Extended Family Disney Vacation

[kellydina]

We are going to WDW in April for my parents 40th wedding anniversary. So a total of 8 adults and 4 kids (ages from 11 to 5). How do you plan an itinerary for that many people?

 

[IcedMudd]

No idea! I'm completely new to this but what I've been doing is just getting everyone to tell me 2 things they would absolutely love to do and that way I can choose which to plan for and if anyone's overlap then YAY! lol. We're not doing any ADR's however so it's been fairly easy.

 

[a1tinkfans]

Carefully....
Seriously though....we go with extended family (4-6 adults and then 4 kids, 10ish to early teens)......We do SOME things together but not everything...it gets to be TOO much then.....So, think of some "must sees" and coordinate those and then also plan to get some down time....it makes for a great time at dinner when everyone discusses what they did/saw/experienced. We basically ate dinner together many of those 12 nights. What FUN being able to share!! The kids are growing too fast............Take lots of pix and have a great time mak'n memories with your family!

 

[tedhowe]

The short answer I have is.... you don't plan an itinerary for that many people.

We are going in January and we have a party of 15 (8 adults and 7 girls aging from 2 years to 10 years old).

We have exactly 1 event planned for all 15 of us - Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast. We also have an Illuminations cruise for 10 of us planned one day.

This was also the approach we took on the last large family trip to WDW... back in 1998 when there were 17 of us (12 adults and 5 children). We had one character meal and one large dinner together.

The rest of the week, groups are free to go together to the parks and either stay together or break apart as necessary... if you are tired and want to go back to the room, feel free. If you want to go to the pool one day, that's your choice.

It is a fools errand to try to plan an itinerary or touring plan for such a large group.

 

[Mrs D]

I did a Grand Gathering of 11 last Sept., granted my kids were the only 2 and they were 3 and 14mo. Since we booked our trip first, then others decided to join us, I planned OUR itinerary and passed it out to others and told them if they cared to join us they were welcome and if they wanted to do their own thing that was great too! We did try to do 1 meal a day together, but not all people decided to join us for every meal (they all let me know in advance).

HTH!

 

[happymommy]

The short answer I have is.... you don't plan an itinerary for that many people.

We are going in January and we have a party of 15 (8 adults and 7 girls aging from 2 years to 10 years old).

We have exactly 1 event planned for all 15 of us - Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast. We also have an Illuminations cruise for 10 of us planned one day.

This was also the approach we took on the last large family trip to WDW... back in 1998 when there were 17 of us (12 adults and 5 children). We had one character meal and one large dinner together.

The rest of the week, groups are free to go together to the parks and either stay together or break apart as necessary... if you are tired and want to go back to the room, feel free. If you want to go to the pool one day, that's your choice.

It is a fools errand to try to plan an itinerary or touring plan for such a large group.

Yup - have a couple of meals planned together, other than that, go tour as each wishes. It will be a pain to wait for others, have some kids want to go on some rides, but have to wait and go on another instead....

We stayed in 3 rooms at AKL (my sister's idea, although I've been to WDW about 20 times and it was her FIRST time, we did what SHE thought was a good idea with my extended family). Oh, and she had a 2 bedroom suite - about what, $1000 plus a night, probably more. My folks and my family had two connecting rooms - ugh and my dad smoked in the room!!!! I stuffed towels under the door in between I was so pissed he did that!

We would have been WAY better off in a rental house. Or the Boardwalk, which my folks would have loved. But really a rental house would have given us all a central place to meet for coffee and breakfast, or sit down after dinner with some wine while the little ones slept.

You could plan a specific park for a day, meeting for lunch, but go your own way in the meantime.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

It depends on what everyone wants!

We just got back from a trip with my IL's and they wanted to be together at ALL TIMES! This made it harder as I thought it would be fun to do different things occasionally, but I made the itinerary and they followed it (mostly). I needed more patience, but it was a wonderful trip still! I'm doing a trip report, it's in my siggie.

