placeholder until you could get the reservation with the DDP. If by now you are wondering if this is all a big runaround, then my answer is yes. The GG people, like the Disney dining people, do not have access to the DVC room reservation numbers, which makes all of his a necessity.

7. Now that you are done, sit back, relax, and let Disney magic take you where you need to be.

[DenLo]

If you have your reservations labeled as a grand gathering you don't have to go to the events mentioned above. They all cost money and frankly not everyone in your group may want to do them. It is my understanding that at a minimum number must do the reserved event (guaranteed payment). But one advantage we found with a grand gathering is that the grand gathering people will make ADR's for your group. They will also insure that your rooms can be near each other if you desire. Using this service is free unless you attend one of the "events".

[xipetotec]

Originally Posted by TyGuy

We are planning a family trip in November of 2010 for the following group.

Myself
DW
DS (28) and his girlfriend
DD (24) and her boyfriend
DS (19)
DD (17)
MIL (a very young 75)
FIL (a very young 78)

I have the accommodations figured out and am just waiting for our 11 month window to open up at BLT. I'm looking for any advice you can give me for planning for a large group like this. I've also heard the term "Grand Gathering" but I'm not sure what that includes...

Thanks in advance for everyones help... I love the info I get from Disboards... It also helps keep the magic alive between trips

Well I've become somewhat of a specialist in this field. My mother is actually the owner, but she likes to bring DW and I + grandkids, cousin, her sister and hew kids. Long story short, we've varied our trips between 12-20 people ( 20 people being the most, coming this year. 25 if you count my other cousin who is coming down on his own and meeting up with us ).

If there's ONE important thing I can tell you is don't try to do EVERYTHING together. With us, we try to get an idea of what everyone is interested in and we'll go do a few things as a whole group, but then we'll split into groups depending on interests. For example, DW and I are massive park geeks. We want to be in a park every single day ( maybe with a WATER park break somewhere in there ). My parents, aunt and HER kids like the parks, but like to spend time at the resort and go shopping. Which is fine, everybody's different.

What we DO tend to do is have dinners together. Which I think is a great way to reconnect. Everyone goes their separate ways ( and by that, I mean it could be divided into sub-groups, wherever people want to go ) and plan to meet for dinner somewhere. Great way to sort of tell each other about your day, and wind down as a family.

Feel free to PM me if you want some more advice on huge groups