Tips for Traveling with Friends

[Turn the Page]

Our next trip is coming up in August and we are traveling with my mom, my DN, and one of my moms friends and her DGD. I have met the friend many times in the past and she is great. I haven't met the DGD but she is the same age as DD6 so that should be fun.

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how everything happened. Mom and I were figuring out were to stay and all of a sudden she said the friend wanted to go. Ok cool, that will be fun. We told the friend where we would be staying and what her portion of the room would be (obviously needed to upgrade to a bigger room with 2 extra people) and she thought her portion of the room was the total amount we would all be splitting. When she discovered that was not the case she started pressuring us to stay off site at a rental home (not bashing off site rental homes at all, that's just not what we had planned to do). When my mom agreed to restructure how we were splitting the room rate so the friend paid less than the original amount she agreed to go. We are staying in a 2 bdrm villa at SSR so there will be room for everybody.

I was browsing various sites this weekend looking for the best deal on park tickets and found a good deal on Park Savers so I called my mom and asked her if she had ordered DN's tickets yet and gave her the link. She then called her friend and told her about it and told her the price of the Child's 5 day MYW Hopper pass with water parks ($366 pretty dang good if you ask me) and her response was "EACH!?!?!?!"

I asked my mom this morning if she had done any research before deciding to come since she seems shocked at all the prices (granted, we have all had sticker shock when pricing Disney vacations but still). Mom said probably not. I said I hoped that it met her expectations and she said it will since she has been before. Granted, prices have gone up a lot but it's not as if Disney World was cheap when she took her kids probably 10 - 15 years ago. I'm a little worried it will end up being complaints the whole time.

What are your best tips for traveling with friends?

 

[ebradley23]

I think now is the time to lay out your budget so she isn't blindsided. It sounds to me like she is expecting this trip to cost much less than it is. It will be really bad when you are there and she starts trying to get you to cut out ADRs to save $$. Worst case you guys can give her an idea of cost then let her knowl that you can separate for meals and other extras if she wants to save some money. It's better to go into with the plan to separate than have to make that call when you are there.

You may also try to give her an out. Let her know you can go back to a smaller room if she has reconsidered due to cost. But, let her know you need to know ASAP, so you can plan accordingly.

 

[bookgirl]

Just Don't.........

But seriously, you may have to go with the expectation that it's not going to be your perfect trip and it's not going to be their perfect trip. When there is more than one group each are going to have to compromise. However after giving her a cut rate on the room I don't know that I'd be giving her anymore 'discounts'. If she's not prepared to cough up the money you don't want to spend your entire trip with her complaining about price and you or you mom having to foot their bill. Which may be what she will expect. Make sure you're clear that the cost is her responsibility, but that you are willing to plan for the least expensive options.

 

[Turn the Page]

I think now is the time to lay out your budget so she isn't blindsided. It sounds to me like she is expecting this trip to cost much less than it is. It will be really bad when you are there and she starts trying to get you to cut out ADRs to save $$. Worst case you guys can give her an idea of cost then let her knowl that you can separate for meals and other extras if she wants to save some money. It's better to go into with the plan to separate than have to make that call when you are there.

You may also try to give her an out. Let her know you can go back to a smaller room if she has reconsidered due to cost. But, let her know you need to know ASAP, so you can plan accordingly.

We can't go back to a smaller room, there are 8 of us. We wanted a room with a full kitchen because we are planning to use it. It doesn't work for everybody but we prefer having a kitchen and getting a grocery delivery and making the majority of our meals in the room.

The original price of her portion of the room was $1000 for 7 nights. She thought that was for all 8 of us and she would only have to pay like $200 - $300 or so. My mom told her from the get go it was a 2 bedroom suite with a full kitchen and such on property. I'm not sure why she thought a 2 bedroom suite for a week would be $1000 but whatever. My mom explained to her that the total cost of the room was much more and we refigured what everyone would pay and dropped her portion down to $600 so she agreed to that. Now she is fussing about the price of park tickets. She was also fussing about the cost of adding the water park onto her ticket reasoning her DGD would be just as happy in the pool which is likely true. My mom kind of talked her into that one, hopefully she doesn't regret adding it on.

