How to plan a family reunion on a Disney cruise??

[TwingleMum]

I would like to start planning a Disney cruise for my family it would be 6 separate families plus my Mom & Dad. We would like to cruise summer 08. (we all need time to save $) We all have 3 kids. Kids ages range from (sister due in Dec to 25 yrs old). We are thinking of doing 4 day cruise. Any suggestions appreciated. Where would we get best price? What kind of rooms do we need?? Thanks.

 

[ivanova]

I'd recommend talking with a GOOD travel agent that is VERY familiar with DCL and their group policies (DCL has some quirky group policies).

What types of rooms you will need will depend on the number of people and each family's personal preference.

When we sailed last summer (22 people in 8 rooms) we had some that need oceanview deck 2, others wanting balconies, and the penny pinchers wanting inside rooms.

 

[Rence]

We did a smaller family trip. We dealt with a Travel Agent that is a friend of the family. A good travel agent will make things much easier.

We selected the date for the trip and then told everyone that was going to contact the travel agent on their own by a certain date to book their stateroom. This way each person could get what they wanted and work out all the details without one member of the family trying to go crazy trying to organize it all. Let the Travel Agent do the work, they will get a nice comission for a large booking like this and they can deal with the who wants what category etc.

This way each person is responsible for selecting their own category/cabins for their own family, putting down their own deposit, making their own payments etc. This prevents one person making the deposit and then trying to collect from everyone and getting excuses etc. and all these things that happen in large families. In our case my folks agreed to pay a certain amount towards everyone who was going, so they paid the travel agent and had the money credited towards each stateroom. Much simplier for everyone involved.

The travel agent will link the reservations so that you will all eat together (provided you want to) and can try to get rooms near each other if thats what you want.

In our case I deliberately asked the travel agent to put my room away from my sisters rooms. My sisters are the sorts that would think it funny to send their daughters knocking on my door at 5:00am. Uncle Larry is not a happy Uncle an 5am and it worked out well with my cabin a ways away. Gave me a little space but still plenty of time to spend with the rest of the family throughout the cruise.

Find a good travel agent who has handled group bookings and let them do the work. You will then be able to relax and enjoy the trip.

 

[mattmommy]

I concur with a great TA. We had 14 people in 5 rooms. Some thought they could get better deals than my TA (which is fine). I think we all broke even because my TA sent us and my parents welcoming gifts to our room and a sweet rebate to come home to.

Their TA didn't know anything about excursions or pretty much anything about ressies.

We had people wanting different rooms (which is fine too).

We said, "here's the excursions we're going on, if you want to join us, you're more than welcome, but if you don't, that's ok". And we said we'll always meet up for dinner. We did all the excursions together in the end (and were our own group which was fun), but there was no pressure to do anything.

It's going to be great fun. It will create some great memories.

 

[Enna]

I agree with the previous poster's suggestions.

When we went with a group, the person doing the planning decided that all of our rooms should be together, decided the room type, who should be in each room, and that we should all eat together at a dining time that accomodated one child but not the others in the group. Then I discovered that one family member was hoarding the online reservation information, and had even registered my kids for the club, selecting the password, and NOT authorizing me to pick up my own kids. Take this as an example of "how NOT to plan a family reunion cruise."

In large groups, you're bound to have some people who want to do EVERYTHING, some people who want to just relax, some people who don't see a point in paying for an upgrade and some who won't want to go unless they have a verandah. Better to let each little family group make those decisions than to force a "one size fits all" approach.

Also, try to reach some consensus on what dinner seating is the best for everyone, as well as determining if you all want to plan to meet for dinner most nights. It's better to pick the dining time you want from the beginning rather than trying to make changes at the last minute.

 

[ivanova]

Also, try to reach some consensus on what dinner seating is the best for everyone, as well as determining if you all want to plan to meet for dinner most nights. It's better to pick the dining time you want from the beginning rather than trying to make changes at the last minute.

We were actually able to split our group between main and late dining, no problem. That way everyone could have the dining time they preferred, without someone having to "cave" to the rest of the group.

 

[Enna]

Susan--

Ideally we would have split our dining time with some early & some late, but the person who had total control over the reservation was insistant that we all eat together and would not share so much as a reservaton number for each of the other families to make their own changes.

Clearly, it was an extreme situation, but I wanted to pass along our experience as something others should consider. It's important for the group to agree on such things (early dinner, late dinner, split for dinner) in the planning stages to prevent bad feelings closer to or during the cruise.

