Grand Gatherings

[denman007]

Anybody do one of these? Was it worth it? How organized was Disney with this?

Thanks.

 

[denman007]

bump

 

[mom0299]

Anybody do one of these? Was it worth it? How organized was Disney with this?

Thanks.

We did one of these over New Year's. There were 12 of us and we had a great time. We booked out trip through a TA. It doesn't cost any extra to do a Grand Gathering, but you are offered some extras. Because we were a GG we were guaranteed to have our rooms together at the resort (although you don't have to stay at the same resort, but we did). There are several different special events that GG's can take advantage of. We did the Safari Celebration Dinner at AK and it was wonderful! I highly recommend doing on if you have enough people. You only have to have 8 people age 3 and older.

 

[ProfJenn]

We're doing one next month with DH's family. I've never done it, but I've been able to make all the ressies for everyone with one phone call (that's a perk - instead of everyone calling in separately).
We're considering the safari dinner. I wanted the fireworks cruise but that's booked.

 

[denman007]

So it costs nothing to book a party as a GG. You only pay for the 'excursions' you choose to do? And there are 4 of them? You can choose to do any number of them?

I already know are party is split between at least 2 resorts.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

I went through all the rigamarole to get a grand gathering number for our big trip last december, only to discover that everything I wanted to do was already booked.

And this wasn't christmas, it was for the first week of december when Disney's relatively uncrowded.

There was literally *nothing* available six months out. .

So, except for some big cumbersome round pins that said "grand gathering" that we never wore (they weren't disney pins that go on the lanyard, just the round flat kind with the dangerous spikes on the back), it was a waste of time.

And it took SO much time to get the darn number in the first place. The website for it stunk, too, absolutely no functionality at all, I always had to call the "special number", and then half the time whoever I got on the other end had no idea how to book grand gathering stuff. I ended up calling my DVC number and they actually knew something, but still couldn't help...

 

[mom0299]

Kickapoo, I'm sorry you had so much trouble. We went between Christmas and New Year's when it was waaaaaaaay crowded and were able to get the Safari Dinner. We didn't try for anything else. We did make all our ressies at 180 days.

Another nice thing about a GG is that you can book large groups for meals. We had several ADRs that weren't special GG deals and because we had a GG number they were able to seat all 12 of us together without a problem.

They don't do the special GG deals every day. I know that they only do the Safari Dinner on Mondays and Thursdays. You have to do some research and find out when your choice is offered.

WDW info. has some good information on grand gatherings at http://www.wdwinfo.com/Grandgathering.htm.

 

[InstImpres]

I've done 3 of the GG options. The Wishes cruise and Illuminations Dinner were my favorites.

Also, with GG, they help in putting your resort rooms near each other.

If you have specific questions let me know I am happy to answer them.

 

[denman007]

I have a question. Where can you found the GG calender of events for 2008? The link from above is for 2007.