Family of 20, questions?

[mketting]

Next year we are taking a 7-night Eastern cruise. There will be 20 of us (6 families) ranging in age from 6-62.

A few questions-

How will they likely arrange the dinner seating for us? Are reservations are linked ( 6 different cabins) but there are esentially 2 groups, my Dad's family (10) and my Uncle's family also (10), with the exact same makeup, 4 kids and 6 adults.

Can we make a Palo reservation for the 12 adults to eat all together one night, and if yes, what night would you suggest?

I know the great thing about the cruise is everyone can do their own thing but what would be some fun thing for us all to do together?

Suggestions for communicating with each other throughout the trip.

Any other ideas or tips would be great! I am the OCD planner of the family!!!

 

[scrapperjill]

Did you check out the family reniun package they have...I don't think it's to much $$...you all get like a matching tee shirt and something else (I think).

I don't know about palo's...they do have a room for large parties but I don't know how big of a group it seats...I think 12 would be fine. I have no idea on the "best" day to pick...the first three nights you'll rotate through each of the dinning rooms for the first time...so you may not want to miss those..then later in the week you'll have semi formal night...which could be a good night to go to palo's...seeing that you'll have to dress up for either...or even mid week...like Wednesday may be a good night. Have you looked at the rotations for when your semi formal, formal, pirates night and so on are?
If not you may want to check it out and decide what nights you don't want to miss and what night you don't mind missing...We did Palo on Pirate night...and although I don't think we missed much...I still wish we would have picked another night. Oh...and I don't think the last night would be very good....everyone is WAY to busy trying to get eveything packed back up and ready for the luggage pick up...we ended up missing dinner completly because we were doing the mad packing rush.

As for communication between everyone. Maybe pick a place and a time...for everyone to try and get together each day for a recap of what eveyones doing...and what you may want to do together. Maybe meet for breakfast every morning... Also I hear post it notes work good...either pick one cabin to leave the notes on...or have eveyone leave there own on their own cabin...(Ive really only heard of doing the post its inside the cabins...so I don't know how we'll they'd work on the outside) Doing a pre cruise newsletter is a fun way to keep everyone involved now durring the planning phase. Or host planning parties if you all live close enough..that way you all can talk about excursions you may want to do together...and so on...if you can't get togehter and talk about it...the newsletters are a great way to keep eveyone excited, involved, and prepaired.

Having eveyone together at dinner....well that could be a tough one but for the most part if your rersevations are linked...DCL will try to keep eveyone together...did everyone put in for the same time main dinning or late?? Your best bet would be for eveyone to choose late seating...as more people want main dinning....so seats are harder to get. Not to get you discourage you but I have heard of families who end up having just a a couple people assigned a diffrent seating for some odd reason??? But I really think DCL will do it's best...(I wonder if...by doing the family reniuion package if it would help...??? It's only like $25pp)

Best of luck

 

[RellingTwin]

Hi mketting! First let me say you will have a wonderful trip! A Disney Cruise is a great way for a large famiy to spend a vacation together.

Get on line for Palo as soon as you board. One person (armed with a list of all the adults names and cabin numbers) will be able to make the Palo reservation. Have a few options ready in case your first choice is unavailable.

In the regular dinning room, you will probaby be at 2 tables, but in the same area. I have seen large groups with adults at one table, kids at another, with the same searving team.

Communication: I HIGHLY recommend 2-way radios. You can get them on E-Bay for about 1/3 the retail cost. (I bought a set of 6 "new out of package" for about $60) We have cruise both with and without the radios and "WITH" is the way to go! It's not nessasary for everyone to have a radio, but if you had 6-10 of them it would be a great help keeping track of each other. The ship is BIG, and you can spend a lot of time looking for each other. If you get the radios, get the rechargable type.

A fun day together would be a day at Trunk Bay in St Thomas. You can do this "on your own" for about half the cost of DCL excurtion, and you get to stay much longer. Coki Beach is another fun place to spend the day together.
St Martin, I would recommend the Catamaran trip with DCL.

Meeting for breakfast each day, and looking over the "navigator" to see what activites are being offered that day would be a big help.

A week BEFORE the 60 day mark, get together with the family and decide on excurtions.

Get matching T-shirts and lanyards for your group.
Talk to the photo dept. on board and arrange for a group photo.

