There is definitely no harm in trying to get a group rate, but is there any precedent for Disney's offering one? The Dolphin might offer one, but it might not better those available to AAA members or readers of allearsnet.com, so I'm not sure it would be worth the effort. Certainly a group rate would not oblige anyone to stay at the hotel in question. If we do try to get one, the Epcot resort area sounds to me like a good idea for this group, though others may disagree.
One consideration is whether we want to try to be a "Magical Gathering," which would entitle us to participate in a special safari + dinner, a special Wishes cruise, etc. (for a fee, of course). These events are not private, but are only shared with other Magical Gatherings groups. The thing is that Disney makes registering for a Gathering a royal pain because you have to supply the names and resort reservations of every single person in the group at the outset in order to be issued a Gatherings registration i.d. # of some sort (that everyone subsequently uses if they want to join in on group ADR's, special cruises, etc.). I can't imagine, even if we used a
travel agent for the group, that we could collectively get our acts together in coordinated fashion to pull that off. It would be like herding cats unless I misunderstand the process and there is an easy way for people to add their info directly w/Disney or the travel agent once an i.d. # has already been issued to the group's coordinator. So I'm kind of inclined not to try, and just to create our own fun with, say, large-group ADR's, maybe a pontoon reservation, and informal meetings at Jellyrolls or the regular safari ride or wherever.
What do others think?
Edited to add: Also, to be a Magical Gathering, at least 80% of the group has to stay at a Disney-owned resort. We have some who are planning to come in from Orlando for the meet, and no doubt others who would prefer to stay at the Swan or Dolphin or off-site, so it's not clear we will even qualify. But boy would it be nice to have a travel agent or Disney handle the ADR's and any special requests. Magical Gatherings require a minimum of 8 people, presumably at the time of registration even if they were to let us add more later. Even coordinating 8 of us just to get the process started, 7 of whom would need to have on-site reservations in place at the time of registration, feels hard to me, but maybe I'm just tired from a long week.
). Would you be willing to make an executive decision on behalf of the group, Viki, and then maybe we could post a sticky announcing the meet? We could use that same thread to plan. Thank you!
