Taking Friends any advice (Back and Thank you)

[Kidanifan08]

When we travel with friends or family, we usually form a private group on Facebook. We usually give the group a cute name related to the group traveling -- it's usually a merging of our last names, but sometimes not. The private group is a great place to lay out timelines, personal preferences, and itineraries. You can post links to helpful web pages or just have fun periodically posting countdown days. I often share the various Disney-related postcards and photos that show up on my FB feed from WDW, Disney Food Blog and others. For the few trips we have done this, it has turned out to be a great place to communicate about the trip. We will get info about Magic Band color choices, preferences for restaurants, preferences for FP+, and the like.

Have fun planning!

 

[Novakm]

Done this with family 3 times. For me the biggest downside was always having to wait for the group. A group of 6 can move very slowly. The worst was in the morning, when I am up at 5, and the rest take until 9:30 to get dressed and moving.

On the second trip, I made it clear that there was no expectation that we stay together, except for one meal each day. This worked really well. In the am I would head out for rope drop. This really got the kids moving and I went with them. The adults followed later. Sometimes people woul poop out early and head back to hotel while others stayed in park. Texting is great to stay in touch and find each other. We ended up together most of the time, but the frustration factor was gone, because it was easy to catch up to the group later.

 

[ZebraDomeCrazy]

I REALLY liked the previous response of "plan, plan, plan, then be ready to punt"! As much as you may discuss the trip with people you have not vacationed with before, there are bound to be a few snags. We took our best friends with us last year. We planned and talked for months. By the second day, we realized our friends needed to nap every afternoon, lol. Who knew? I think as much as you explain how much walking is involved, and how hot it is, it is still a surprise to people who have never been. My dh and I would head to the pool when they napped, then regrouped for dinner and evening plans. Flexibility is really key to traveling with others.

 

[butsy113]

I will add a few things that I didn't see (though I might have missed)

1. I always make an itinerary out for each day of the trip. It's not all that detailed. It just states what park is planned for the day, the time of any meal reservations, the time of the nighttime shows, or the mid day parades, park hours, etc. Everything else is wide open and even things listed aren't necessary. Each night after coming back we wind down and look at the plans. Every one has an idea of what they want to do.

2. Even if we spent the day apart we would dine together most meals. We get the TiW card. During our nightly wind down we also went over receipts and noted in a small tablet the cost of their food. At the end of the week they wrote me a check. I know this isn't a good idea with some people, but if I don't feel comfortable enough with them to do that then they aren't vacationing with us!

3. I went a long stretch of not going to Disney when I got out into the world on my own. My husband and I could not afford it. I stayed at home with the kids for many years before going back to school. The first trip with our kids, we got the Birnbaum's Kids book. It described the rides and helped the kids decide what rides they wanted to definitely ride ahead of time, what they might ride, and what they wouldn't ride. We used this to make a list. Each family member picked a couple rides they wanted to ride. Once those were done anything extra was a bonus. This allowed us to relax and not think we had to do it all. This might be helpful for the family you are taking. My kids are taking friends next summer and I plan to gift books to the friends for Christmas, so they can help with planning.

4. If you decide not to do BLT, I would consider AKV Kidani Village instead of SSR. The points will be cheaper than BLT. The pool is fantastic for those ages, and so are the animals!! Also the 2 bedrooms would have the 3 bathrooms (same as BLT). That will help in the mornings! We decided to do AKV Savannah view instead of BLT in June because it saves about 43 points and we can get an extra night.

Hope you have a great trip!!!

 

[RooRach0906]

Definitely no uninviting nor any need to. I did not get the impression you were fearful of this trip, just looking for some suggestions to keep it good. Have fun!!!

Exactly what I was doing!

 

[RooRach0906]

I will add a few things that I didn't see (though I might have missed)

1. I always make an itinerary out for each day of the trip. It's not all that detailed. It just states what park is planned for the day, the time of any meal reservations, the time of the nighttime shows, or the mid day parades, park hours, etc. Everything else is wide open and even things listed aren't necessary. Each night after coming back we wind down and look at the plans. Every one has an idea of what they want to do.

2. Even if we spent the day apart we would dine together most meals. We get the TiW card. During our nightly wind down we also went over receipts and noted in a small tablet the cost of their food. At the end of the week they wrote me a check. I know this isn't a good idea with some people, but if I don't feel comfortable enough with them to do that then they aren't vacationing with us!

3. I went a long stretch of not going to Disney when I got out into the world on my own. My husband and I could not afford it. I stayed at home with the kids for many years before going back to school. The first trip with our kids, we got the Birnbaum's Kids book. It described the rides and helped the kids decide what rides they wanted to definitely ride ahead of time, what they might ride, and what they wouldn't ride. We used this to make a list. Each family member picked a couple rides they wanted to ride. Once those were done anything extra was a bonus. This allowed us to relax and not think we had to do it all. This might be helpful for the family you are taking. My kids are taking friends next summer and I plan to gift books to the friends for Christmas, so they can help with planning.

4. If you decide not to do BLT, I would consider AKV Kidani Village instead of SSR. The points will be cheaper than BLT. The pool is fantastic for those ages, and so are the animals!! Also the 2 bedrooms would have the 3 bathrooms (same as BLT). That will help in the mornings! We decided to do AKV Savannah view instead of BLT in June because it saves about 43 points and we can get an extra night.

Hope you have a great trip!!!

Thank you for the tips!!!

We did just change to AKV Kidani!!!

 

[RooRach0906]

What should we request at AKV Kidani??? Most likely we will do a Savannah view. We have never stayed here and no basically nothing about the resort.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

What should we request at AKV Kidani??? Most likely we will do a Savannah view. We have never stayed here and no basically nothing about the resort.

