Multi Family Vacation

[takemetothemouse]

I’m planning a vacation for next year. It will include my family of 4 (mom, dad, 4 year & 16 month old) plus another family of 4 (mom, dad, 3 & 4 year old). My family plans to stay at Poly but the other family doesn’t want to spend as much so are looking more toward Riverside. My family enjoyed CRT during our last visit but won’t be doing many character meals because in my opinion, they aren’t worth the money. We will probably spend most of the vacation together. Anything we should definitely do with 4 small children? All are girls but the 16 month old so we’ll be pretty princes oriented. How hard is it going to be for us to get together staying at 2 different resorts? Has anyone done it before, split up a group between resorts like this? What was your experience?

 

[NYCgrrl]

I’m planning a vacation for next year. It will include my family of 4 (mom, dad, 4 year & 16 month old) plus another family of 4 (mom, dad, 3 & 4 year old). My family plans to stay at Poly but the other family doesn’t want to spend as much so are looking more toward Riverside. My family enjoyed CRT during our last visit but won’t be doing many character meals because in my opinion, they aren’t worth the money. We will probably spend most of the vacation together. Anything we should definitely do with 4 small children? All are girls but the 16 month old so we’ll be pretty princes oriented. How hard is it going to be for us to get together staying at 2 different resorts? Has anyone done it before, split up a group between resorts like this? What was your experience?

I don't know where Riverside is in relation to any parks or the monorail hotels but a meeting place should be easy enough to arrange. We stayed at Poly while family stayed at GF and some of our meeting spots were restaurants at either resort, the monorail platform, various landmarks at the parks like the Mickey and Walt statue. Remember, probably all the adults will have cell phones so it's easy enough to remain in contact.

As for what four princesses should do I'm sure others can say better than I; never been to WDW with children in that age group.

Have fun!

 

[starry_solo]

POR is a boat ride away from DS.
Getting together in the parks shouldn't be too difficult. I suggest meeting at the parks since they dont have resort to resort transportation (free)

Princesses: make fast passes for the meet and greets, Enchanted Tales with belle (FP probably not needed), etc. I did enjoy the character meal at Trattoria al Forno at the Boardwalk so that might be an idea as you'll meet Rapunzel and Flynn and Ariel and Eric.

 

[takemetothemouse]

POR is a boat ride away from DS.
Getting together in the parks shouldn't be too difficult. I suggest meeting at the parks since they dont have resort to resort transportation (free)

Princesses: make fast passes for the meet and greets, Enchanted Tales with belle (FP probably not needed), etc. I did enjoy the character meal at Trattoria al Forno at the Boardwalk so that might be an idea as you'll meet Rapunzel and Flynn and Ariel and Eric.

I figured we would definitely have to meet at the parks. But I did not know that you could meet Flynn Rider. My daughter is obsessed with Tangled, that will make such a great surprise!! How exciting!

 

[starry_solo]

I figured we would definitely have to meet at the parks. But I did not know that you could meet Flynn Rider. My daughter is obsessed with Tangled, that will make such a great surprise!! How exciting!

There's a menu out on the net. Food is good. It's $34 for adults and $20 for children.

 

[kiramay]

We stay at POR most of the time. I’d just meet them at the parks.

Akershus, 1900 Park Fare, and Trattoria... are “reasonably priced” princess meals. (compared to CRT). I have 3 boys and they loved 1900 PF.

It’s not easy to plan a multi family trip. I have 3-4 families going for Thanksgiving and fast pass planning is stressing me out. Lol

 

[Deb & Bill]

Just don't plan on a swim day together unless you both spring for the water parks. You cannot swim at each other's pool.

 

[Wild4Walt]

We did a family trip a few years ago where we all had a few different agendas. The 2 things we agreed on every day was 1. ) what park we would do and 2.) that we get together for one main meal a day.

Last year we met up with family just for a day at MK - they got their at 10a and because we were driving from Fort Myers we got there around 4p. We made a FP for 530p and then did the parks together from there.

 

[Neverbeast]

If you can’t get everyone the same set of FP try to stagger and overlap them. As long as they have an overlapping period you can all still enter and ride together during the overlap even though technically you have several different FP times.

Try to use rider swap strategically to allow pairs of adults to get a few big rides in. Everyone checks in to, say, Everest, then the two dads enter the lines while both moms take kids to do some wilderness explorer stops. When dads come back moms get to ride and dads take kids to potty and diaper change.

We did a trip with friends and ended up in different resorts and it was fine except for pools!