Asking another Family to join yours!

[DonDuck Fan]

Hi ya

I was wondering if anyone has asked another family to join yours, and how did you ask?

There is another family that there youngest is the same age as our oldest, and would love for them to join them.

I have no idea what kinda financial situation they are in.

They both work, 2 cars, a nice home. but who knows.

I don't want to offend them, but yet I think that it would be great to have them along.

Just wondering if anyone else has done this!

DDF

 

[turnlisa]

My family did this last year. We asked my best friend from forever to join us with her DH and DD. Their financial situation isn't like ours so they stayed at CBR while we stayed at the Poly. It wasn't bad since they just took the bus over to TTC and caught one to Poly. This way we all enjoyed the fireworks from our room and the EWP. However, for meals this became a problem. We are used to eating at sit-down places and not worrying about the cost. They didn't want to pay for certain places (Ohana's, etc.) which we had planned on. We did find it hard also since we know the parks really well and want we want to see. We are also used to taking a break in the middle of the day for our DSs. They hadn't been to the parks recently, wanted to see everything and do everything in the space of a day. We ended up picking up the tab on Ohana's and then playing the rest by ear. They only joined us for the weekend though.

Based on this experience, we are not planning on having anyone join us again.

A couple of things to take into consideration:
* financial situations
* familiarity with the parks
* schedules for their children.

I don't want to scare you off from this -- just make you aware of what we experienced. Happy planning!

 

[MinnieGi]

We always invite family friends to join us! Its a blast! We usually just casually mention our Disney plans in the works and inquire if they would ever be interested in coming too. No one has ever been offended. We've had several friends say they would love to come some day, but just not next year etc.

We've had one family join us for two trips and we are already planning a third trip with them for Feb. 2005.

This past Feb. we had two families join us. One family stayed at our same resort and the other stayed off-site. But we met up daily and had a blast all together. Prior to the trip we planned out a few ps meals together that would be daily meet-up places. It was nice with a large group we often split into groups who wanted to do like things. For instance some went to a show while others rode or the older kids with a few parents went on a few more adventerous rides while the younger kids were taken to more kid-friendly rides. It worked out great. After the trip it was fun to share pictures.

We love traveling with other families - go for it!

 

[Fizban257]

We've done this twice. My advice is not to be afraid to split up. If you try to stick together all day, every day of the trip, the differences between the families will start to show. We're still close with the families we've done this with, but won't do it again. For our next trip we've shared our plans and would love to get together at times throughout the week, but we'll definitely be touring the parks separately. Just my $.02!

 

[kaylajr]

We did this in 2000

we had a 2 bedroom condo witha full kitchen at a time share in Orlando that we were not paying for my Mom and Dad did as a gift

well we were talking about our trip with some good friends who mentioned that they were not going to be able to take there DD's ever due to $$$$
so we said join us
they paid us $100.00 for a 7 night stay this money was put toward grocerys for the week

well by the end of the week our friendship was very strained
we were on vacation and didn't want to live by a clock and they were on a mission and drove us nuts

we both had different parenting styles which was hard on the kids ours were allowed to domore and they felt bad cause there friends were not

so if you do bring friend i recommend
space something bigger than a 2 bdroom condo and split up
you can get together for some stuff but go your own way with your family

it's been 4 years and we still rarely see these people (there choice not ours)


this year we are taking MIL and nephew and will plan the trip with some away time

 

[DisneyPhD]

Since we joined DVC it seems someone always ends up "visiting' us during our stay (M&FIL) (B&SIL). Jan 2004 we invited some good friends who have a son the same age as our DD to go the same time as us. We are DVC members and already had ressies at VWL, so she found a deal at WL on Expedia. ( I told her all about the othe resorts, but it was their choice where to stay.)

We planned on spilting up some, but didn't too much. We have been many times before and this was their 1st trip. They said it was eaiser with us knowing just where to go and when to do stufff. With young kids it was eaiser to split up (Mom's and kids on one ride and dad's doing something else, both mom's were pregnant so we didn't do many "E rides.") The kids fun was doubled by having their best friend around. Infact our friends son tends to be "shy at 1st." but did real well since his best freind was with him and not scared at all.

All in all the trip was really easy and tons of fun. Now the only problem is our DD wants them to come with us all the time. It really helped that both our friends and us are easy going and very felxible. Trips with family wasn't as easy. Since this trip we have become even better friends.