Family Reunion

[all4wdw]

We have close to 30 family members meeting up at WDW for a family reunion over Thanksgiving. There will be children from age 1 to 16 plus parents and grandparents. As some of us only see each other every few years, we really want to maximize visting time but need to balance it with park touring time. We are wondering what some of your best ideas are for this. We have all been to WDW 8+ times so are pretty familiar with the layout. We realize in no way can we spend the whole day touring together but really want to spend some time together. Maybe meet for 1 meal a day? Help!!! Thanks.

 

[tmfranlk]

I am planning a silimar trip for 2004. We will have 35-40 people ranging from 2-75. My plan is to schedule one family activity per day. Some days will be meals. Other days will be the night shows, i.e. Fantasmic, Illuminations, etc.

I am thinking about planning an Illuminations dessert party. I think the price is about $20 per person and you get a private viewing area (that lower area near France and the International Gateway) plus food.

I think mixing events with meals will be the best way to go for us since it will vary the expense and times we meet. Also, to plan 7 meals for a group that large would be more diffiicult. You would have to go through group sales, make a deposit, etc.

Good luck.

 

[zurgswife]

I planned a trip for my inlaws 50th anniv. for the entire familiy 25ppl. about 6 years ago.. I think the greatest thing we did was stay at the CBR. We were in Martinque bldg 26. All of the rooms were around the court yard...which was great cause that meant we had a hang out area that all felt comfortable, No one was having to stay up late cause someone else was in there room.

We did have a catered dinner for there anniversery at the Y& BC...Disney did a wonderful job.

I did book all the rooms at the same time with there group cordiinator(sp). Didn't get a discount and got poor service..I think if I tried again I'd go through a travel agent to try to get a discount.

 

[Belle1962]

We did this over Thanksgiving 2000. Some of the things I did:

I sent a monthly newsletter to the family. Each month was a different topic (food tips--how to book a ps, when to book a ps, budget ideas, etc., each park had month with tips and touring plans, a tentative itinerary).

For the itinerary-- I planned one I would use and then just shared it with everyone with the caveat--this is OUR family's plan for touring the parks. You are encouraged to use it or use your own schedule. The only thing that was an absolute was Hollywood and Vine and Thanksgiving Day.

We started the week off with PS for the ice cream social in EPCOT. I made several PS's--one for each family. (that way a--I did not have to book as a group and pre-pay and b--if someone was ano show it didn't hold up the rest of the groups). We then had Illuminations cruises one evening. Then we had ps for Thanksgiving Dinner. These were the only "mandatory" get togethers.

Since almost everyone followed the plan I had sent and the advice to be early early early we would usually run into each other at the parks. From there we winged it as to if we would hang together for a while or not. I also worked into each plan a "meeting"/usually a meal. I'd put something like "Cosmic Ray's for lunch at 11:30). Those who followed the plans were usually there and we could visit a bit.

Oh yeah--another group outing was Monday night to ESPN to see the football game. The guys all went and us girls visited (at Ghiradelli's in Downtown Disney).

Cell phones were a life saver.

I also printed a listing of who was staying where and the main phone number for each place, and each group's cell phone number.

 

[lgrover]

We just had our family reunion 2 weeks ago. There were 14 of us (ranging from 4 to 66). One sister has been to WDW 4 times, the rest of us either once or not at all. My parents paid for the trip and the one stipulation was that we all meet every night for dinner. The problem was that you can't make PS's for large groups past 6 PM. We had 5:00 ressies most nights. This was difficult for me because I had the littlest kids (7 & 4), the rest were 12 - 18. My family did very little touring and was late almost every night for dinner. My dad really wanted the family to be together once a day to talk and compare notes. (Why bother going at the same time if we weren't going to see each other). I found it very stressfull trying to tour and be at dinner by 5. Most of our ressies (3 out of 7) were at Epcot. The first night we did ESPN since they don't take PS. One night was Rain Forest at AK, Hoo De Doo, and Citrico's at GF.

Hindsite, we would have been better off either meeting for breakfast or later at night (like around 8:30 since the parks close early).