Extended family trip suggestions.....

[TravelMommy]

Traveling with extended family, what is your best tips for maintaining your sanity and having a good time.

 

[quandrea]

We did one on 2011 and it was great. Here are my tips.

Don't spend too much time together. We had a few special meals planned together. Everything else was optional.

Consider staying at multiple resorts. Affords space from each other and each party picks the place best tailored for them. My parents stayed at beach club because my mum could walk to ws on her own. Not being a ride person, this was good for her. We stayed at okw for the space and because we had a car.

We had plans for which park we would visit. If others wanted to join us they could. We arranged to meet outside the gates. If someone was late we went ahead.

Grandparents enjoyed pool time with the kids.

The family joined us for only part of the trip.

 

[TravelMommy]

Thank you!! greatly appreciate the tips, I plan on using as many of them as I can as planning has already been a bit of a challenge

 

[quandrea]

We did one on 2011 and it was great. Here are my tips.

Don't spend too much time together. We had a few special meals planned together. Everything else was optional.

Consider staying at multiple resorts. Affords space from each other and each party picks the place best tailored for them. My parents stayed at beach club because my mum could walk to ws on her own. Not being a ride person, this was good for her. We stayed at okw for the space and because we had a car.

We had plans for which park we would visit. If others wanted to join us they could. We arranged to meet outside the gates. If someone was late we went ahead.

Grandparents enjoyed pool time with the kids.

The family joined us for only part of the trip.

I wrote the schedule down including all adrs and handed it out at a pre disney party. That way everyone knew the plans.

 

[ABCastillo]

We did one on 2011 and it was great. Here are my tips.

Don't spend too much time together. We had a few special meals planned together. Everything else was optional.

Consider staying at multiple resorts. Affords space from each other and each party picks the place best tailored for them. My parents stayed at beach club because my mum could walk to ws on her own. Not being a ride person, this was good for her. We stayed at okw for the space and because we had a car.

We had plans for which park we would visit. If others wanted to join us they could. We arranged to meet outside the gates. If someone was late we went ahead.

Grandparents enjoyed pool time with the kids.

The family joined us for only part of the trip.

Great tips! We included a park hopper ticket so that families could go to different parks during the day and then join for dinner and fireworks at night. That worked well if you can swing park hopper tickets.

 

[SamSam]

We celebrated an anniversary 2 years ago with 20+ extended family members and had a great time. We had 2 dinners planned that we all dined together for, plus an anniversary celebration evening. Otherwise everyone did what they wanted during the day, and then (we're DVC)) in the evening, those that wanted gathered in a grand villa and just enjoyed down time together.

 

[Aunt Bee]

Quandrea has great advice. There are 23 of us in our 'immediate' family now and we all go to WDW at least once a year. We stay at the same hotel because we like to visit each other and being close lets us do that.

On arrival night, we eat dinner together at O'Hana and on the first day we make a real effort to ride the boat to MK as a group. After that, we meet up in smaller groups and don't try to be joined at the hip. We usually schedule some special meals together (Via Napoli is great for a big family meal) and usually most of us go to a character breakfast, either at Cinderella's castle or in Norway.

Other than that, we go our separate ways. Sometimes we exchange kids and someone takes the little kids and someone takes the big kids and the adults take turns babysitting. It's nice with a flexible, big group. My grandson loves AK but that park's not a favorite of the others, so sometimes he and I go there twice.

I love to take my Daughters-in-law to a fancy dinner by themselves while the Dads and Grandpa take the kids to do something and the guys like to hang out together, too. The key is to be flexible and not feel you have to be together every minute as a group. It just doesn't work.

Enjoy your trip, TravelMommy.

 

[jac1976]

We have one main rule when traveling with extended family. No one can invite themselves or ask to go along with someone else- be it on a trip or out to dinner or anything like that. That way no one is in the awkward position of having to say no, or wanting to say no but feeling like you can't. Plan a few big things for everyone all together, but allow for plenty of time for each individual family unit to do their thing.

 

[Happyjen27]

We went with a small group, just the 4 of us (me, DH, littles) and MIL/FIL and SIL/BIL. It was awesome!

I did all the planning for my little family of 4 and informed the others of our plans. They were welcome to join or not, depending on their objectives. We determined that we would share the sit down meals together, so I made ADRs for all of us.

We all stayed at the same resort. We had a connected room with ILs so they could babysit one night.

We would set up meeting times. For example "we'll be at the monorail at 8AM" and if they didn't make the morning meet up, "otherwise just call us when you get to the park" That way nobody was waiting on anyone else. When our kids were done, we bailed and left the others in the parks since they had more stamina.

The best part of our trip was that we got a 4 day head start which allowed us to explore the World for the first time without all the family.