I told my mom a few times that we can book fastpasses in late June so if her friend wants to book those she should have her tickets by then. Today I think my mom basically threw her hands up in the air and said hey, I told her when we could book fastpasses, I gave her the link to the discounted park tickets, the rest is up to her. If she doesn't want to get the same number of days worth of passes as us or doesn't want to book fastpasses or whatever that's fine, she can do her own thing.

And it is fine. I'm just hoping the "doing her own thing" doesn't come with a bunch of complaining too.

 

[Mikie]

I can't tell if she was just surprised by these pieces (let's face it, lots of sticker shock on a Disney trip!) or if she's a natural born complainer. My sis in law wasn't unbearable on our extended family WDW trip, but she did find fault with a lot (kids too tired, food too expensive, nitpicking service, etc). As I had been the planner, it's was irritating - I tried to suggest splitting up, changing plans on the go if things weren't working, but she insisted on sticking it out yet finding fault. At the end, I knew it wasn't a horrible trip for her, but surely got the impression she'd be "one and done". . . Back home she immediately started talking about "our next Disney trip"! Point there is to try to give as much advance info as possible then let everything roll off your back while there!! I think if you truly can say that she was informed and not blindsided (we're all going to dinner at CRT every day, here's your bill!) then you'll be better able to shrug it off as her choice if she has complaints.

Definitely work out a budget: meals in room X # of days; snacks in park X # of people X days; planned in-park meals X average price or actual menu prices; souvenirs; any add-on activities you plan on. If you share your budget it can help get the grumbling out before the trip rather than on it

Plan ahead of time on some apart time from each other. Don't wait until you're bugging each other before you plan a break. Half or whole days on your own, certain meal on your own, naps in your own room, etc

Is she familiar at all with FP+ and the Disney planning? It's weird to a lot of people to even think about food and rides ahead of time, so you may need to tell her a bit about how you intend to approach planning. "They have FP now and it's very crowded, I plan to follow a touring plan, arrive early, schedule some rides/shows" OR "even though they have planning tools now and some people follow a kind of schedule, we don't tour that way but you may want to look into it or else we may miss some in-demand attractions"

The more you can share ahead of time, the better. Let her see what you've got in mind and make it clear it's ok and even expected to not stick together 100% of the time.

 

[rwdavis2]

I think you will regret it with her complaining about prices the whole time. Maybe you, Mom, and friend should have a meeting to set expectations. Personally, I would not do it. There's no way I would spend that much money and not enjoy the trip, which is a possibility.

 

[buzznina]

The very first thing that I would have done, once I found out she was planning on going, was to find the cost of everything, with options, and show it to her before making any decisions. You cannot expect everyone to be as into it and do the homework like most of us on DIS Like PP has mentioned, you need to all sit down and discuss everything before making these decisions. i.e. a 2 bdrm only has 2 real beds, so what will the sleeping arrangements be and so on? JMO

 

[Turn the Page]

The very first thing that I would have done, once I found out she was planning on going, was to find the cost of everything, with options, and show it to her before making any decisions. You cannot expect everyone to be as into it and do the homework like most of us on DIS Like PP has mentioned, you need to all sit down and discuss everything before making these decisions. i.e. a 2 bdrm only has 2 real beds, so what will the sleeping arrangements be and so on? JMO

Unfortunately we already kind of had everything planned and then all of a sudden she wants to come too. It meant we had to change the room from what we had originally planned to the 2 bdrm villa which was fine, but it is a bit frustrating to have a trip planned and then her saying she wants to come and try to change everything to fit what she wants and complaining about the price of everything.

I think I will suggest my mom call her and kind of have a heart to heart about what we have planned and ask her what she wants to do.

We are going to request a dedicated 2 bedroom unit which has 3 beds and half the people going are kids so they can sleep on the pull out couches with no issues. Again, something that had already been discussed and decided upon before said friend decided she was coming.

 

[verleniahall]

And it is fine. I'm just hoping the "doing her own thing" doesn't come with a bunch of complaining too.

I hope not for your sake! Good Luck and have a fun trip

 

[kj2mom]

I think your mom has the right idea. Pass along all of the info for what you guys are doing and then leave the ball in her court. Just be 100% sure that she is not expecting you to do it. Can you imagine when you go to enter a park and she says, but I thought you got our tickets!

