Traveling With Large Family

[missourimomof3]

Any tips on traveling with extended family? Our trip consists of DH, myself, our 3 kids, my mom, my kid sister, and my aunt (my aunt is a Disney Veteran). We've booked separate rooms at AoA for end of Oct/first of Nov. Do we appoint a "leader"? Do we split up? Looking for advice to keep the stress level down and make this trip enjoyable.

 

[OKW Lover]

Group dynamics are difficult to predict at best.

Suggest that you don't try to schedule things too tightly and visit the parks like the borg. Instead, say something like "we're headed to Epcot tomorrow morning at 8:30", or "we're going to view Illuminations tonight from the bridge between France and the UK". Let folks come with you if they please, but don't get dragged down waiting for the group to assemble and move.

 

[msp2mco]

OKW Lover gave good advice! We have gone on a few extended family trips and they've been a lot of fun. My husband and I were the planners and leaders. Before the trip, we gave everyone a survey to have them pick their top things they wanted to do in each park. Then we tried to organize it around everyone being able to do their top 3 things in each park. There was tons of overlap, so that was easy to accomplish. We split up when that made the most sense. Since none of the extended family had been there before, we were also able to strategically guide the group into not wasting a lot of time. We usually stayed together for a couple of hours in the morning and met up again for dinner. We have found it is hard for a big group of 10 or more to stay together without inconveniencing others in the group--someone always has to go to the bathroom and everyone waits for them; another person ducks into a shop to look at something and everyone waits for them.

The next time we took this same group, we still organized stuff and just announced when we were leaving to do XYZ and anyone wanting to come with us was welcome to do so.

We also found it fun to regroup at night to hear what everyone had done or experienced. Sometimes we had themes to our nights. Then the last night, we gave out goofy awards and everyone received something.

For my own sanity, it is good to have alone time too.

Have fun!

 

[MistressMerryweather]

Group dynamics are difficult to predict at best.

Suggest that you don't try to schedule things too tightly and visit the parks like the borg. Instead, say something like "we're headed to Epcot tomorrow morning at 8:30", or "we're going to view Illuminations tonight from the bridge between France and the UK". Let folks come with you if they please, but don't get dragged down waiting for the group to assemble and move.

Yes, yes to the bold part. Your vacation will not be fun if you try to coordinate everything with everyone. Think simple daily meet-ups.

 

[natfrac]

We usually travel as a "pack", which includes adult children, parents, and grandparents. We usually plan to all be at one park during the day and we'll regroup periodically, but we always meet up for dinner to spend some time together. Then the younger folks will stay in the park while the older ones are usually done for the day and will head back to their room.