Advice for large groups?

AuntMimmy

Earning My Ears
Joined
Mar 21, 2017
I'm in the early planning stages for a "framily" (friends & family) vacation. As of right now there will be 10-11 adults and 9 kids (ages 4-16). We're hoping to do a week at WDW followed by a cruise.
Looking for advice for large groups.
 
I have never been with a group that large. The largest I have been with is half that. The one piece of advice I can give you is to plan on NOT staying together. Plan a few key activities together such as a meal or maybe a certain FP but otherwise let everyone choose to do what they want to do. I can tell you that with half that many we stayed together for a few days (or I should say tried to) and it frustrating to say the least. It took forever to come to a consensus on anything and there were a few heated moment because of it. I think everything is amplified because it is family.
 
I agree with PP, just come together for meals and maybe dessert parties and such. Have a few group meetings beforehand also. Maybe teens could go off together, families with small kids group up, seniors, etc. or just stay in small family groups. But plan it out before you go. Planning is half the fun anyway.
 
We've done a group about that large (13 adults, 12 kids), though our age range on kids was particularly large too (Age 5 to college kids). I would agree that the biggest challenge was trying to move around as a group. It's almost impossible. We had a frustrating first day then grouped off more by age (college/ high school kids together), a group of adults with middle schoolers and a group with and elementary aged kids, as the last poster suggested. A few people were more into Universal and left to do that for a day, which helped mix things up for them I think.

An advantage to that size though is that people can get the vacation they want. Some of our adults were NOT theme park people so they golfed and stayed by the pool. Other adults or older cousins took their young kids in to the parks. I do think staying on site helped in that scenario, since people felt comfortable with Disney transportation.

In our case, we did one dinner as a big group, and several in smaller groups I think. Most days, we'd hang out at breakfast at the resort too, but that wasn't necessarily "planned". I think the biggest thing is knowing ahead of time that there will be some frustrating moments and it takes longer to get around the parks if you DO go all together.
 
I think my biggest piece of advice is to have a discussion before hand about everyone's expectations. What do they want to get out of the trip? What are they looking forward to? Some folks will be more into dining then rides or vice versa so you want to make sure that everyone gets to do something off their "bucket list".
 
I planned a trip for 17ish. The first tip is remain flexible. Some of the people were there 2 days, somewhere there all 7 days, my family was there 14 days (a couple of days before the group and due to a blizzard a couple of days after). I set it up so we did one meal a day together. I got FP+ for various subsets of the group and people would group together and go off depending on what they wanted to do. We would meet up for certain things but we did not try to all stay together at all times. With a huge age range and a large number of people that worked best all around.
 
The best advice I can give you is not to try and plan everything for everyone. Just let everyone make their own FP+ and ADRs and for the love of God don't try to do everything together. Let everyone do their own thing through the day and meet up at the a few times during the day.
 


I have planned a couple of trips with multiple families and have some advice. It was my experience that some families may say they plan to come, but then back out when the $$ is due. It sounds good, but they are either unable or unwilling to fund the trip. Don't ever make hotel deposits or purchase airline tickets or park tickets with the promise that they will pay you back. Ask every family to make their own hotel reservations in their own name with their own money. Don't expect everyone to stay at the same hotel. You could pick one value, one moderate, and one deluxe and suggest those. Plan a schedule of which park you plan to be at each day, and then schedule one "event" where people are invited to join the group but no pressure if they don't want to. Try to make these things low or no cost. For example, on EPCOT day, everyone gathers to watch Illuminations in front of the Germany pavilion. Or, lunch at Peco's Bill on Magic Kingdom day. Or try to meet up at Lion King show at AK and sit together. When we did a multi-family trip, my Mom paid for the entire group to eat at Hoop De Doo Revue one night. That was great!

Never make plans to meet another family in the morning to travel together on the bus to the park. This has been the biggest problem I have run into. My family are all early risers and have no trouble making it to the bus depot by 8am for a 9am park opening. The other family swore they would join us. They showed up at 8:45 saying they still needed to swing by the food court to grab a quick breakfast. "Millie just wouldn't get out of bed. Sorry!" We missed park opening show, I was furious, and it really spoiled the entire day for my family. Never, ever again. I now tell the group the approximate time when we are planning to leave the hotel, but stress that if they want to meet up they should call us when they arrive at the park.

