MDE Account(s) for blended family trip

[Candleshoe]

Here's the scoop. I have no MDE account, yet.

Travel party is in two groups of 4:
GROUP A: Myself, DH, DD15, Niece21
GROUP B: BIL, SIL, Niece14, Nephew12

I'm purchasing all the tickets and doing all the planning. Only Myself, DH and DD have been before. I'll be upgrading two tickets after first use to APs and getting a TiW card. All the adults have smart phones so can do FP+ adjustments in park.

We'll be onsite (in spirit) the first night at a campground. We'll be staying offsite in a vacation home.

We'll have a Memory Maker for the trip. I would like all to use it.

I would like to be able to make the advance FP+s for the trip myself.

I would like to not have to be joined at the hip. I am a rope dropper and not sure if the In-laws will be. We'll have two vehicles so what I hope is that we travel together if it works, but if they want to sleep in, then we'll go to the park and meet up with them later.

I would like to have SIL/BIL handle the day of adjustments of the GROUP B themselves, while I handle day of adjustments of GROUP A myself.

We'll have a handful of ADRs -- but may need to book in 2 groups of 4 at similar times.

This will be the only trip that looks like this with these people. Future trips will be back to DH, DD, and me. At the very least I'm thinking of making one MDE specifically for this trip alone. But, I might make 2 for this trip? Two for the trip seems the least complex EXCEPT for the fact that we are all staying at the campground for the first night. I was going to buy on the disney site 1 campground and 8 10 day tickets.

Would someone help me navigate the issues of two groups that are sometimes one group (the onsite stay, the memory maker) and sometimes two groups (individual FP adjusting/making)?

I'd be VERY grateful!

 

[chloelovesdisney]

I don't have any advice but will be following the comments in this thread. We are in a similar situation for our upcoming trip and I can't figure out to best work this out so that I can make all of the FP+ plans ahead of time but if some folks want to come late, go to another park, etc., they can make changes to their FP+ themselves on any given day.

 

[Mikie]

Memory maker - you'll get magic bands due to your campsite night, yes? So anyone who wants to be able to make or change their own FP will need their own MDE account. Anyone without and account will need to be "owned" by the person who wants to be able to make FPs on their behalf. You should all be listed as "friends and family" in MDE with the option "Jane can view and purchase my photos" selected for each friend. All of you will have your ride photos captured and all can let photopass photographers scan their bands in order to get all photos in your one memory maker account. Photos will be captured whether you are all together or separated.

Making/editing plans- my group did it this way (may not be the *only* or even best, but it worked for us) - link in MDE as family and friends as described above and select either "this friend can view all my plans" or "this friend can view only shared plans". I made initial FPs and dining reservations for all. It's easiest to pick FPs for the whole group, then switch just select FPs if, say, 3 people don't want to do the Space Mountain FP everyone else is doing. Everyone has the ability to change their FPs around.

Unless I am missing something, there's no need for multiple MDE accounts with different parts of the plans.

I highly recommend making a paper copy/ cheat sheet of the plans you make so that you can give it to the others as backup and in case anyone,s phone glitches or dies. I made a wallet-sized card for each day with our hotel reservation info, planned park for the day, any dining reservation with confirmation # and FP choices/times.

In order to have some together and some apart time, I liked grouping FPs near to dining physically and in timing. I.e. Late morning FP, reservation for lunch (provides mid-day break, food, and visiting time!) followed by two more back-to-back FPs. This way, you can tour as you like before and after the whole block of together time.

For ADRs, the dining CM on the phone said there's no need to break up your group when making the reservation - they will group or split your tables as needed on arrival, but supposedly for making the reservation, it makes no difference. I did mine on the phone vs online, so that may make a difference.

Hope that helps. have fun!!

 

[Candleshoe]

Memory maker - you'll get magic bands due to your campsite night, yes? So anyone who wants to be able to make or change their own FP will need their own MDE account. Anyone without and account will need to be "owned" by the person who wants to be able to make FPs on their behalf. You should all be listed as "friends and family" in MDE with the option "Jane can view and purchase my photos" selected for each friend. All of you will have your ride photos captured and all can let photopass photographers scan their bands in order to get all photos in your one memory maker account. Photos will be captured whether you are all together or separated.

Making/editing plans- my group did it this way (may not be the *only* or even best, but it worked for us) - link in MDE as family and friends as described above and select either "this friend can view all my plans" or "this friend can view only shared plans". I made initial FPs and dining reservations for all. It's easiest to pick FPs for the whole group, then switch just select FPs if, say, 3 people don't want to do the Space Mountain FP everyone else is doing. Everyone has the ability to change their FPs around.

Unless I am missing something, there's no need for multiple MDE accounts with different parts of the plans.