I'd actually request a lower floor there so you're closer to the animals. The savannah view rooms lowest floor is actually second floor so you wouldn't be on the ground floor. The parking garage covers the ground level. Then if you want to be close to the lobby ask for that. Or if you want to be closer to the pool ask for that. Or Sunset savannah might be a good one - the Pembe is a small savanna and does not have an giraffe on it. If you have a car the parking is nice and you most likely would be able to get relatively close to an elevator to your room.

On a side note - your thread has crossed my mind a couple of times in the past week or two. While we have very good trips with friends and family I have invited my sister for the upcoming one. She's the one that is our "troublesome" traveler. But I'm aware of it and just preparing mentally. lol I have had to re-direct some of her thoughts on the trips but done far enough in advance we're usually ok. My biggest concern is for how the rest of the group will accept how she travels. Some prep talks usually go a long way with this. But I still cross my fingers with this one.

 

[yeahdisney]

We went with friends and we had a two bedroom together. They were gone before we even woke up. We went to sleep and they were not back yet. Then their kids crashed and did not want to go to any more parks! So now we make our plans share them and say want to join us for anything?. We all had two character sit down meals, friends DH decided too expensive and so they did not join us.
I would let them go again but for us it really is two families just sharing a room. I would let them book their own stuff so it could not affect my FPs, shows ect.

 

[MsMagical]

We have traveled with friends/family twice. The first trip was with friends who had 3 young kids and our family which at the time consisted of me (7 mos pregnant), my husband and one teenager. We stayed in a grand villa at Saratoga. It was GREAT but maybe too much room for us (and too many points to spend for not being there very much). It was also our first trip on our DVC points so we didn't really know better.

Anyway, this trip I spent lots of email time (facebook wasn't even a thing then) trying to get them to pick restuarants and find out what they wanted to do there but could not get any kind of commitment primarily because they just did not understand the need for dining reservations so far in advance. Sigh. But, I did, so I made a couple of character meal plans without their consent and figured the rest would be fine. Fast forward to the day of arrival and me sitting back, watching amused as they tried to get reservations for dinner before 8:30... You'll remember they had 3 small children and we had one teenager - no problem for us to eat a late dinner but no fun for the parents with a 3 year old who didn't want to listen to the trip planner's advice. But, I basically sat back and let them choose because we had been before and would go again. (This is key for our family to remember on trips to Disney with friends/family.) This was their once in a lifetime trip so we sat back a little and let them have at it. Do I know it would have been a smoother vacation if they had listened to me in the first place? Yes. Did we all have fun anyway? Yes, because we were at Disney World.

Our second trip was with family who we are close to. Our small kids are similar ages (we now have 3 kids - at the time of trip they were almost 2, 5 and 19), the other kids were 6 and 8. Again, I tried to connect through email, text, and facebook sending lots of information over and asking them to just take a look at the restuarants so I could make the CRT reservations 180 days in advance. Again, I got few responses, again because they just didn't understand the need for all the planning - sigh. On top of that, we were all included in the first phase of testing out magic bands and MM+ on DVC guests so I knew we would need extra planning and contigencies for that. Anyway, fast forward again to the first day where they decided they wanted to make dining reservations but couldn't get anything earlier than 8:30...sigh. Thankfully, I had already had reservations made (which they would have known if they had looked at the itinerary I had given them and made because they told me to "just plan everything" and they would go along. Haha! But, it turned out to be a really fun trip overall.

I guess my advice is this - be flexible and understand that you all don't have to stay together all the time. Let the early risers leave when they want and the late risers join them when they are ready. One reason our trips were successful is that we made it very clear that we would love for them to enjoy their trip and that meant we were flexible to that. We made clear before the trips that we are early morning people but do not expect everyone else to be and we are happy to join them whenever they are ready to meet up with us. We made dining reservations knowing that it was possible only half the group would show up. Also, I would suggest a 2 bedroom lockoff instead of a 2 bedroom, if you can. This way you each have your own rooms and can come and go without disturbing each other. And remember that this is not your last trip so if you don't get something on your list - you'll get another chance to see it on a different vacation.

One more thing - we always intend to make dinner meals at our room and then almost never do. Your friends might get there and realize that they don't want to cook every meal. Be prepared for that. It has happened to us many times. If you almost always eat out while you are there, will you be happy with home cooked dinners every night? Or do you think you might want to make reservations for the back half of your trip just in case? You can always make the reservations, try to eat in every dinner the first couple of days and see how it goes. If it doesn't go well, you'll have reservations to fall back on and if it does go well, you can always cancel your ADRs within the alloted time with no penalty.

 

[RooRach0906]

I just wanted to let everyone know thank you so much for your tips!!!! We did go this past September and had a blast!! We stayed together the whole time and everyone had a great time!!! Since we go so much we more than happy to skip things and do what they wanted. Our goals was to make sure our friends had a good time and got to do their must dos!!! We achieve that and it was great seeing Disney through them! We did have a basic plan (park, fastpasses, ADRs) but everything else was decided as we went. We even changed some things as we went. Thank you again for all of your help!

 

[WDWNY]

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[robinb]

I just wanted to let everyone know thank you so much for your tips!!!! We did go this past September and had a blast!! We stayed together the whole time and everyone had a great time!!! Since we go so much we more than happy to skip things and do what they wanted. Our goals was to make sure our friends had a good time and got to do their must dos!!! We achieve that and it was great seeing Disney through them! We did have a basic plan (park, fastpasses, ADRs) but everything else was decided as we went. We even changed some things as we went. Thank you again for all of your help!

Awesome! You may want to change the subject on your thread in case someone else wants to help you after the fact .