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Private Reception Info:
I have spoken with a wonderful group gathering's cast member at Disney, and this is the information I have so-far for a private reception. Also, I have some personal opinion's I will share below. I'd like to also hear what everyone else thinks. If a bunch of people want to do something and some people don't, then I will just start a running list and we would split the costs by the number of people actually participating.
Two of the things I requested she will not have pricing on until it gets closer to the sailing. They are: a private movie showing inside the Buena Vista Theater for our group, and a private bingo session for our group. When I get the pricing info on these I will let everyone know. Of these two I think the private movie showing would be better as we would have to provide our own prizes for bingo. But again, I will post the pricing when I find out.
What I do have pricing on are these things:
- Retaining a room at a specific time/day for our group - $0
- Disney photographer on-hand for a private photo session - $85 Note that photos would be purchased separately, so you would not be obligated to buy a picture.
- Characters for our private reception (to take photos with and interact with) - $550 per character per 30 minute session.
- The only "food option" that is at all affordable is cake. With the number of people we currently have, we would be looking at $3.50 per person for cake for our private reception. (No drinks included, drink packages are really expensive).
- I'm not going to list all of the food options and pricing, but I will say they have everything from hot hourderves to "deluxe hourderves", seafood platters, cheese/fruit/veggie platters, various desserts, wine/beer, premium bar, and soda/juice packages. These packages range from $13-$18 per person all the way up to $89 per platter.
With all of that said, this is my opinion:
I think that the reception stuff is WAY too expensive - and a bit maddening considering you could otherwise have free soda and food on board the ship. I get that they would have to staff your party which would cost them money, but the prices they are wanting to charge are OUTRAGEOUS. I would be up for a private movie showing, depending on what they say the cost is. I would also be up for a private photo session with a character, depending on how much it turned out to be per person (how many people wanted to do it, how many characters, and how long we wanted each character). However, my husband and I are only 2 people - families of 4 or 5 would end up paying a lot more. For instance, doing a private party with cake (bring your own drink) including a private photo session and 1 hour with a character (or 30 mins with 2 characters) would be about $16 per person. For families like ours that's not so bad, but for larger families you'd be paying $65 - $80+!
So, I think other people should voice there opinions to see what we think about this.
That said, we have done a lot of research on other people's boards and it says that most DISboards groups unofficially meet in one of the lounges the day of boarding the ship. No matter what happens with doing a private reception or not, I think this is a good idea for us because it will give us an opportunity to meet and exchange room numbers for anyone on a guarantee status or that was upgraded last minute. Considering a private reception would be an additional (and unnecessary) cost, I don't think it's something we should try and
make happen. If everyone is off the bat 100% wanting to do something like this, then no biggie. But I don't know that it's an issue we should push.
Anyhow, if as many people as possible could voice their (your) opinions on this, that would be great! Again, I will let everyone know when I get the rest of the pricing - this is just the info I have right now.
Jump in here and there so we know you are still out there. We are a chatty group so don't feel you have to post all the time like some of us. 
I am so happy to see there will be some boys that are around my son's age (almost 11 when we sail). It was getting to look like it would have been all girls! Not that he minds playing with girls but he is very stuck in the "that is girls stuff" attitude. I barely got him to walk through the castle the last time we were there. 
