Group of 12 at POP..Any Advice???

[DisneyInDel]

I've organized a trip for 12 very close family members at POP Century..we arrive on 10/30 and are staying for 8 nights...I'm getting a little anxious about everything being as close to perfect as we can get..I really want the 7 first timers to have a blast!!! Ages are 4 months (my grandson) to 51 (ahem...me) My DW and kids have been there numerous times and want to make this trip our best ever!! Any advice from Disers that have been in this situation before??? Thanks!!!

19 days!!!! This is when the time strats to drag....

 

[misha]

I don't have any advice other than to relax and have fun! Don't stress about it and everyone will have a great time (just so you know this is the mantra I will be repeating over and over myself! )

We'll be at POP from 11/2-8 - so if you see two women being dragged around by 3 kids that'll be me, my DD & DS and my DSis and her DD. We are so excited we can't stand ourselves....the kids are pretty happy too....

 

[jellybeans0607]

We have gone with as many as 15. It can get a bit hectic, but I think everyone had a great time.
As far as advice....
Plan ahead what everyone plans to do for meals. If you plan to eat together make sure everyone has the itinerary and knows how early to show for a meal.
Don't try to all stay together, you'll end up wasting a lot of time. What we did was split into 2 parks a day. I had an itinerary done for 2 parks each day, and on 2 days I made it for 3. I passed out all the itineraries and let people pick and choose where they wanted to go that day. And of course no one had to choose to do any of it, it was just a guide for those that didn't know how to space things. What i didn't include was touring plans. We had way too many people for that. I simply put where and what time for breakfast, the time we planned to be at the gate, an approximate time for a counter for lunch and then a hard reservation for dinner. Plus things like shows or fireworks.
It worked out well. We all ate dinner together at night and ended up watching fireworks together, but we didn't try to stay together at the parks. Mostly because everyone had a different thing that they wanted from the trip. Yet everyone wanted to see each other at least once a day. So since everyone had the same itineraries on them we all knew where the others were, approximately.

Another thing I can think of is no one should be made to feel bad if they don't want to do something. The first time we went as a large group there were some people that just didn't have the go go go that most of us had. Everytime these people wanted to leave the parks they were made to feel like they were wrong in some way. So they would end up staying, and of course being miserable. So the nexttime i made the rule that people are responsable for themselves, if you want to go off no one is to make you feel bad AND you are not to expect anyone to follow you. That was also an issue, when some people wanted to leave they expect everyone to leave and would get mad if they didn't. With that rule we avoided arguements the next time around.

 

[parkers*momma]

my best advice would be to not do everything together or you won't be a close family when you get back .

Here is an example of what we did:

We left as a group to the Magic Kingdom. Upon entering we walked as a family down main street and had a bunch of photopass pictures taken as a family and individual families. We then walked through the Castle and at this point, we split up. Those who wanted to stay with us did and others ventured out with thier own families. Since I had ADR's made for the group, we would get together to eat then hang out together for a while as we walked through the park. Again, we split up and did our own thing.

In the evening after a day at the park, we had a wonderful time talking about our adventures, setting up routes of attack for the next day, and jus relaxing with card games, pool, etc.

The main thing...allow time away from each other. I love my family, but each family is different and those diffences can get on each others nerves. Plan family time and individual time for the day.

Something we did that was fun....a hidden mickey hunt! We took the time to write down where we had seen a hidden mickey and then seen who had the most at the end of the day. Then we would switch notes and look for the ones on the new note the next day at that park. That was a lot of fun trying to see the same one someone else seen the day before.