Make sure everyone knows that they are welcome to tour with the "group," but if they want to do it alone -- no hard feelings. And above all......keep a sense of humor about the whole thing! It has been my experience that the Planner is rarely given credit for the things that go well, but can be a target when things go wrong. Don't set yourself up to make sure that other adults have a "good time." They alone are responsible for that.

I hope you have a great time!
 
Definitely at WDW plan one thing a day to do as a group, whether its fireworks, a meal, etc. You don't want to get on each others nerves before you're trapped on a boat.

The same rules apply on the cruise. Break apart into age appropriate activities when possible, do large group things once maybe twice a day. Depending on the cruise line, you might even want to split up at dinner. Adults without little kids will not want to eat dinner at 430, but anyone with little kids probably won't want the later dinner seating.
 
I'm in the early planning stages for a "framily" (friends & family) vacation. As of right now there will be 10-11 adults and 9 kids (ages 4-16). We're hoping to do a week at WDW followed by a cruise.
Looking for advice for large groups.
my advice like other is to break up the group and meet together at times. we usually do this for meals. we break for up as families but at other times one group might take the preschoolers and another early elem and third older kids. it depended on plans at the time how we broke up the group
 
Thanks so much, everyone. I know a few of these things already, and there are a few suggestions I will definitely take into consideration.
We're going to have a couple planning parties (for the moms, mostly) to get together and plan out ADRs and FP+. I think we're going to try to do 3 or 4 meals all together, but other than that, everyone will be going a dozen different directions all the time.

I appreciate the advice and insight so, so much!
 
Usually travel with a group of 9

1) Have a plan that everyone can get behind. Something for every sex, age and personality. But at the same time willing to change on a dime and circumstance.
2) Spend time away and break up every once and awhile. People will eventually get sick of each other.
3) Everyone doesnt have to eat at the same spot.
4) Just realize that not everyone will be hard charging and willing to go all day. Break up the day with breaks, hotel naps.
 
in my case- we're 14- ages 1-70.... b/c we all plan food differently, that won't work for us all to meet. Our main plan is 3 Fp in the am- and I plan to be at the park in time for those. If one part of the group doesn't meet up on time, they don't ride with us,it's simple. So 3 fp between rope drop and noon, then everyone is on their own to do whatever,hang together, go off and do stuff. It's the best I could come up with at the time of planning. We plan to rider swap certain rides with the babies in our group,and even tho I'm not a morning person, the little kids in the group are, so we're touring based on that schedule. So that leaves pretty much every afternoon without firm plans which is fine with me. Most of our group is actually in one hotel, so that's easier too.
 
My advice would be NOT to try to plan multiple shared meals. Nothing bores little kids faster than being expected to sit in a restaurant for two hours while the grownups seemingly just sit there yakking FOREVER, and to have it happen at a WDW park when there are rides being missed for it? Torture.

If you CAN get everyone at the same hotel, then pool time is the best time for the entire group to spend time together, with the adults taking shifts in the water with the kids. Otherwise, grouping to watch a show is a possible option, too.
 
Been there, done that, got the tee shirt to prove it.

My first advice is don't. Okay, joking aside, at Disney, the more people in the group, the more complicated it is (and the less enjoyable, at least for me).

Somewhere like an all-inclusive is MUCH easier to do with a group. But if you are doing it, understand that some folks in the group will be Type A, and want to dictate what folks do. That's fine, unless you have TWO Type A's. Which, odds are, you will. And you'll have those that just aren't into it. That's fine too; that's why the resorts have pools (and pool bars).

I'd suggest having every family make their own resort reservations. Plan a meal or two. Plan a ride or two together. Then, plan on families to do their own thing most of the time. That's the only way it will work. I know folks want to book the same resort, but that backfired on us a few years ago. I KNEW the Boardwalk would be ideal for our large group, but someone (who had never been to Disney with their family) chose AKL instead. So we went with that. It was NOT the resort that all enjoyed (although it was okay). So in retrospect, I would have said fine you stay there, we'll stay elsewhere.