 

[mickey317]

We have an upcoming trip of 14 people. I like to plan and make ADR's the others are last minute types. They left it up to make the ADR's. We have 2 grand gatherings - 1 breakfast -1 dinner. Of our 8 nights all there together we have 5 total dinners planned (1 is a b-day celebration) and a breakfast together before 2 of our families head on home....other than that everyone is on thier own until dinner time those nights...the older kids are also doing the SeasAqua Tour - I keep asking everyone if it is too much too little what they want and they are saying all is well......I hope so!
I don't think we will move around the parks as a heard and have all the kids wait for each other as there is a 10 year age span.
I'll let you know how it goes

 

[CzyDsnyFan92]

We did that a couple of years ago. It was us (me, DH, DS, DS & DD), my Mother, My Grandmother, My Grandfather and my Aunt. so 6 adults and 3 kids. I created a calender on Excel and my Aunt and I e-mailed it back and forth for weeks. I told her what days had the extra magic hours and which parks we wanted to go to on each day. We decided as a family which restuarants we would eat at and which shows were going to be attended by everyone. We did designate some meeting spots and when we got down there we gave my Aunt one of our hand-hald radios with a 5-7 mile radius. Her and my Grandparents were staying on-site and we stayed at our timeshare just off Disney. Anyway we would tell her what time we were headed to the park and she would call us on the radio when they got there to see where we were...we are typically at the park early since the kids don't like to miss anything and they like to get there a little later. It worked out great for us. We split up for different rides and activities but still had a great time together.

Now my Father and his side are talking about maybe doing Disney with us in a couple of years...they are hoping to be able to get my sister and her family to go too. Just need to give her time to save up for it.

 

[BuzznBelle'smom]

We've done this a few times, and I'll tell you what worked for our family. YMMV, of course.

We've found that there IS such a thing as too much togetherness. It's important for everyone to have some space as a family. We found that we did enough advance planning to have everyone in the same park on the same day, and have dinner together. That way, the late sleepers wouldn't irritate the rope-droppers. We had a wide gap in children's ages--if I went now with the same crowd, I'd consider letting teens roam by themselves (with cell phones and scheduled meet-up points).

What worked for us was, we had one person from each family go into a room to plan/mediate. In our case, MIL didn't care, she was along for the ride. Her only restaurant choice was Coral Reef, so we incorporated that. BIL and I were the two designated planners--this worked well because we respected each other, got along, and weren't siblings. Also, we tried real hard to see the other's point of view. We would each bring our tentative itineraries and restaurant choices. Then, we'd sit in a room and hash out our schedule/ADRs. No one else was permitted to comment. When we were done, we each presented them to our families, got feedback, and then came back for our final lists. This probably sounds more militant than it really was--everyone got at least close to what they wanted--nobody felt like they were getting the shaft. And it wasn't just one person taking over, KWIM?

Now, with my own family, I have 4 kids spanning 11 years. Even that can get dicey, believe me! When we vacation, I let each kid pick one "must do" restaurant, and three "must do" rides. Obviously, we do a lot more than just that, but each one feels that they, at least, got what they had asked for. I find that, for example, DD14 is much more tolerant of waiting to see Ariel when she recognizes that DD6 waited with Mom while she did Expedition Everest.

 

[kellydina]

Thanks for the input everyone! I guess being a control freak is not easy. We went 2 years ago my immediate family and my parents who are complete disney buffs. I planned the whole thing with a pretty structured itinerary and ADR's and the week went off without a hitch. Now my brother and sister are joining us with their family. So it complicates things. I don't want to seem like a boss but I know for us, we need some sort of plan. Especially with the DDP. Any other words of advice would be appreciated!!

 

[Rylee]

Here's what we do...
Form a planning committee. One adult from each family so everyone feels their wishes are considered. Have little get-togethers, now and then, to go over plans... meet for lunch, or at each others house... guys watch football, kids play, etc. Do your research... park hours, extra hours, show times, etc.


Most importantly, we all agree, right up front, before even leaving home...

Vacation time is too short and Disney is too expensive to spend your time doing what others want.

We all stay at the same resort.
We all plan to visit the same park each day.
We schedule one Table Service meal per day, all together.

We chose a time to meet at the buses in the morning. Those that made it, did. Those that didn't, no hard feelings, we just agreed they would meet up in the park, if and when they arrived.

Throughout the day, we would usually split up at some point. Sometimes by family, (a little alone time for each family) other times, by age groups, (little kids - big kids) or interest, (thrill seekers -vs- shows, etc.) Some chose to go back to the resort for a swim or nap, while others remained in the park.

