Tell me about your Magical Gatherings experiences!

[Fintastic]

I'm trying to get a bunch of family members together for a Magical Gathering for Christmas 2009. (I was trying to get them for this year, but DH has a new job and can't get the time off. So . . . ugh . . . we have to put it off till next year!) Can anybody give me some advice or share stories about their own Magical Gatherings? Pictures are welcome too!

 

[Ninnygunk]

Oh I'd like to hear about that too - I think we're gonna try to get a family trip sometime next year too.

 

[jinia]

We have a Grand Gathering of 8 going in late Aug. and had a hard time finding out extra info. Will be watching too.......We booked the Safari thing for after AK closes....Would love to hear from people who have done this recently.

 

[nswift]

I am looking forward to some responses....

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

We have done a magical gathering before. Pretty much all it does is allow your group to be eligible to participate in certain things like a safari dinner, illuminations dinner/dessert, Wishes cruise and a character breakfast. They also tell you that you can customize your event-but I'm not brave enough to see what the cost of that stuff might be. Of course you pay salty for participating in any of the magical gathering events, but they are nice to do.

We are part of another magical gathering for Christmas this year and doing a few activities. We are doing the Illuminations dinner and dessert show and then the safari dinner. We are also reserving the Chef's Domain at Citrico's, but we organized the ourselves and not through the magical gatherings.

 

[teresajoy]

We got back last month from a trip with 15 family members. We didn't do any official Magical Gathering events, but we had a lot of fun!

(My sister and I are writing trip reports, if you want to read about it)

 

[letthewookiewin]

sub'ing for good advice.
I am planning a Grand Gathering for 9 for October 2009.

 

[pjynx]

When we went 3 years ago, there were 26 of us in the group. We did a Wishes Fireworks cruise. I'm not sure of the exact name of it. But they had us all meet at the Contemporary (I think?) for a dessert buffet to start it. They had a room set up with several tables filled with all kinds of yummy desserts. Then a couple of pirates, along with Captain Hook and Mr Smee arrived and did pictures and autographs. Everyone got a Magical Gathering Fireworks Cruise pin. Then we went down to the boats. The pirates stayed on the boats with us (not Captain Hook or Smee). The pirates entertained us with pirate jokes, trivia and songs while we were cruising. Then we got to watch the Water Parade and Wishes from the lagoon. When we got back to the dock, Peter Pan greeted us and hung around for pics and autographs. It was a really fun evening!

I was not the one who organized it though. Someone else in our group arranged the whole thing so I don't know what she had to do to do it. I'm assuming just called the Magical Gatherings number and told them our trip dates and the number of people. I don't remember how much it cost either. It was expensive, but not unreasonable. Well worth it!