Finally, read this board (and trip reports) everyday! It is loaded with great ideas and tips.

 

[zeldacruiser]

We had 14 people and were seated at one big table. Don't know if they go bigger than that. When we got our keys at the terminal, we found that one of our parties wasn't at the same table for dinner, so we took care of that as soon as we got on board, no problem.

We all did different activities during the day, some together and some separately. We chose dinner as the time we would all be together, and we told the kids (who were ages 8 to 15) that they needed to show up for dinner on time, properly dressed and hungry. We also all tried to sit at different spots at our table each night, so we all got to talk to each other at some point, rather than each household sitting together all the time.

On our last cruise (just two of us this time), I noticed that there was a conference room on deck 2, and at one point some people were sitting in there playing cards. I wonder if you can reserve that when it's not in official use, or if you can just go in and hang out, maybe if you run into bad weather and just want to play games or something.

Also I recommend planning one night where you all meet for an official photograph, and I recommend doing it early. We picked the last night, and unfortunately my uncle got sick that night, so he wasn't in the picture. On our first cruise, I saw a huge family group (maybe 30 people?) having a picture taken by the ship's photographer with them all arranged on the stairs outside Triton's.

 

[jrabbit]

There will be 20 of us

You poor woman

(6 families)

Whew!!!!!

Suggestions for communicating with each other throughout the trip.

All of the rooms have voice mail and there are "courtesy" phones throughout the ship.

Then there is the "old fashioned" pencil and paper. I would suggest finding a small notepad with a magnetic back on it so you can stick it on the door. Another option is to use the "mail slot" (the fish by your door) to hold your notepad and pencil. The problem with this is that the younger kids can't reach it.

We also leave notes in our room telling the rest of my family where we are going. This works for us because we all are in the same room (only 1 family - not six! - that's why I suggest the notepad on the door for you!)

 

[ljql_5969]

We are going on the Eastern next year too in July! We will have 18 people ranging in age from 6 - 74.

Our TA said they would sit us together at dinner. This could mean that they split us up to 2 tables but we will be enar each other.

We will probably do some things ourselves but hang out too alot. I wasn't too sure about the Family reunion package because I felt like we could get our own Family reunion ourselves.

Thanks for the ideas. I had thought about bringing cards and maybe dice on board to play games. I'll have to check out that conference room!

I am the family planner here on my side so every month at the beginning of the month, I send out a "Disney Update" email to let them know things I have found out about on these boards, from our TA, from any other websites, etc. I also update them on when their deposit is due, when their final payment will be due, the hotel choices for our day before, transportation stuff, etc. I also give them a countdown of how many days we have left until we leave. They get a kick out of that. My emails are probably too long and drive them crazy!! I would rather they have too much info instead of not enough.

I know it sounds probably like too much, but none of the rest of them like to plan! I have tried to convince them to come out to this board and ask questions. I told them you all don't bite!!!

 

[mketting]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Asking the photo people for a special group photo time is a great idea. I was wondering how all 20 of us would fit in a photograph in front of one of the backrounds in the Atrium.

I am encouraged about the seating for dinner.

The Catamaran was the excursion that looked the most fun to me and almost everyone can do it. My sister has twind that will be just 3 1/2 when we go and she isn't really sure about leaving tham on board the ship alone.

The monthly family updates is a great idea. I actually made folders for everyone already that were filled with all kinds of info. from menus to excursions and sample navigators. I think I will send everyone a special Disney postcard at the 1 year to go mark next month.

I read the boards every few days, my husband just rolls his eyes!

 

[ljql_5969]

I hope your next year goes by fast enough for you. I'm not looking forward to getting a year older but I am looking forward to the cruise!!

Hope you have a great time counting down and then going!!!! I would love it if you post about your trip when you get back. I would love to know how it went with a party that large.

If you don't mind me asking, are you going down the day before? Where are you all staying? Any other tips you have are appreciated!!

 

[Lisa F]

On our last cruise our dining rotation had a table for 20. It was really 2 tables pushed together, but it was HUGE. I wanted to be part of that big group too, they seemed to be having so much fun!

