Travelling in a large group....help!!

[Sue F UK]

We've taken the plunge and invited my family to join us in Florida next Feb - there will be 16 of us all together (9 adults and 7 children) God help us all!!!!

Has anyone got any advice about how to handle travelling and going to the parks in a large group on a budget - we are staying in a private villa so accommodation is no problem - the logistics are what's bothering me now.

 

[Wellard Stallard]

Hi Sue

Wow you have you're work cut out don't you. Mind you I'm a glutton for punishment I am going in October for 3 weeks and there are 12 in our group, so I'm new at all this. Like you we have booked a 7 bedroom villa so our accommodation is not a problem. We did have problems trying to book a direct flight, not one company could accommodate us. So we have had to have a stop off which we didn't want. I can't help you with advice on once you get there but one thing we are adamant about is as there are 4 families going we are all having our own car so we can each do our own thing. That way there are no arguments. It will probably be a testing time but we are certainly going to enjoy ourselves. So happy planning and good luck.

Paula

 

[WDWfan uk]

....... I was going to say the same as Paula - have enough transport to ensure that people can do their on thing when they want to. I was speaking to a family who went with very good friends of theirs and only had one (big) car for all. They felt very shortchanged that they couldn't do what they wanted to in the evenings.
Also be careful about making times to meet up in the parks - if you need to do this, chose a cafe : somewhere where the others can sit with a drink in the shade.
Also you might consider having two way radios.

 

[Disney owl]

Again have separate cars, we rented a villa last year with another family & found that this worked out the best. My DH couldn't haved coped with waiting for others to get ready to leave in the morning. It would have ruined his holiday.

We each had our plans which included meeting up at pre-arranged times & days spending some time together & then going our separate ways. eg on our first morning we all went to Animal Kingdom but we got there an hour & half before our friends. We met & went to Donalds Breakfastsaurus together. This worked well as our children were much older than theirs & wanted to do many more rides.


We also went out for several meals together including our other charector meal.

 

[Sue F UK]

Thanks for the replies everyone. We are booking two vans to get us all around and will probably end up going to all the parks in convoy! As most of the kids are teenagers I think we will just 'cut them loose' at the park gates and meet up somewhere later.

Great tip about the two way radios though. I know it's been covered many times before but does anyone know how much these cost?

 

[woody2]

Diffently get as many cars as there are familys!
We went away with Best friends to a villia and we had one big Mini Van thing.
Well letts just say that we don't talk to the other family now We had very very differant ways of having a good hoilday. It just causes to many problems with people wanting to do there own things.

GET AS MANY CARS AS YOU CAN.

We bought two multi channel motorola two way radios for $80.00 for the two.
VERY USEFULL WE USED THEM ALL THE TIME IN THE PARKS.