Planning Anxiety

If 10 people are going to WDW together (I believe) it is going to be hard to please all at all times. I would plan on doing some dividing up and meeting up etc. To think 10 people will be lockstep with a variety of ages and likes and dislikes is a lot. When I plan for a group I make a master spreadsheet for all. I have column one as the day and date, column two what we are doing for each meal, column three what park we will be in and what fastpasses we have (yes, I know there are not fastpasses now), and column four miscellaneous. Everyone can look at the spreadsheet and give input BUT we do not start discussions and share input without a starting scaffold in front of us. That would be a nightmare!!! We make adjustments, all share input, and we come up with a final plan. Girls do not like Mission Space so we go do Spaceship Earth while the guys do Space. Girls go do Beauty and the Beast while guys do Areosmith. Girls may do a spa day while guys do a pub crawl. One time half of us went to Sunday Brunch at the Contemporary and the others wanted to go to Whispering Canyon. Some have done a tour while others have done cocktail/pool time. AND we sometimes make adjustments while we are at WDW. Per meals we have some that wish to eat three times a day and others skip breakfast so we factor this in. Per the kids and sneakers - do they really need? If they do this would be a decision you have to make no matter. Yes, you will forget something BUT is it the end of the world? You will be at the most Magical Place on Earth!! PS. Go to Pinterest and search for WDW packing list. This will help. Your Mom may need breaks and r and r throughout and their may be grandkids that can go from sun up to park close. If this trip is for your Mom and family to make wonderful memories build the scaffold of the trip around Mom and then add to it. (I had an emergency out-patient surgery four days before we were to go to WDW five years ago. We did not cancel. Yes, I had pain killers and adjusted greatly what I could do BUT it was more fun to be at WDW with the warm FL temps than being in cold OH with snow. I did more people watching than ever but it was all good. My only complaint was being so tired. There were times I had to sleep and could not keep up but with cell phones and great Dinsey transportation I could easily find people.) Some peope would not ever do this but it works for us: We take half as many clothes as we need and have one night of down time to hang out at the pool and do laundry. It saves us dragging so much luggage around and makes travel easier. We pack Tide pods in our tennis shoes and have for laundry night.

Our first trip was 10 (me, husband and two kids, my mil/fil, sil, sil/bil and their son) and while I was excited to finally get to go (mine and kids first trip) I much preferred our second trip (just my husband and kids). It's true you'll never make everyone happy. Maybe ask for everyone's top request RE ride, restaurant, characters, and see how many you can fit in. My mil planned our first trip and I'll never do a big family trip again. I get why you're going with your Mom, I hope you have a good time with her!
 
I'm the planner in our family and have spreadsheets and lists and all that. I LOVE planning Disney trips! We went for my mom's 60th and my 30th 4 years ago and there were 9 of us. I just shared my spreadsheets with them whenever I made updates, like with dining or fast passes (when they existed). And I asked if there were any "must dos" on their list and included those. For the most part, everyone was very appreciative of not having to worry about all the details... and we all had an amazing trip!

We are *finally* going back to WDW in July and I turned into the anxious planner too! With all the unknowns and rules changing every week, my afraid to make any crazy plans since I'm not sure what will happen between now and July! It's been so hard!!
 
Just plan the basics:

1. Resort rooms
2. Tickets
3. Park reservations
4. At 60 days out, up to one ADR per day
5. Make sure your immediate family has great, broken in shoes, plenty of masks, and clothing that fits.
6. Make sure you have a plan to carry anything you want to carry to the parks.

Done!

Your mom has stage four cancer! She wants a trip to enjoy her family, that’s her priority. The details of which ride when, or at all, don’t matter. With ten, you can’t control everything. Folks will split up and hang together as they feel like it. Maybe try to plan one point in each day when folks gather. Maybe it’s a meal, maybe it’s time for a group photo, maybe it’s a ride. Don’t make it too early or too late in the day to accommodate different sleeping patterns. Shoot, I sometimes travel as a group of 5, but that’s two little family units. Even we can’t handle more than that in pre planning. But we always find enough time to enjoy our together time because we that’s why we are traveling together in the first place.
 












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