Traveling with grandparents

mistole

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jul 25, 2012
Hello! We have a reservation for October. We reserved 2 connecting rooms at POP. It's for 2 adults and 3 kids. My parents are considering joining us for the trip. I have some questions on how it will work, and if they should book their own room, or if we should add them to our reservation.

1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested.

3) We definitely want to get a boarding pass for ROR. But my parents won't want to ride it, and won't really want to get to HS at rope drop. I've read that everyone in your party has to be in the park to sign up for a boarding pass. Is it truly "everyone in your party" or is it that only the people in the park can sign up for the boarding pass? If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?
 
Hello! We have a reservation for October. We reserved 2 connecting rooms at POP. It's for 2 adults and 3 kids. My parents are considering joining us for the trip. I have some questions on how it will work, and if they should book their own room, or if we should add them to our reservation.

1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested.

3) We definitely want to get a boarding pass for ROR. But my parents won't want to ride it, and won't really want to get to HS at rope drop. I've read that everyone in your party has to be in the park to sign up for a boarding pass. Is it truly "everyone in your party" or is it that only the people in the park can sign up for the boarding pass? If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?
There is no guarantee of connecting rooms regardless of what they told you. Make that your only room request.
Denise
 
There is no guarantee of connecting rooms regardless of what they told you. Make that your only room request.
Denise

You have to call, but they do guarantee connecting rooms when the kids outnumber the adults. Our TA booked it for us, but our email confirmation does say "Connecting rooms guaranteed for families". But if we add 2 adults, we lose that guarantee.
 
First of all, just to let you know, you haven't booked connecting rooms. One reservation with two rooms yes. You are at no time guaranteed connecting, this is coming from years of experience. We have six kids and have done two rooms for a long time. You aren't guaranteed connecting ever. Your parents can book a room at Pop all by themselves and you can call and have the reservations linked as traveling together. They will try and keep you relatively together. If your parents are tech savvy, they can make their own account on my disney experience and link with you through the my friends and family. You can do everything together and book everything together at the same time. If your parents are less tech savvy, they can book their own reservation and you can add it to your account and make everything together.
As far ROTR, they mean everyone who intends to ride has to be in the park when you get a boarding pass. You select everyone who wants a boarding group off a list on the app. No need to have your entire group there unless everyone wants to ride.
 


1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?
Your parents could book their own reservation under their own MDE account number. Then you would link up as friends and family that share plan. You will be able to make fps and ADR's for them. You would call Diseny reservations have it marked that you are traveling together. They will try to put the rooms close together.

We are the "grandparents" and we have traveled with our married children and my sister. Most of them made their own reservations under their own accounts and then we linked up. I did make the reservation for our son and his family, but I had it all under his account. For all of these trips where we asked for rooms close together, none of them have been more than a few doors away.

If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?
Yes, you just select the names of the people who are in the park for the boarding group. :)

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?
The only reason to book together would be if you want connecting rooms.
 
You don’t need to book together to request connecting rooms. All you would need to do is call reservations, give them both reservation numbers, and have them note that you’re traveling together.

That said, there’s no way to guarantee connecting rooms, even though the occasional misinformed reservation agent will say that there is. Rooms are not blocked at the time of reservation, so it’s entirely possible that there will be more guests requesting connecting rooms than there are connecting room pairs on any given night. And yes, parents have had to split up between the two rooms. The room assigners do try very hard to fulfill requests, but if the room pair isn’t available, there’s nothing they can do.

if it’s absolutely imperative that everyone be together, the only way to guarantee that is to book a room that will hold your entire party, such as a family suite at AoA or ASMu, or one of the moderates that sleep 5.
 
We are going with my Dad. We booked two rooms at Pop. I booked everything and he'll pay me for his room, tickets and dining plan. It'll save us money since two of my kids will be on his room reservation. And it makes it no big deal if we don't get connecting rooms although I would prefer it. We haven't gone yet but I'm trying to include him in planning but I'm doing all the ADRs and will do the Fastpasses. I find it easier to handle everything and he doesn't really have any strong preferences.
 


Hello! We have a reservation for October. We reserved 2 connecting rooms at POP. It's for 2 adults and 3 kids. My parents are considering joining us for the trip. I have some questions on how it will work, and if they should book their own room, or if we should add them to our reservation.

1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested.

3) We definitely want to get a boarding pass for ROR. But my parents won't want to ride it, and won't really want to get to HS at rope drop. I've read that everyone in your party has to be in the park to sign up for a boarding pass. Is it truly "everyone in your party" or is it that only the people in the park can sign up for the boarding pass? If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?

1). If you book separately, you can either simply put their reservation in your MDE account and manage everything yourself or create a separate MDE for them and then link accounts through Friends and Family. As long as everyone has valid ticket media linked to their profiles and you are all connected through MDE, you can make everyone's FP+ at 6 days. ADRs are of no consequence. You can make ADRs for as many guests as you like at the 180 day mark.

2). Connecting rooms is a request. Requesting them is really all you can do.

3). You can get a BG for anyone in your group that has scanned into the park. If your parents don't want to go, it will not exclude you from getting BGs for those who are in DHS.

It really doesn't matter if you book together or separately. If you book separately, just note with the phone CM (or your TA), that you are traveling with another party and they will make note of it on your reservation. Whenever I have traveled with extended family, we have either been given connecting rooms or rooms right across the hallway from each other. WDW will do their best to accommodate you.
 
Hello! We have a reservation for October. We reserved 2 connecting rooms at POP. It's for 2 adults and 3 kids. My parents are considering joining us for the trip. I have some questions on how it will work, and if they should book their own room, or if we should add them to our reservation.