We all met up for our nitely dinner reservation and then usually watched the evening shows, Wishes, Fantasmic, together.

We've had some great vacations. Hope you do, too!

 

[tinkerfan1]

We went 10 years ago for my parent's 50th anniversary. There were 8 adults and 5 kids, starting at age 3. We didn't really have an itinerary. It was at Thanksgiving time and we all stayed at the GF. We had a couple of meals planned together but, other than that, we split up and did our own thing. My DH and sons and I got the grandparents to ourselves on the last day. We had a blast! I'm glad we didn't have set plans because we liked being off on our own. Of course, we loved it when the grandparents spent the day with us, too. They just did whatever we wanted to do, too, though. I hope you have a great time!

 

[Pakey]

We went last year, 3 generations, 2 sets of grandparents, adult children and their spouses and children. It was the 4th time we have all went together.

Since this was not our first time going together, the first thing I did was book us all into separate rooms. And I did not request that our rooms be together. We were all at same resort though.

I asked everyone to give me their list of places they wanted to dine. I ended up booking us for a few meals together during the week. Just a few. I only did one breakfast and that was on the day we were all leaving for our Disney cruise. Otherwise, I booked nothing before noon because there are late sleepers in the group. I booked everyone's meals for them and made laminated cards for their ADR's but almost all meals were in smaller groups and I made sure each adult couple got one meal that was adult only while us grandparents took the younger guests.

We met up for a few meals and planned a couple of afternoons of pool time together and that was it. We did no park touring all as a group; it's just too hard.

The best lesson I learned from the first trip was not to get my feelings hurt and to let everyone have their own vacation.

 

[DominicaAnne]

We are going Thanksgiving week with a group of 6 adults and 4 children (9,8,18 months, 1 year). My sister and I planned everything because my parents didn't want to be involved in planning, they are only going to be with the grandchildren, they don't care about Disney. We have at least 1 ADR per day (2 days have 2): 1 lunch, 2 breakfasts and the rest dinners. I originally suggested that we should only meet up for meals, and some park touring and then go off in small groups, but nobody wanted to do that, so everyone but DH will be together all day every day, while he only meets us for sit-down meals (he is working the rest of the time).

Honestly, I'm not sure how this will play out. We all get along really well most of the time, but tend to end up arguing if we spend too much consecutive time together. One of the reasons we are going in November is that we figure we'll be less cranky if it isn't 100 degrees out. Also, throwing a wrench in the works, my sister is unexpectedly pregnant (she'll be 4 months by trip time) so she is not going to be able to tour the way she had originally planned. She says it's not going to affect her, but I went to Disney 3 months pregnant, and I know how it is, so I think we're going to have to make some adjustments once we are there.

So anyway, definitely plan ADR's together and plan which days you'll be in what parks (at least in the beginning of the week) and then just realize that you may need to be flexible about touring. If some in the group are not aware that you MUST make ADRs months in advance, explain it to them and make ADRs accordingly. Give them the link to allearsnet.com's restaurant menus page so they can help pick restaurants. Have a great trip!

 

[BuzznBelle'smom]

Keep in mind, you can plan the "required" stuff in advance--the important ADRs, which resort, etc. For the rest of the trip, make sure you have the park hours/EMH hours/show and parade times with you (I use a calendar with each park having its own color pen--YMMV). You can always plan tomorrow's activities over dinner or while waiting for the evening show or parade. I think flexibility and a sense of humor are your most important tools. Keep in mind, too--it's easier to plan more alone time, then end up together, than it is to plan on 24/7 vacationing and then regret it. It just helps a little to have people glad to see you when you show up for dinner, KWIM?

 

[kpgriswold]

We are taking a multi-family trip in August. After some discussion, we decided that our best solution was to designate one park for each day.

We will travel there together (except for those who don't "do" mornings ) then split up and follow our own agenda. We will also meet for a TS dinner each night (FREE DINING!)

The rest of the time we will play it by ear: the big kids may go off together while the littles ride Dumbo for the 10th time. Grandparents may take the kids "home" while adults stay late in the parks. Whatever seems right at the moment.

Thank goodness for cell phones!