Help I invited everyone!

[mjf]

Hi,

I am planning for a Mar 2013 7 night sailing on the Fantasy. We could have to 12-20 people in the group, all close family and friends. Maybe more as I've invited a lot of people.

I am wondering if folks might have some tips to share when arranging cruises with a large number of people. Or if you've written a trip report with a large party that you could point me to that would be great as well.


thanks,
mjf

 

[mjf]

Sorry meant to post in the main Cruise Line Forum

 

[Nilda2010]

Hello,

Just got off the dream yesterday. I had a group of 28 people. Some tips first of all I put a website together to keep everyone updated with information. I would just email everyone everyone I updated the website.

2. Because they were too many reservations linked I was not able to make group reservation for certain things. Example palo. When I boarded the ship I just went straight to palo reservation and booked for a group of 12 adults. It was no problem. We got the private room. It was great.

3. Dinner reservation was a mess. There was one family that was not no where close to us. In the future I will also verify once I get on the ship the dinning seating.
4. For all the teenagers about 7 I booked the The wild side excursion on castaway cay. They loved it.
5. I had group t shirts to wear as we boarded the ship.
6. I rented my own bus from airport to port for 28 people. It was fun and it was a lot cheaper. I used happy limo.

If you have any other questions let me know. It was really nice. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Just remember do not feel as you have to do everything as a group. Every night I would tell my group tomorrow whoever is interested I am having breakfast at xxxxx and I will be there at xxx time. Anyone interested would just join you with no pressure.

 

[mjf]

thanks for the info Nilda2010.

I am a bit concerned with trying to get seating together evening meals, any idea if there is a maximum number of people they can sit together?

For some of the people this is outside of the norm that they would spend on a vacation, so I am trying to keep things as cheap as possible, so the bus idea sounds good, but I'm not sure about getting it from the airport. As I expect we will have people arriving at all different times from 4 different cities across Canada.

I guess one option would be to book rooms at Pop or some other Disney value resort for the night before, have people take Magical Express from airport to hotel and then arrange a bus from there in the morning? And then the a bus back from the port to MCO. Do you mind if ask how much Happy Limo charged for the bus?

thanks

 

[Nilda2010]

We did the same thing. We stayed at Disney Okw as I am a dvc member. The bus than picked us up from the hotel and to us to the port. It was about 300.00 each way for a mini bus that fits 28 people. It was a little cheaper from port to airport as it is a shorter trip. I than just divided the number of people on the bus by the total price including the tip (50). It was so much cheaper less than 30 per person for a round trip vs the 70.00 Roundtrip Disney charges. It was also so much fun too.

 

[toy]

So far we have 39 people going on the Dream Oct. 18, 2012. There will be potentially 10 more added. While I want all of us to be on the same dining rotation, there is a specific family I want to sit with? At what point do I make this request? Who do I make this request to?

 

[Nilda2010]

Once the reservations are linked you would all have the same dinning rotation. If you would like to sit with a specific family what I would do is once you board the ship go where they solve dinning room problems. Is usually starts at one p.m and it is on deck 4 in one of the night clubs. You can also do palo reservation there. If you want to do palo for the group I would go with two people. One to stand on the palo line and one to stand on the dinning room line.

With my group it was 14 people doing palo and we got there private area (room) which was a wonderful experience.