In terms of the complaining, just a note from my experience. We traveled with another family last summer. The mom and I are friends and our twins are friends. Their twins were turning 13 on the 4th of July so we decided to go to Disney together. I got my ex-inlaws (they still love me) to use their time share points on a place only to find out the other family was bringing another person so we had to change to a different place ($200 more for the week but no big deal). About 2 months after doing that the other family decided to stay on site so I had to give them their money back and myself and my two children (13) got a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom time share completely to ourselves. Once I got over the sticker shock (I had to give her back a little over $400) in the end it was really nice for us all to have our own bathrooms. It made getting ready in the morning sooo easy! I had made our ADR's (with the other family's approval) and I swear at every meal there was something wrong. It was complaint after complaint. I learned to just let it roll off my back because I was not letting her take away my joy of this trip with my children and I was not letting them take over my mood! About a week after we returned (we live 5 hours away) I got a text from my friend saying how much she missed the food at Disney. I couldn't help literally laughing out loud because during the week we were there I felt like they literally hated everything. In the end, I think the small complaints are just that to them, small complaints while for me I added them all up making complaint, complaint, complaint. What I am trying to say is while they were complaining, I guess they really were having a great time?? I am glad I turned it into a bit of a joke about what they would complain about rather than get grumpy about it.

 

[Imagineer5]

We took a trip with family in June 2013. It was 4 couples plus 3 kids (IL's, SIL/DH, SIL/DH and two teenage boys, and me/DH and our then 1 year old). We planned the trip together from the start, but since I am the planner in the group I took the lead. With the large number of people, we did stay offsite in a rental house ($800 for a 6 bedroom with a private pool) - I love staying onsite but with so many people and varying budgets, this worked out.

From there, I made plans as if it were just my DH,DD and myself since we had AP's. I emailed everyone the tentative schedule and asked what they wanted to do as a group / separately including ADR's. We all had varying budgets as I said, and while I will not cook on vacation, most of the family utilized the kitchen - so we ended up having 1 shared meal with everyone (Ohana), 1 shared meal with mostly everyone (Biergarten) and a couple meals with one other group (Crystal Palace, Cape May dinner). We had a few park days together, and a number of them separate.

What I'm getting at is, laying out the plan up front is necessary - even moreso now with pre-booking FP's. Getting an idea of how much time she plans to spend in the parks, if there are any ADR's she wants to go to, etc will make for a much more successful trip. ALSO if she seems to WANT to do everything with you guys - make sure you plan in separate time just in case that time together starts to wear on you. You'll want separate family time either way, I'm sure.

And remember she can always add the park hopper / water park options, extra days, etc so if she opts for a base ticket to book those days' fast passes, and then when you're there decides to go to a water park with you guys, she can add that option in.

 

[capegirl]

Since a Disney trip pretty much hinges on intense planning, IMO there is nothing worse than having to deal with someone who has suddenly decided to join you on your vacation. PPs have given you excellent advise about laying out costs and plans upfront. Most people are shocked when they are informed about ticket, and meal prices, and I think many people assume that 'sharing' a vacation with others will somehow be less expensive. Delaying the ticket purchase is another issue that I have encountered...if they wait too long they may be unable to secure popular FPs. This is when their problem becomes your problem when you look at their disappointed faces once they realize that they cannot join you on 7DMT or Soarin'. I've had to try to add people on to our FPs at the last minute, but this is not always successful for popular attractions. I have also run into problems with people who expect me to be their personal tour guide, and are attached to my hip for the entire trip. Everyone needs their own space to do their own thing when on a group vacation; work this into your plans. It can work, and be a great time for all when expectations are discussed before you leave home. Best of luck!

 

[BDL]

Spend a lot of time at EPCOT and drink the noise away.

 

[STEAMBOAT209]

I would also go over the food purchasing. Everyone site down and discuss the menu for each evening meal. Determine what breakfast foods to be purchased and drinks and snacks for evening, estimating the cost for each and coming up with a total. Divide the total by the number of people in the room x how many in your group. This is how much it will cost, granted, this is just an estimate until the actual shopping is done, but at least everyone will have an idea of how much they need to cover for there share. We did this in April, for a group 8, it worked out fine. The next issue will be,,,, who will cook?,,,,,,