I highly recommend making a paper copy/ cheat sheet of the plans you make so that you can give it to the others as backup and in case anyone,s phone glitches or dies. I made a wallet-sized card for each day with our hotel reservation info, planned park for the day, any dining reservation with confirmation # and FP choices/times.

In order to have some together and some apart time, I liked grouping FPs near to dining physically and in timing. I.e. Late morning FP, reservation for lunch (provides mid-day break, food, and visiting time!) followed by two more back-to-back FPs. This way, you can tour as you like before and after the whole block of together time.

For ADRs, the dining CM on the phone said there's no need to break up your group when making the reservation - they will group or split your tables as needed on arrival, but supposedly for making the reservation, it makes no difference. I did mine on the phone vs online, so that may make a difference.

Hope that helps. have fun!!

Thanks for all the info! I fear I'm still confused, though.
If you don't make 2 MDE accounts then how can this work: "Everyone has the ability to change their FPs around." ?

I assume I load an app onto my phone that has my MDE account and presumably all 8 people. If we split into 2 groups of 4 (group a and group b) how can group b people modify their FPs? They won't be able to load the app onto their phone(s) because I have loaded it onto my phone. If only one MDE account with 8 people I don't want to allow other people to log into my MDE account.

But! If I do two accounts of groups of 4, and then later give group B people the username/pw to their group. How can that possibly work with ONE room reservation?

 

[Mikie]

Thanks for all the info! I fear I'm still confused, though.
If you don't make 2 MDE accounts then how can this work: "Everyone has the ability to change their FPs around." ?

I assume I load an app onto my phone that has my MDE account and presumably all 8 people. If we split into 2 groups of 4 (group a and group b) how can group b people modify their FPs? They won't be able to load the app onto their phone(s) because I have loaded it onto my phone. If only one MDE account with 8 people I don't want to allow other people to log into my MDE account.

But! If I do two accounts of groups of 4, and then later give group B people the username/pw to their group. How can that possibly work with ONE room reservation?

All adults can have their own MDE account and they can all link to the same information. In my room, for instance, I had self, DH, and 2 kids. Both adults have a separate MDE accounts and both kids have no account. Our group's other rooms had some people with and some without their own MDE accounts too. In MDE, there's a way to "invite friends to plan and share" and choose to click "this person can view all my plans". Then, as long as you,re listed as Family and Friends, you (as planner) have the ability to make their FP choices for everyone. They can each get the APP themselves and set up their OWN login and still see and edit their own plans. My family totally let me handle all the planning, so I dont know for certain, but I'm pretty sure they *could* also make plans for me - they just didn't. When you have all these family and friends in MDE, yo'll see them all listed by name and can click/unclick a check box when editing FPs. I would just emphasize to the others that it's important they make sure they change their own and ONLY their own FPs.

I re-read your post again and I see that you will also be setting up the other adult's MDE account for them. I misunderstood that you wanted two accounts for yourself in addition to whatever other accounts people had on their own. In my case, fellow travelers had their own accounts already, but otherwise did NO planning, so that's where my mind was. SO in total, you'll want at least 2 accounts, but can have as many as one per person if you want - even all on one room.

 

[Candleshoe]

All adults can have their own MDE account and they can all link to the same information. In my room, for instance, I had self, DH, and 2 kids. Both adults have a separate MDE accounts and both kids have no account. Our group's other rooms had some people with and some without their own MDE accounts too. In MDE, there's a way to "invite friends to plan and share" and choose to click "this person can view all my plans". Then, as long as you,re listed as Family and Friends, you (as planner) have the ability to make their FP choices for everyone. They can each get the APP themselves and set up their OWN login and still see and edit their own plans. My family totally let me handle all the planning, so I dont know for certain, but I'm pretty sure they *could* also make plans for me - they just didn't. When you have all these family and friends in MDE, yo'll see them all listed by name and can click/unclick a check box when editing FPs. I would just emphasize to the others that it's important they make sure they change their own and ONLY their own FPs.

I re-read your post again and I see that you will also be setting up the other adult's MDE account for them. I misunderstood that you wanted two accounts for yourself in addition to whatever other accounts people had on their own. In my case, fellow travelers had their own accounts already, but otherwise did NO planning, so that's where my mind was. SO in total, you'll want at least 2 accounts, but can have as many as one per person if you want - even all on one room.

Reasking for clarification to make sure I understand some points.

1. RE "multiple MDEs on one room reservation" Yes, that is possible. With our 8 people in one room reservation we could, if we so wanted to, have 8 MDE accounts -- 1 per person -- all each with 1 ticket on the one account.

2. RE "making FPs on one MDE account" This one I still don't get. If I have ONE MDE account with 8 people on it, I do not understand how multiple people can set up the app on their phone and only have access to their own 4 people of the group. Wouldn't the only way be to give them the user/pw for all 8 and they could change all 8 people? I don't want this! I want more of a separation.

