Upcoming 50th Anniversary

[decarop]

Need some expert help on this one.
October of 2011 my one and only love will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. And I would like to surprise her with a short trip to WDW.
Our home resort is SSR and I figured I can pretty easily get rooms in mid October with not too much difficulty. It would be over a weekend - long one though. Maybe Thursday thru Sunday.
Okay so here's the difficulty I'm dealing with.
I want the whole family to join us in the celebration. That will mean sleeping quarters in some form of the following configuration.
DW & myself
DD with her DH & teenage daughter & son - 17 & 12 respectively
DS with his DW & younger daughter & son - 8 & 5 respectively
DS with unknown significant other possible

My best guess would be for 2 2-bedrooms at SSR. Maybe 2 3-bedrooms at THV. Thought about a Grand Villa, but I don't think that will work for us. The younger ones will want to be with their parents.

Also would like to get some ideas on arranging a nice celebration for the gang at one of the parks. You know a special dinner, etc.

I'm open for some ideas.

Thanks

 

[llrain]

My wife and I had our rehearsal dinner at Ohana's for dinner. It was an absolute blast and a wonderful atmosphere for having a "party" type dinner.

Also on the night of our wedding we surprised everyone with a special treat.
After the reception we all jumped on our charter bus, We told everyone we were heading back to each resort to drop everyone off, but took a b line straight backstage at epcot.
When we got backstage, we said, by the way, before we drop you off we
have arranged a special treat as a thank you all for coming this far to florida.
We booked a dessert party for illuminations. It was the greatest Disney thing
we have ever done. The night will never be forgotten.

All these years we have wanted to do the dessert party but had no reason to or at least 20 people to do it..but this was the perfect time ....

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

Congratulations on making it to 50 years!

 

[ToddyLu]

Illuminations cruise, nice dinner at Cali Grill then fireworks ( they have a private room to the right of where you walk out of the observation deck), tickets to MNSSHP for everyone to go together?

 

[dlm1017]

congrats on your 50th! My dh and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary in October 2011 also! we are planning a Disney cruise followed by a stay at AKV. I also have been trying to find something special to do. I checked into the vow renewals at Disney and they are just wayyyy to expensive to do, although if money was no object I would consider it But I think we may have a nice dinner somewhere in the Mk resort area ( Kona is our favorite) then rent the Grand 1 for a wishes fireworks cruise. I am checking into ordering an anniversary cake from the Grand Floridian bakery ( I believe they will deliver it to the boat) I think it would hold the amount of people you will be bringing but you would need to check.

Congratulations again and I hope that in another 25yrs I will be spending our anniversary in Disney!
Dana

 

[adminjedi]

Illuminations cruise, nice dinner at Cali Grill then fireworks ( they have a private room to the right of where you walk out of the observation deck), tickets to MNSSHP for everyone to go together?

We've had the private room to the left of the Kitchen at California Grill.

We are having a grand gathering of 16 people to celebrate our parents 50th July 2011. We are gifting 5 nights at AKV for everyone to be able to afford the trip!

I think I will look into the private dessert party at Illuminations. Wondering if that is the patio area off of Rose & Crown? Unfortunately, the Illuminations boats only allow 11 or 12, and wouldn't want to separate the group on two boats.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Since others are giving you great ideas for celebrations, I'll address the sleeping arrangements.

You don't say if you prefer to be close to all or if you want your privacy. I guess if it was me, I'd probably want most together, but that's me. You are talking about 12 people (if the unattached one becomes attached before that time) possible. A GV at SSR might be cramped, but doable, and a GV at OKW will be very doable, since they should have the sleeper chair in the living room along with the sofa. I would probably have the couple with the younger children have one room with two beds so they could be together as a family. Then I'd give the others some choices. They could have one couple plus one teen in the other bedroom while one teen and the unattached son could have the living room. Of course, I can see some if not all the participants not being happy with the arrangements, so in that case, I'd probably get a 2 bedroom and share it with whichever family chooses to share with you. Then I'd get studios for the others.

 

[Muhlenberg]

Congratulations on 50 years!!!

Part of your celebration could be dinner at one of the restaurants in the Grand Floridian. The Grand Floridian Bakery makes cakes to die for!

We had a small celebration for my parents' 60th at the GF Cafe. The cake was out of this world!

Here's a picture of the cake (just one example of what they can do)...

 

[hopare]

Congrats! What a wonderful thing you are planning!

I like the idea of two THV. Extra bedrooms for more privacy

 

[decarop]

Thanks all for the comments and the help.
I knew I asked the right folks

The desert party sounds like a really great thing to do.
Also dinner at the GF might work well.

A few Christmases ago we had a large gathering at O'Hana and I wasn't all that pleased with the food and I think it's too impersonal for what I have in mind. Although the grandkids had a good time, so there's always that.

I really like the idea of the THV 3 bedroom villas. I think that might be the way to go if we can't work out a couple of SSV 2 bedrooms. I would like us all to be together. When we had our family Christmas celebration 12 years ago in OKW we put 16 of us in a GV and had a blast. The family stills talks about the great time we all had. That was when we only had 1 grandchild. What a special Christmas that was.

Can't thank you folks enough for your input.

Stay well and be happy.

 

[Halle]

DH and I are celebrating our 35th anniversary with our DD and DSIL,DS and DDIL, DS, DDIL and grandbaby, DS and his soon to be fiance. We booked BWGV and 2 SS's. I called to book the Illuminations cruise and was told that FLorida law is only 10 people on the boat. I told him we were 10 adults and 1 infant....nope can't do it. We were bummed but didn't want to split up.