 

[scrapperjill]

We planned a cruise vacation last fall with 21 people....(5 families). To make a long story short...we picked a cruise date (DH and myself rebooked on board during our first cruise)...and told everyone the date and let them decide if they wanted to book or not. That ment everyone could pick their own room/catagory and deck along with when they wanted to book and with whom ever they decided to book with. As a group we all talked about late/early dinning and decied as a group late dinning would be good. We also had each of our TA's link all of our reservations so we could dine together.

We also decided that even though we were all traveling as a group it didn't mean we all had to do the SAME thing all the time. We picked one port with one excursion (besides Castaway) to all do something together....and left the rest up to each family. We figured that by dinning each evening (or most evenings) together...it would give us time to do our own thing as well as time to get together and see what everyones been up to.

Right now were booked for a cruise in Sept 07...and are hopeing to have everyone who cruise this last time cruise again...PLUS a couple new families. With this upcomming cruise we did somewhat the same thing...We picked a cruise date and had every one book thier own room. Again we all picked late dinning and are having our reservations linked. Some of us are getting together about a year out...to have gatherings/dinners to discuss cruise issues (like dress codes, stateboard credits, passports, air....) and questions (for those who will be cruising for the first time)....

 

[ivanova]

It's important for the group to agree on such things (early dinner, late dinner, split for dinner) in the planning stages to prevent bad feelings closer to or during the cruise.

Amen!!

 

[TwingleMum]

Thanks for all the wonderful input. I know anout Dreams Unlimited please feel free to PM me if there are any other DCL expert TA's out there.

 

[TwingleMum]

What kind of room for a person with 3 kids (all under 6 yrs old). My other sister has 3 kids (12 yrs old ~ 16 yrs old). Baby sister has 3 kids (5,3 and infant).

 

[mattmommy]

I didn't even think about splitting the meal times. That's a good idea. Mine just didn't want to use a TA, but they wanted me to plan every waking moment for them and peppered me with tons of questions. I wanted to say, "if you went to my TA, you would know this....", but I didn't. The best is to let everybody do what they want and just enjoy yourself and not get stressed about it.

 

[ivanova]

What kind of room for a person with 3 kids (all under 6 yrs old). My other sister has 3 kids (12 yrs old ~ 16 yrs old). Baby sister has 3 kids (5,3 and infant).

are you talking one adult and three kids per room? or two adults and three kids per room?

four people to a room can be accommodated from category 11 (inside) up to category 1 (walt/roy suites).

five people to a room can only be accommodated in categorys 1 through 4. A lot of times it prices out cheaper to get two connecting category 11 rooms or two category 9 connecting rooms, instead of getting a category 4 room.

 

[scootermom32]

Best to meet and get some kind of consensus on what people's expectations/priorities are for the trip. We just got back from a family cruise, and I'm not sure it met the expectations of my spouse's parents, who initiated and financed the trip.

I think they had dreams of family togetherness, shared experiences, seeing all the kids/grandkids interact, etc. Once we booked, our group split up for dinner -- not because anyone *really* needed to be early or late, but because people wanted things *their* way and didn't really think about the impact on the whole trip and the grandparents' dream.

That meant that we were split up for the evening, starting from 5 p.m. til about 10:15. It was hard to meet up afterward for things like the Pirate Party, etc. My kids were a little sad because they didn't get to see their cousins for some of the exciting dinner events and shows (they mostly saw them in the teeny-tiny pools, which were not our favorite part of the trip).

Not saying that dinner is the be-all end-all, or that everyone should have the same seating...but it is an easy way to connect each day, and it puts you on a similar schedule. Our daily activities didn't always co-incide (heck, sometimes I didn't even see my spouse til dinnertime, because we were off w/ different kids doing various things); so having that daily built-in interaction would have been nice. And I think everybody's kids would have survived at either seating.

If you decide not to share a dinner seating, try to arrange some other activity/ies ahead of time (we found it tough to coordinate once on board, esp. since we have lots of young kids), such as an excursion or two, a few sit-down lunches, grown-up nite at Palo, a meeting place on Castaway Cay.

We ended up swapping a few family members at dinner one night w/ the group at the late seating (permissible per Guest Services, if you swap the same number from each group -- should try to let your servers know ahead).

Anyway, my bottom line -- you can't plan everyone's vacation for them, but if you don't try to arrange a few meet-ups (esp. at the beginning), your trip might whiz by without much real togetherness, as ours did. Esp. if you have small kids, plan ahead to share some time w/ the large group!

(It was still a fun trip, though!)

C