We first spent the first 8 nights in an OKW GV and a studio split between 7 adults and 6 kids, 5 and under(1/11 - 1/19/04) DH's parents, brother and sister and their families.
My friends from Miami came up with their 2 boys for 5 nights over the long weekend and I reserved another studio for them. We were all in the same building. Unfortunately, except for one breakfast and 1/2 a day at the MK, we didn't get to see them much. One of their boys came down with a fever and they decided to quarrantine their kids from our group of 6 kids, just in case.
The GV was very nice. There were a few maintenance problems that were fixed almost immediately after a quick call to maintenance. Didn't know they were open until midnight until I had to call at 10:30pm one night (expected to leave a message) to report a sudden and serious leak under the kitchen sink.
It was a family reunion to celebrate my DD's 5th birthday. It was NOT a relaxing trip. DH and I have decided NEVER to invite any of his family again. The kids had a good time. But everyone else got on DH's nerves and to a lesser degree on mine. DH does NOT enjoy spending time with his immediate family, which is funny because he really enjoys spending time with all his uncles and aunt and their families. But since we had never vacationed with his siblings before and he thought to give it a chance for the sake of the kids who are all cousins.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a disaster or anything. But our collective personalities don't gel to well. Different priorities and vacationing styles too. Except for DH's parents, none of his siblings or their kids have ever been before. It took them forever to get out the door in the mornings or for our one dinner out. They got to the parks when the kids were already tired and ready for naps and had to stop every hour for snacks and breaks. After spending one park day with them (for the kids), we ditched them at AK on the next park day to get back to the room early.
Not to mention that DH's parents are currently on our bad side. (A business matter with MY family.) But we didn't let any of this pop up during the trip for the sake of the kids. It was almost funny to see his parents walk on egg shells around DH. I could visually see his Mom bite her tongue and refrain from arguing with DH. It's funny because DH and his Mom ALWAYS argue when they are around each other and usually about stupid, unimportant things. He says it's just a habit. She knew that it wouldn't take much to set DH off since he was upset at his parents already before the trip.
In any case, the kids had fun. My now 5 yo DD was in birthday heaven. She got birthday balloons with autographed pictures on different days from Cinderella, Snow White and Mickey Mouse from the OKW CMs. We had her birthday breakfast at Chef Mickey's (our treat for 17 people) and spent a few hours over at the MK where she got to pick 3 or 4 things/rides to do. Btw, DH's family was 30 mins late and we almost lost our table. We drove over first since we got tired of waiting for them to get out of the house. We gave them driving directions.
She then had a princess themed birthday party at the GV the next day on Saturday. DH and his brother decorated the villa with streamers. I ordered a Disney Princess Cake from publix - chocolate, as she requested. The 2 SIL's took the kids over to HH to get some balloons. They made princess coned hats and other arts and crafts.
We had one sit-down dinner out at the Flying Fish to "celebrate" DH's parents' wedding anniversary. They all knew the time of the PS which I had to secure with my credit card, and yet all took their sweet time getting there. We left them to go ahead to check in and to get pre-approval from the manager to use my DDE card discount for a group of 13. They were kind enough to sit us immediately even though only 4 out of 13 of our party was there.
This time, they were all 45 minutes late. The waiter and staff at FF were great about it. When it was time to pay the bill, we found out that DH's brother had already charged it to his credit card. Not because he was paying (we had agreed to split the meal to treat the parents) but because he got rewards on his card!
HELLO?!! I get 20% off with my DDE card which we had told him about earlier. I asked our waiter and he was happy to reverse the charges in order to apply the discount. However, it took about 30 minutes to accomplish.
While we were waiting, we examined the old bill to discover that his brother had originally only tipped 2 times the sales tax! (13%) His sister and DH told him since he insisted on using his card, to at least tip the full 20% discount. DH and his brother almost got into an argument over the tip amount with DH calling BIL a cheapskate under his breath. I slipped some extra $$$ into the payment folder as we were leaving to solve that problem. Our waiter was excellent even when he thought he was only getting 13% when he was gracious enough to NOT tack on the usual 15% gratuities that they charge parties over 8 people.
Well, we moved to unit 6224 (one bedroom) after DH's family were gone. My aunt and her kids joined us and were next door in unit 6223 (2 bedrrom) on her own DVC points. We were there from 1/19/04 - 1/23/04. As I mentioned before, I really enjoyed this unit. Not one problem to report.
It was so relaxing. Our girls slept in the LR sofa bed and we finally got the master bed to ourselves. They had slept with us in the king bed in the GV because we didn't want anyone in the living room. Besides, they probably wouldn't have slept outside anyways - too many people and distractions.
My kids actually enjoyed playing with my young cousins, ages ranging from 4 to 16, more than with their own cousins. They are obviously, Disney seasoned travelers like us.
After 4 relaxing days at OKW, we decided not to stop by DH's brother's house in NC on the way home. Younger daughter developed a fever that we didn't want to expose his kids to and DH really didn't want to see his family again, much less sleep under their roof. So, we wound up driving 19 hours straight through to NYC!
A teeny appreciation would go a LONG way.
We will see them soon when they come up to NYC to visit.
He never got along too well with his Mom but he always respected his dad.