1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested.

3) We definitely want to get a boarding pass for ROR. But my parents won't want to ride it, and won't really want to get to HS at rope drop. I've read that everyone in your party has to be in the park to sign up for a boarding pass. Is it truly "everyone in your party" or is it that only the people in the park can sign up for the boarding pass? If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?
This was my actual circumstance October 2019. We (family of 4) had my in-laws book after us and we decided to change resorts to stay with them at POP. MIL had a scooter and bad knees, so I called and we WERE given adjoining rooms on the first floor. There's no guarantee but we lucked out.

1. Book separately, but do it for them to make it easy on yourself. I made my MIL a MDE account and handled every single thing between our 2 accounts. I linked them and planned ADRs and FP for all 6 of us. Don't forget you will have an 18% gratuity automatically added to your bill now that you have 7 people. Also - make sure you talk with them about what they want to ride and what they don't want to, because my in-laws said they were down to ride everything but day 2 of the trip decided they didn't like roller coasters, spinny rides, or getting up early. I lost out by having to originally book for 6 people when I could have scored more FP booking for only 4.

2. We asked and received. No guarantees.

3. It's just like booking a FP or ADR. If they don't want to get up and ride it, just make sure your family is all there and book for just them.

Just book separately. That way it's easy to remove them if (WHEN, in my experience lol) you don't want to travel to WDW with them again.
 
@mistole I put my answers in bold

1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs? You can become friends and family through their reservation number. But I would also call and add a "traveling with" number to the reservations. It helps the assignors try to make sure the rooms are close together.

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested. Adjoining DOES NOT MEAN connecting @ Disney. It means in a close area, might be the same floor, might be the same building. Room assignment at Disney is like a game of tetris, they start playing the game about 5 days out. In my touring plans room request I included the reservation numbers of both our reservations and made connecting rooms my primary request, ground floor secondary request.

3) We definitely want to get a boarding pass for ROR. But my parents won't want to ride it, and won't really want to get to HS at rope drop. I've read that everyone in your party has to be in the park to sign up for a boarding pass. Is it truly "everyone in your party" or is it that only the people in the park can sign up for the boarding pass? If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present? If they don't want to ride the ride, it's not an issue. Every RIDER needs to be in the park to get a boarding group

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate? Eh we booked separately. We always book separately, then it doesn't run into the awkwardness of money having to change hands or someone having to call in payments because they can't make payments online
 
Hello! We have a reservation for October. We reserved 2 connecting rooms at POP. It's for 2 adults and 3 kids. My parents are considering joining us for the trip. I have some questions on how it will work, and if they should book their own room, or if we should add them to our reservation.

1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested.

3) We definitely want to get a boarding pass for ROR. But my parents won't want to ride it, and won't really want to get to HS at rope drop. I've read that everyone in your party has to be in the park to sign up for a boarding pass. Is it truly "everyone in your party" or is it that only the people in the park can sign up for the boarding pass? If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?
For ROR the BP is just for who is in the park. If people are not in park they cannot bein BG. However you can get a BG for just who wants to ride as long as they are in the park..
 
Adjoining DOES NOT MEAN connecting @ Disney.
Just clarifying: adjoining does not mean connecting anywhere at all throughout the entire, worldwide hotel industry. Not limited to Disney, not created by Disney, not defined by Disney :)
It means in a close area, might be the same floor, might be the same building.
It could even end up being connecting. All connecting rooms adjoin. Not all adjoining rooms connect.
 
I’m willing to bet the “guaranteed” line on your reservation was added by your TA. But the actual policy is that connecting rooms cannot be guaranteed. If you read the long fine print at the bottom of the Disney resort confirmation email (assuming your TA provided that to you), it specifically says “Adjacent rooms, connecting rooms or specific room location and types of rooms or bedding are on a "request basis only" and are subject to availability at the time of check-in.”
 
I’m willing to bet the “guaranteed” line on your reservation was added by your TA. But the actual policy is that connecting rooms cannot be guaranteed. If you read the long fine print at the bottom of the Disney resort confirmation email (assuming your TA provided that to you), it specifically says “Adjacent rooms, connecting rooms or specific room location and types of rooms or bedding are on a "request basis only" and are subject to availability at the time of check-in.”

Replying to myself to add that we are a family with three kids also, so know it makes no difference if kids are outnumbering adults—they just put one adult in each room.
 
1) If we book separately, can we link our reservations so that we can get the same ADRs and FPs?
As PPs have said, you can enter their reservation number in MDE so it links them to your Friends & Family group. I did this for a our travel group of 9, under 3 separate reservations a few years ago. It was pretty intuitive and easy to do. Also, I would call and ask them to link your reservations together in their system so that it notates you're traveling together - if you book separately.

Also, to clarify, what do you mean by booking together? Do you mean booking two rooms under your own name?

2) If we book together, we lose our guarantee of connecting rooms. How accommodating is Disney to put you in adjoining rooms if booked together and requested.
As PPs have mentioned, connecting rooms are never guaranteed, regardless of what they tell you or what it says. Just emphasizing that.

If my husband, myself and the kids were in the park at open, could we go ahead and sign up for a boarding pass without my parents being present?
Yes.

For those of you that have traveled with grandparents or another family member, what are the pros and cons of booking together, vs booking separate?
As I mentioned, we had a group of 9 booked under 3 separate reservations. They make it easy to manage all FPs and ADRs in MDE in this case, so I think its best to do it separate. If you book both rooms under your name, you'd need to facilitate their check-in process and if there were any issues. I think it would just be easier to have them book under their own name and credit card to avoid any issues or legwork on their behalf.
 

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