We never do rope drop, so unlike hsmamato2, that wouldn't work. We tend to get to a park about 11. I get up early at home; vacation I like to enjoy my coffee in my pj's and take my time. In my 30 visits, I've seen an opening ceremony once, and had 2 pre park opening breakfasts at BOG as well. Last time (just my youngest and me) we needed a nap by noon.

There is no way to candy coat it; large groups at Disney are WORK. I'd suggest at MOST one meal a day, but split between table service and meeting for snacks and drinks.

I've led several. One time it was my job, so I took it as that (hosted my folks and 7 others, families from Japan who were my dad's business associates, so this was a business thing that I arranged). Other times were family things. Never again.
 
Been there, done that, got the tee shirt to prove it.

My first advice is don't. Okay, joking aside, at Disney, the more people in the group, the more complicated it is (and the less enjoyable, at least for me).

Somewhere like an all-inclusive is MUCH easier to do with a group. But if you are doing it, understand that some folks in the group will be Type A, and want to dictate what folks do. That's fine, unless you have TWO Type A's. Which, odds are, you will. And you'll have those that just aren't into it. That's fine too; that's why the resorts have pools (and pool bars).

I'd suggest having every family make their own resort reservations. Plan a meal or two. Plan a ride or two together. Then, plan on families to do their own thing most of the time. That's the only way it will work. I know folks want to book the same resort, but that backfired on us a few years ago. I KNEW the Boardwalk would be ideal for our large group, but someone (who had never been to Disney with their family) chose AKL instead. So we went with that. It was NOT the resort that all enjoyed (although it was okay). So in retrospect, I would have said fine you stay there, we'll stay elsewhere.

We never do rope drop, so unlike hsmamato2, that wouldn't work. We tend to get to a park about 11. I get up early at home; vacation I like to enjoy my coffee in my pj's and take my time. In my 30 visits, I've seen an opening ceremony once, and had 2 pre park opening breakfasts at BOG as well. Last time (just my youngest and me) we needed a nap by noon.

There is no way to candy coat it; large groups at Disney are WORK. I'd suggest at MOST one meal a day, but split between table service and meeting for snacks and drinks.

I've led several. One time it was my job, so I took it as that (hosted my folks and 7 others, families from Japan who were my dad's business associates, so this was a business thing that I arranged). Other times were family things. Never again.

Not the only way to do it. Family of 11, stayed together, ate together, toured together. We only had one “episode”and that was towards the end of the trip and I blame being over tired. We had a great time and plan on doing it again next summer. It can work if everyone is on the same page.
 
Don't do it!!

Just kidding, lol. We did a group of 17 a few years ago and I have a pretty good list of what NOT to do, haha. Yeah we had some drama.

I went with my husband and kids, my parents, my two sisters and brother and all of their families. My immediate family grew up going to Disney frequently and we never planned much, we just kind of winged it. So I would say our biggest mistake was we didn't plan well enough. Whenever we got off a ride, nobody wanted to make a decision about where to go next and a group of 17 people with several young children just standing around was just a mess.

The other big mistake was we didn't separate enough. Because it was a family reunion, my mom really had it in her head that we should all stay together all the time. I just feel like it was too much and she acknowledged that after the fact. I wish we had planned a table service meal for just my own family at some point, or something that was just for us to have a break.

We've been tentatively planning another big reunion in 2019 and I'm skeptical about the whole thing, lol.
 
Not the only way to do it. Family of 11, stayed together, ate together, toured together. We only had one “episode”and that was towards the end of the trip and I blame being over tired. We had a great time and plan on doing it again next summer. It can work if everyone is on the same page.

Thanks for posting..I was starting to think we are the only ones that do this! We've gone as a group of 8, a group of 9 and soon to be a group of 12. We plan the majority of our time together - that's why we are on vacation together. I'm going to guess a lot of this has to do with your family/friend dynamic already as we always do a lot with these groups on a normal basis so it's not uncommon.
 

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