3. RE "Memory Maker with multiple MDE accounts" - if we end up having 2 or more MDE accounts, we can somehow (??) tie them together onto the Memory Maker package and all 8 people's pictures show up onto the MM. True?

As far as making the plans, yes I want to make the advanced FP plans, but I do not want to manage GROUP B's day of plans. I want them to do their own. So if we have 8 FPs (4 and 4 ) for RnRC at 9a and group A shows up to the park, rides a couple of rides and is ready to get on RnRC at 9, but Group B wakes up at 8:30 I want them to be able to adjust their (and ONLY their) FPs for that day.

Do I have those three points right? If not where did I go wrong? (Besides not owning a hot tub time machine and making this trip be in 2012 instead of 2015! Do you SEE all these new grey hairs?!)

 

[Mikie]

Ok, so sorry! I was missing that you particularly WANT to be separated and thought you just felt you were required to for some reason!

1) yep, many accounts possible if desired

2) you're right, you don't want only one account. It sounds like even with 2 accounts, you may not want to link as family and friends, because you don't want the other group to have access to your separate plans.

3) for Memory maker to capture everyone, you WILL need everyone to be listed under one account and/or multiple accounts that are linked together as family & friends. I am not certain that you can be separated for FP purposes and yet together for Memory Maker purposes. It may be possible by selecting your family/friends list and choosing the two different sharing options: "this person can view only our shared plans" (allows them to only see reservations and FPs you have in common) and "this person can view and purchase my photos" (for memory maker sharing purposes)

Sorry it seems I was more confusing than helpful! ITs direct # is 407-939-7765. They are very helpful and can make sure you are set up to share or not share info as you need it for your party!

I think you could make billions off fellow DIS planners on that hot tub time machine back to 2012!!

 

[Candleshoe]

Ok, so sorry! I was missing that you particularly WANT to be separated and thought you just felt you were required to for some reason!

1) yep, many accounts possible if desired

2) you're right, you don't want only one account. It sounds like even with 2 accounts, you may not want to link as family and friends, because you don't want the other group to have access to your separate plans.

3) for Memory maker to capture everyone, you WILL need everyone to be listed under one account and/or multiple accounts that are linked together as family & friends. I am not certain that you can be separated for FP purposes and yet together for Memory Maker purposes. It may be possible by selecting your family/friends list and choosing the two different sharing options: "this person can view only our shared plans" (allows them to only see reservations and FPs you have in common) and "this person can view and purchase my photos" (for memory maker sharing purposes)

Sorry it seems I was more confusing than helpful! ITs direct # is 407-939-7765. They are very helpful and can make sure you are set up to share or not share info as you need it for your party!

I think you could make billions off fellow DIS planners on that hot tub time machine back to 2012!!

I don't mind them SEEING our FPs, just not modifying them. And frankly if I can't modify theirs I can't be EXPECTED to modify theirs

Sounds like two MDE accounts one for each group, but both put on our room reservation, is the way to go. And then I'll make a MM account (I'm guessing) and some how link THAT to my MDE account, and say that their MDE acount is MY friend+family.

whew.
Me BEFORE (ok, it's pretty waaaay before, but still)

Me AFTER trying to figure all this out.

 

[Candleshoe]

Mikie, thank you for all of your patience and help.

chloelovesdisney, I hope you got something out of all this.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

Mikie, thank you for all of your patience and help.

chloelovesdisney, I hope you got something out of all this.

Yes but I am still confused. I will keep working on it till I get it figured out.

 

[Candleshoe]

1. RE "multiple MDEs on one room reservation" Yes, that is possible. With our 8 people in one room reservation we could, if we so wanted to, have 8 MDE accounts -- 1 per person -- all each with 1 ticket on the one account.

This does not appear to work.

Does anyone have experience with this?

1 reservation split among more than 1 MDE?

I didn't see any way to do it. I'm on hold right now, going to try to start over, cancel my reservation, delete the MDE and start from scratch.

 

[91raven]

IMO you might want to call to make your res. I normally do ours online but this time the system was down so I had to call. I was able to get a table for 8 (we have 3 diff. rooms. and get some sep. Last time We were all on one room res. I was able to book different FP and my brother could change his from his phone. It worked best for us to be together because my DS and DN had sim. interests so they could do one thing and DD and I could do something different. At one point we had 3 different FP for 8 people. Not sure if this helps or not good luck.

If I remember right I could change everyones but others could only change their family. (not post. about this- it was not a big deal for us- we did not change much )

 

[Candleshoe]

I spoke with Disney IT last night and they said they would have to set that up for me when I'm ready to.