 

[glindamood]

I have crruised on a reunion cruise with 19. We all ate dinner together - 3 different tables but we had the same servers and just rotated who we sat with each night. I cruised last February on the Wonder (not the reunion, just 2) and we were seated at a huge table (I didn't count chairs but my guess would be 18-20) and there was no way you could carry on a conversation with the person sitting across from you - just those that sat next to you as the table was too wide and there is a lot of basic room noise in the restraunts. I prefer more tables and "musical chairs".

You can book Palo's for everyone - we did both brunch and dinner and we ended up in the back room (there has to be a better name for that room) and I think it was all done under just one room number.

 

[videogal1]

Asking the photo people for a special group photo time is a great idea. I was wondering how all 20 of us would fit in a photograph in front of one of the backrounds in the Atrium.
I read the boards every few days, my husband just rolls his eyes!

On the 10-day holiday cruise we all (some 20+ DISers who met on the cruise meet board and chatted our way through a year of waiting met at the bottom of the atrium stairs and had our photo taken by the ship photographer who stood on the little "Romeo& Juliet" balcony opposite and took our picture. Plenty of room, lots of stairs to stand on, very colorful, and totally nice picture. Don't forget, for those who are in a group of unrelated people, make a list of names...

 

[slindamood]

I was on that Eastern Magic reunion cruise of 19 with Gail. Next Thanksgiving we are going on the 4 day Wonder cruise - there will be 20 of us, ranging in age from 18 months to 84. We always manage to have lots of birthdays on a cruise. Good time to celebrate.

Our rooms are all in a row for the next cruise - it is not hard to gather on board - there were certain places on deck 4 (the wonderful chairs) and deck 10 where we tended to gather in the afternoon or before dinner. No special arrangements - just worked out. Also the hot tub was a big draw.

For dining - we had 3 tables in a corner in the dining rooms (sometimes they would put two together) so it was really quite private. People just sat down as they came in - no set places. Our servers had only our group, so it was fun.

Photos- Disney makes a good effort to get everyone in. Here is our photo taken when we got onboard. We did not do the reunion package - it is rather pricey I think for what you get. One family took care of the t-shirts.

http://sdhanna.150m.com/cruiseDec2001/teeshirts.jpg

Suzanne

 

[mketting]

A year does seem so far away but the anticipation is so much fun. I have more than 365 days to savor the idea of the trip but will only have 7 to enjoy it. (At least that is what I am telling myslef to help the days pass.)

We are definitely going down at least one day before sailing. I couldn't stand the worry of something going wrong with the flight and missing the ship. My immediate family of 4 is planning on going 2 days early so we can spend one day ay WDW. I hope to convince others, I thought it was the perfect start to our Disney Cruise vacation last year.

We will all rent cars/vans at the airport, it is much cheaper to do that than pay for Disney transport or any other method and I found it so easy to drop off and then pick up a new car from the rental agency near the port.

 

[TJGorman]

In November, we have 11 cabins booked for the Eastern. That is 21 adults and 16 children ranging in age from 3 to 70. We are all looking forward to a great time. According to our TA, they will seat us in the same area. I will gladly post how traveling with such a big group works out. I have also been "elected", the planner of the trip. All is going well so far, just waiting for airline to release flights so we can try to get a group fare. Transportation to/from MCO is set. I will feel much better when the hotel is guaranteed and the airfares are booked. But, I can't wait!! A little over 8 months to go!

 

[mketting]

+Any info you can offer will be great, especially concerning booking a group rate on the airfare!! Everyone is in Pittsburgh except for me and my fam. ( I live in Rochester, NY) but we can drive down to fly out if the price was right!

Definitely post when you get back. If you remember me please feel free to send me a PM with all your do's and don'ts!!!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We had a large group in 17 -February on the magic.

My number one suggestion is motorola walkie talkies. We used them all the time. They worked everywhere on board. We could radio everyone in the mornings and see where everyone was. We could catch up with each other anytime we separated. We let the older kids take the radios and go up to the sports deck when they were bored. We bring them on our trips to disney world, and they were even more handy on the cruise. Get them get them!

Our dining was two big tables and we also rotated seats. Palos was a table for 10 for dinner and the private room for the brunch one day. 12 would definately have fit.

We made sure we all boarded at the same time and got our group shot then. I would have liked one on formal night but we waited too close to dinner time and the lines were too long.

A large group on a cruise is great fun!

 

[mketting]

THe walkie Talkies sound great we will be getting some of those!!