*WDW*Groupie*
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2006
- Messages
- 2,973
See my mom and I are the exact opposite actually. We like to travel as just the two of us and doing the group tour to Southern California with ABD was a huge step out of our comfort zone. We had 24 people on the trip and even that felt too big for us. We have about the same number currently booked on our Central Europe trip in the fall. We've actually done a few tours at WDW where it was just us. I did Mickey's Magical Milestones tour with my girlfriend and we were the only ones on the tour and my mom and I did Wild by Design at AK and it was just the two of us. It was great because we could go as fast or as slow as we wanted, we didn't have to wait on others or feel like we were holding others up. I ended up taking most of the photos on our BSM ABD because my mom is not very fast when it comes to taking photos and she doesn't want to make people upset because she's holding the group up so she can take pictures. This is why I think the smaller groups on Nat Geo and the private expeditions will be good for us.
I'm somewhere between the two. The only reason we went back to ABD was so my daughter could be in the company of others during our travels. I REALLY enjoy traveling on our own (just me and my kids) because we are on our own schedule and can linger where we want and speed through other things that don't appeal to us that much.
I have checked with ABD about the ages and gender of the teens on our trip to China and I am a bit worried since there is a large number of girls in the 12 - 15 year age range. We had a bit of girl drama on our Australia trip last summer and while it by no means took away from our AMAZING trip it did make things uncomfortable and awkward (especially towards the end of the trip).
I am almost certain that for our African safari (2017) we will go on our own. ABD doesn't do a lot of the stuff we want to do (Victoria's Falls is one thing missing for us) and we want to stay at a private reserve that borders Kruger (Kapama is a 134 sq. kilometer private reserve that doesn't border any National Park). We also plan on visiting 2 different parks: one in South Africa (likely Sabi Sands which borders or Londolozi which both border Kruger) and one in either Zambia or Zimbabwe (depending on where we want to see Victoria's Falls from). It's also highly likely we will visit Tanzania to witness the great migration (since we are planning on June we will see the Northern migration) which is a huge 'bucket list' item of mine.
We will also have to do another ABD since I have a credit on file with them that they refuse to apply to our China Trip
