Preparing for large family group.

[Barbruka]

My husband and I are taking our entire family of five grown kids, three spouses, and five grandchildren to WDW in February. 15 in all. Wondering how to prepare for this as far as magic bands, fast passes and meal reservations. DH and I have been many times, but never with so many. How do we get fast passes for so many at the same time? And do restaurants take reservations for 15? We definitely plan to split up some of the time, but hope to get together for some meals. HELP!!

 

[sponica]

Questions: Are you staying on site or offsite? If you're onsite the MBs come with the reservation, if you're offsite...don't worry about them. Sure they're fun but I don't think they're necessary.

Is everyone on the same page as to what type of trip this is? I mean this in the kindest of ways, but sometimes one person has it in their head "we're going to do all the things together" and someone else thinks "we're all going at the same time, it doesn't mean we have to do EVERYTHING together" and if those two people haven't communicated as to what type of trip it is, it doesn't go well.

I'd appoint an overall lead to do most of the FP booking, but also each component group should have a leader to make on the fly changes/modifications during the day.

As far as restaurants, it may vary restaurant to restaurant and for some you'll have to call in with a party that big. You may have to split into 2 reservations.

 

[tinkerjo]

We do many large extended family trips. We typically stay in the same park but each family handles their own fast passes. I know from another thread that your grandchildren have never been before so I’m sure you want to enjoy some of these firsts and maybe you can decide as a group which ones are important (for us it’s always small world and carousel of progress because my mom rode them at the world’s fair back in the day so they are sentimental) Also we may try and meet up for a quick service meal and talk for an hour. We usually plan a character breakfast, Hoop dee doo Review, and one other special dinner during the trip. So while we are “together” we each tour the way we enjoy without the frustrations of trying to stay together. Our last trip was a party of 20 ( and we were missing 2) and we didn’t have any issues with reservations, but I would try to make them at the 180 day mark especially for popular restaurants.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

We often travel with a group of 12. Decide ahead of time how much time do you want to spend together. Will you all be lockstep or split up? Will thrill rides be involved, is everyone tall enough to ride? Is everyone a morning person or a night owl?

When you make your dining reservations it will usually tell you that your large party may be split so there's a possibility that may happen (it happened to us once). Also, we've been told you can't be seated unless everyone is at the restaurant so be clear about that expectation.

We usually make the fastpasses for everyone (they ask us to) and make the itinerary based on what we as a group would like to do. I email out the itinerary and say something like, "Here's what we will be doing at what time, where we will be, feel free to join us but you can also alter your plans if it doesn't work for you."

 

[Nsaudra]

We go to Disney every march with our two kids, 3 grown kids there families.
I have found that there is times we all go different ways,
Some restaurants use open table its really great for reserving times, It will only let you do 6-8 people but you can make more than one we do my and my DH phone. Then you call them tell them you are all together.
Are you staying at Disney hotel? The hardest thing for us to do is figure out is fast passes This is when A travel agent helps, they do large groups all the time they were wonderful…. she told me she gets whole softball teams on rides at the same time. Its worth a call/email. The price they got me was really good

 

[hsmamato2]

I did this last year- all good advice so far! If you're staying onsite it's much easier to split up/meet up as you wish. We set expectations ahead of time,like who wanted to plan times together,and general itinerary. (that was me) The rest agreed ahead that was fine. I decided on a set amount of 'together time' each day,and got our group overlapping Fp's on that time period. (between park open-about noon daily) this worked fairly well, we all had fun,altho in retrospect I would have left a longer space in between fp 2&3 for a lunch break,then last fp,then split up or whatever.So I should have planned about 9-1:30 for our together time.
Anyway this worked well, on some days we all stuck together after that time block,on others we split up as desired,to do whatever.
This worked well for our group. Don't try to make everyone stick together all the time, that's too hard for a big group of varying ages.
We had a planned meet time and place in the park each morning,this worked well also. If on group was late for our first fp, that was ok, the rest of us just did the ride,and late group met after. Very chill.
Some plan a meal a day together,we didn't. In spite of that,we still had some meals together tho.
together time at the pools was our fave part of the trip!

 

[Barbruka]

Normally we stay onsite, but this time we rented a 7 bedroom pool villa about 5 minutes from WDW. We are all staying there. Too expensive to get resort rooms for 15 people!!! My husband and I want to spend as much time as possible with the four oldest grandkids from two of the families. I have been pumping them for years to go to WDW, and I want to see their faces for everything! Our two youngest sons are in their mid twenties and not attached. I know they will go off on their own quite a bit, and that's fine. But dh and I are staying with the grandkids! One son will have an 18 month old. They might break off sometimes too. But then again, maybe not. We all love getting together and have a great time!

So you are saying we don't need magic bands when staying offsite? And how many days before going can we make FP and ADR when staying offsite?

 

[tinkerjo]

No, you don’t need magic bands when staying off site but the kids might enjoy them. Basically you can still use them to enter the parks and to use your FP+ selections but you can also just use your tickets and save money but they make cute Christmas presents. They have some nice themed ones out there. When staying off site you can make FP+selections 30 days ahead and ADRs are all 180 days regardless of where you stay. We have stayed off site many times and had just as much fun as staying on property, it just takes some good planning.