need help with large group planning

[sunnydee]

:confused:My family is planning a trip to Disney in March 2009. We are all so excited but need some major help in planning our trip!! There are 12 of us going. The ages range from 1-55. We will be celebrating a 21st birthday and a 1st birthday during our visit!:party: Any suggestions on what meals we should do together or where we should stay or how we should celebrate these birthdays would be sooooo helpful!! I know I'm asking alot of questions but we need a lot of help!! Thank you!!

[eeyoremom]

We have done several large group trips. My first suggestion, register as a magical gathering, even if you do not intend to do any of the activities. The hotels will do a much better job of keeping rooms together. Infact, ours have always been right in a row. Our favorite restaurant for a group is Chrstal Palace for breakfast-early morning. We love to go in the magic kingdom before it opens. It would be a great place for the 1 year old birthday. Be sure to say on every reservation that there is a birthday in the group. Allow time to spend together, but also plenty of time apart. I'm the grandma of the group and we like to watch the little ones for part of a day, and let their parents ride the big rides. We often spend that time at the pool or just riding boats-we love POR and POFQ. The preschoolers are very content to spend some down time in the resorts. Have fun planning-you'll love the trip together, and have many happy memories.

[TheMartellFamily]

Magical gatherings is a good start. Then plan from there. Decide if you want to eat all together or to seperate. See where everyone wants to stay. See where everyone wants to eat. Do not let it get stressful because it shouldn't be. Know with a big group not everyone will want to do the same thing at the same time. It is more stressful having the big group do the same thing at the same time and have one person in the group complain that this is not what they want to do. Just go with the flow and if someone want to seperate that is truly ok. We leave on Fri for a vacation with 17 people in our group. We seperate all the time from groups when we have gone in the past. We have decided that this trip though we are eating together. When we registered with grand gatherings we set up all our meals with them and we are all on the dining plan.

[crazypoohbear]

register as a grand gathering. (this will keep your rooms together in the same hotel.)
Plan an early breakfast at crystal palace for the 1 year old birthday - get everyone to meet on main street BEFORE the reservation and BEFORE the park opens to get a grand gathering picture of everyone.

Make a reservation at one of the EPCOT restaurants for the 21 year old's birthday (that way you can order the first legal drink :mickey:)

Don't try to stay together or do everything together with a large group you won't get much done. Plan one meal a day where everyone can meet up and talk about their day and then split off into different groups.
This will cut down on fighting and gives everyone the chance to do what they want to do.

Give everyone a copy of the ADR's so they know where to be and what time to be there.

Make sure the birthday people get their birthday buttons.

[dnickels]

I think the best thing to do would be to make dinner plans for a little over half the nights, and a few breakfasts, but otherwise let people do their own thing because of the previously mentioned difficulty in getting everyone to agree on something. If you're there 6 days maybe 4 planned dinners together.

I don't know if I'd make lunch plans because some family members might prefer going to a certain park one day and then they'd have to leave and come back to lunch. Plus the 1 year and and his/her parents probably have to plan their time around naps and feeding.

Other than that I wouldn't plan to stay together, everyone has different interests, tastes, paces and bathroom frequency requirements, so trying to keep 12 people to the same plan will probably cause you more headaches than it's worth.

[yjgirl32]

I went last year with a nice size group- there were 7 of us. When we go next year there will be 11 of us- possibly 12. I thought the same thing- don't try to do everything together- but it ended up that we all did stay together.

I figured that might happen so I had each member of my group do a couple of things for me:

1. I had them pick one tc and one cs meal that they wanted to go to.

2. I had them pick 3 things they absolutlely wanted to see or do- ex ride, shop, show etc. from each park

3. I made up a tentative schedule of the parks we were going to and our adrs for the day ahead of time and asked if there were any corrections or possible things they would like to add.

Good luck with your planning. Make sure to have fun!

ps my vote for the 1st birthday would be Cinderella's castle.