Grand Gatherings

[2ndStarr]

I couldn't decide which board this belonged on, so I'm putting it here by default. We're having our first Disney family reunion in June of next year. There will be just over 30 of us staying at AoA. It looks as though Grand Gatherings are now a thing of the past. Does anyone know if they will be replaced with something else?

 

[PHLtoMCO]

I couldn't decide which board this belonged on, so I'm putting it here by default. We're having our first Disney family reunion in June of next year. There will be just over 30 of us staying at AoA. It looks as though Grand Gatherings are now a thing of the past. Does anyone know if they will be replaced with something else?

Honestly, we were a GG last year (party of 22) and we found that the only perks were resort/dining accommodations. If you are staying at the same resort with the same room type, they will note you are a GG and try to assign you as close together as possible. With dining, if you mention you are a GG, they will do their best to accommodate you, but in most cases, your party will need to be split up, especially yours since its so large!

They do offer those GG special experiences you can do like the fireworks cruise, dessert party, etc.. But for us it was hard to get everyone to commit to one of them.

Still it was a very cool experience, we were lucky enough to all be put together at our resort (Poly), same longhouse, same floor which was very convenient. One thing we were bummed about, there were no Grand Gathering buttons! Enjoy

 

[Ets80]

We had trouble with finding a place for 18 of us. Wow there is going to be 30 of you. I would start calling now.

 

[nansmama]

I planned a Grand Gathering about nine years ago with 20+ people (don't remember exactly how many). It was at Pop and our rooms weren't really that close together. A couple of them were clear across the resort from each other. Like the PP, we couldn't get everyone to commit to a single activity, so the designation of "Grand Gathering" turned out to be basically useless in our case. I don't think it gives any sort of advantage unless you're committed to traveling as a pack.