Am I Crazy?

[james'mommy]

In seems like in Nov 2010 my entire family is going to WDW. It started out with me inviting my parents and using my own points to pay for their studio. It only seemed fair because we've done it with in laws before. So yesterday sis told me she thinks we should have a family vaca in 2010. I told her that we already had 1 planned with mom and dad and the week we had picked. She got excited but said she didn't want to invite herself on our vaca. I told her that since I was the one who told her that she wasn't inviting herself. Now it's ending up with us all planning to have savannah view studios at AKV, We can't really book anything yet since it's so far away. We are planning on playing it loose and not making everyone feel like we need to be together all the time. I think we are all getting the dining plan so we will most likely do dinners together. There will be 3 kids 8,5,and 4. I've just never traveled to Disney with that many people before. Plus we have an odd way of doing parks since we are AP holders. I guess I just need a little encouragement.

 

[BenA81]

If your entire family are vets to the whole disney experience then i don't think its that big of a deal. As long as everybody understands that you can't and don't want to do everything together, then no problem.

 

[HGD24]

We are planning on playing it loose and not making everyone feel like we need to be together all the time.

We thought this too, but ended up having everyone look to me and DH as to what to do next, where to go next, what park to go to on what day, etc and getting any time alone in the parks with our DD was next to impossible. These are people who had been to WDW several times in the past and promised to split up everyday and only have a few meals together...it certainly didn't work out that way though. I would be very careful to set up the expectations beforehand if this is what you want to do.

 

[BenA81]

if they get annoying, drive seperately to the parks, tell them you're going to DHS and then go to EPCOT instead.

 

[tricia]

We went to WDW with 12 people 2 yrs ago. I am a WDW vet and all the others had been before, but not as frequently. We planned to have dinner together everynight and we were all on the dining plan so I made the ADR;s. They sd they trusted my judgement on that. What I did was make up a little folder for everyone. In it I gave my itinerary, and our ADR times and confirmation numbers. I put a cover page on the front with basic rules for the trip. Nothing major things like 1. Everyone must have fun. 2. This agenda is what we are doing, if you want to do the same meet at the said location each morning, if not, meet us at dinner. 3. Must be 15 minutes early for our ADRs. 4. Everyone must have fun.

I also included the park hours and times for other events, like parades and shows. this way it was not just a list of rules, but everyone understood and some days we had everyone with us all day, and some days no one was at the meeting place in the morning, so we would meet up later.

 

[james'mommy]

Somehow my sister ends up being a bigger disney freak than me. She's already picked the signature restaurant that we'll be eating at. And she's already planning on sticking my parents with the kids one night. Mom's all like she wants to relax and not be drug to every single ride and not have an attack plan. My family is all like lets go to the MK to ride 2 rides and then go back to the hotel. The only thing we plan is meals. My parents are cool with this because it saves them the trouble. My sis is gonna be the problem. Luckily I think we can all be able to detact ourselves from her and cut our touring short. She's so grateful that I'm renting her my DVC points so that she can stay deluxe that maybe she'll be manageable. I guess we'll just have to see. Mom already said not to mention it to Dad. He knows he's going he just doesn't know when and that the whole family is going. We're gonna tell him a few months ahead of time.

 

[Dee77]

We have a big family trip coming up as well, DH, DD and I will be traveling with my parents, meeting up with my in-laws, SIL and her 3 children and possibly BIL, SIL and their DD also. We are interested in doing the MVMCP but no one else is, so we will make arrangements for that separately. We do have a few restaurants we will all go to together and work our park plans around the dinner reservations, giving us some room to play it by ear during the day. This seems to work for us (so far) because we know from the beginning each of us has a say in what we really want to do and yet we all have similar preferences for great dining experiences!!