Butting heads over 4 or 5 day pass......

[Cathy I]

Please help me out with this one! There are 8 adults and 4 children in this party to go to WDW Oct. 8-13. We are staying at the Contemporary. My dh & I have been before and stayed at OKW, the rest have never been. Everybody agrees with us about the 5 day pass except one...she wants to do a 4 day and use one day to go to Universal! I say for everybodys first time, they NEED the 5 day pass and to skip Universal. What do you all think?!!!(We already are leaving the park on saturday...the kids HAVE to see the ocean!)

 

[HM]

Tell her she can go to Universal if she wants, but everyone else is going to a park at Disney for the fifth day. She'll change her mind then. -HM

 

[wdisneyaholic]

I agree with you, even 5 days is not enough to do everything for the first time. I say go with what the majority wants to do. If your friend wants to do Universal let her go on her own. Trying to do too much in 5 days with kids will be rough.

 

[daannzzz]

5 days is not enough to see everything. If everyone wants to do the 5 days but one of the people I would say she's out voted but can still get a 4 day hopper pass and do what every she wants on the 5th day.

 

[z28wiz]

agree with the others above go for the five days.

 

[Kallison]

With so many in your group you are bound to have disagreements about who wants to go where. We went with both sets of GP's once, and although I'm glad we did I said "never again". My parents were fine, IL's were another story. Just realize there may be times when you want to separate or nothing will get accomplished. Try to coordinate potty breaks too.

 

[Trekker]

Whenever we travel with a group we agree up front that not everyone will want to go the same place at the same time / not everone must go to the same place at the same time.

We usually plan to eat a meal together each day and then go our own way.

I've seen these large groups wandering around Disney trying where to go next - they spend most of thier time talking about where to go rather than actually going some where.

I suggest you plan ahead of time to let people just go where they want and have a scheduled time to meet. If someone does not show for the meet - so be it - but keep moving and doing or you will not do much other than wait on each other...

 

[DramaTech]

I can definitely attest to that, Trekker. About 5 years ago, I worked at Six Flags Over Texas for a couple of seasons and I can't begin to tell you how many people I saw arguing about where to go next. It was pretty funny to go on my lunch break and come back 45 mins later to see the same group fighting (not angry, just arguing)...

A personal story, too. In 1998, my parents took me and a friend to WDW. One day at Epcot, my friend and I decided we'd like to stay in FW while my parents did WS. No problem. We decided to meet at Innoventions at 3:00. Well, I thought the planning was through and started to go towards Spaceship Earth. What I didn't realize is that my parents tried to tell my friend that we'd delay until 4:00 (and every hour on the hour) if it was raining, cause they didn't want to walk that far in the rain. He, nor I, heard them and sure enough it rained. It was raining at 3 and at 4, so they finally showed up at 5. Meanwhile, we waited for 2 hrs. on them, and they thought we had heard and understood the plan to meet at the top of the hour in which it stopped raining. All this in order to say, make sure your party knows what the plan is...cause you could end up waiting on folks who don't know you're waiting on them!

 

[Micca]

Two-way radios can be helpful

 

[goofy4tink]

Is money an issue here? If not, then all get 5 day passes. If you use the fifth day, fine. If not, then you have it for the next visit. We also traveled with another family on our last trip. The other mother asked me to plan everything. She hates doing that. Her dh on the other hand, kept calling me the Disney Nazi!!! After only 2 1/2 days together, we split up. Spent part of each day together but that was it. Never again. Maybe some of your group will change their minds about going to Universal. Do what is best for your immediate family and let the others take care of themselves.