5 in a room....................

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Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Hi all,
Just wondering how everyone else managed sleeping 5 to a room. We are staying at FQ in 5 weeks and beginning to have a panic about all sleeping in the same room. Husband and I are travelling with our 3 kids aged 5, 3.5 and 21 months, and so many people are commenting how it will be a nightmare for us (helpful I know!)
Any reassurance or tips greatly appreciated! Really excited for our trip and can't wait to tell the kids on Christmas day!

Thanks
 
We slept 4 adults (DH, myself, in-laws) and a turning 3 year old in a room at AKL for a week. We had a great trip! Bathroom and changing clothes was a little more complicated than I imagine it would be with just you and your kids, but it was still great.

We also shared a room with our kids at Beach Club...me, DH, DD-3, DS-3, DS-10 at the time. Beach Club rooms are a little bigger than FQ, but no problem. Our kids are weird and actually constantly try to sleep in one room together (we don't always allow it); they would camp out in our room every night if we let them!

Now, we went to Disney with age 9, 2, 2 and then age 10, 3,3. People thought we were crazy too. It is a lot of work, but a lot of fun. We over scheduled ourselves a little on that first trip and took it much easier the second trip, but both trips were amazing.

We also spent 5 nights at Universal Orlando in one hotel room with our 3 kids-12,6,6. It was totally fine. Granted, the room was a little larger than FQ, but still one room with 2 queen beds (and a small blow up mattress).
 
You know your family best so try not to stress about what others are saying. We had terrible sleepers, especially my youngest, so we couldn't do all of us in one room until she was a bit older (probably age 4). But my experience has been that the parks exhaust little ones and they sleep quite well because of it. My only concern with 5 was sleep. Otherwise, there are so many things to do that you don't have to be in the room all that much. If one naps or they're getting on each others nerves being in close quarters, take some to swim or explore or even to a park. My 3 kids are older now, but we find 5 in a room is fine. I'm sure you'll have a blast and so will they!
 
Thank you! Its our first trip since having kids and also since they brought out FP+, and I kind of wish we didn't have to schedule ourselves so much in terms of Fastpasses. Ideally would like to be able to go with the flow a bit more and decide day by day where we wanted to go, especially as we are travelling in January and would like to visit a water park if we had a warm enough day. We are lucky as we have 14 days so worst case scenario we may just need to cancel/reschedule some of them if the kids are finding the pace too hard. I know so many other families manage, but I really wish we could have a lottery win so we could afford to stay in a suite!
 
Thanks @Trinity88
My eldest 2 share a room anyway and are great sleepers, and the baby had been an amazing sleeper until about a month ago - I'm most worried she will be crying waking everyone up. I called Disney to see about either getting an extra room at FQ or moving to a suite, but both options added at least £3000 which we just cant afford. I'm hoping we will all be so tired we will just collapse into bed, and yes if the little ones need a nap hubby and I have already planned taking it in turns to have a drink at the pool bar and jump in the hot tub!
 
We shared a room at the Poly for 21 nights with our 4 children 1,3,6 and 8 and it had been years since we had slept soo well. No shouting in the night because someone was scared, no having to go down stairs to fetch Teddy and generally a good uninterrupted night sleep because we were all in one room and no one woke up with nightmares! Amazing.
We would only go back to the room to sleep though, the rest of the time we were at the pool or in the parks...
 
I have 3 kids and did a 9 night split stay at Beach Club and Polynesian this summer. By the time we got back each day the kids were exhausted, so I think as long as you plan to use the room mostly to just sleep it is manageable. I do get overwhelmed with all of us in a tight space!

I found it a little tough to keep all of our stuff out of the way! Especially as the toys and souvenirs kept getting added. Since your kids are still really little the bathroom shouldn’t be a big deal. My oldest is 11, so she needed more time to do her hair in there etc...

Have fun!!
 


Thanks @Trinity88
My eldest 2 share a room anyway and are great sleepers, and the baby had been an amazing sleeper until about a month ago - I'm most worried she will be crying waking everyone up. I called Disney to see about either getting an extra room at FQ or moving to a suite, but both options added at least £3000 which we just cant afford. I'm hoping we will all be so tired we will just collapse into bed, and yes if the little ones need a nap hubby and I have already planned taking it in turns to have a drink at the pool bar and jump in the hot tub!

We did 2 rooms at Pop Century for our last trip and it was only a little more than one room in a Moderate. But the challenge there is that you aren't guaranteed connecting rooms. You can request it, but they may not give it to you.

Hopefully the baby will be so tired she'll sleep well!
 
Hi all,
Just wondering how everyone else managed sleeping 5 to a room. We are staying at FQ in 5 weeks and beginning to have a panic about all sleeping in the same room. Husband and I are travelling with our 3 kids aged 5, 3.5 and 21 months, and so many people are commenting how it will be a nightmare for us (helpful I know!)
Any reassurance or tips greatly appreciated! Really excited for our trip and can't wait to tell the kids on Christmas day!

Thanks

I grew up in a family of 5, we all shared hotel rooms whenever we traveled. If the older 2 share a room, you should be fine. I stuck the pack and play in the sink area of the room and closed the curtain, when I went with my then 21 month old.
 
Thank you! Its our first trip since having kids and also since they brought out FP+, and I kind of wish we didn't have to schedule ourselves so much in terms of Fastpasses. Ideally would like to be able to go with the flow a bit more and decide day by day where we wanted to go, especially as we are travelling in January and would like to visit a water park if we had a warm enough day. We are lucky as we have 14 days so worst case scenario we may just need to cancel/reschedule some of them if the kids are finding the pace too hard. I know so many other families manage, but I really wish we could have a lottery win so we could afford to stay in a suite!
Wouldn't a lottery win be nice?! I always fantasize about that because we have 5 kids under 11 and never stay on property. We get condos or homes and rent a car and it's been great. We always get the FP's we want and have never missed out on anything, but I would still love to stay in a nice Disney hotel with the kids at least once! I just can't justify the added expense of 2 hotel rooms on property when the tix are already so expensive for us. A girl can dream, though! ;-) I wish I was a camper. Then we could stay at Fort Wilderness and enjoy the onsite amenities. But, I can't even camp in my backyard, let alone a swamp area in central Florida. 8-)
 
Wouldn't a lottery win be nice?! I always fantasize about that because we have 5 kids under 11 and never stay on property. We get condos or homes and rent a car and it's been great. We always get the FP's we want and have never missed out on anything, but I would still love to stay in a nice Disney hotel with the kids at least once! I just can't justify the added expense of 2 hotel rooms on property when the tix are already so expensive for us. A girl can dream, though! ;-) I wish I was a camper. Then we could stay at Fort Wilderness and enjoy the onsite amenities. But, I can't even camp in my backyard, let alone a swamp area in central Florida. 8-)
We had a great trip with our 5 under 11, 2 bedroom DVC rental at the beach club. We did the D because 4 were at the child rate. Priced it out to be the same cost as 2 moderates.
 
The only potential problem I see is, the rooms are on the small side--make sure you have room for a crib, if you're planning on using one.

My kids are older. We can now do "all one room" for one night, but we prefer more space. We like Holiday Inn Express for general travel. Also consider sixsuitcasetravel--they list hotels where you can sleep up to 8 in a room. You may not need this now so much, but as your children (and possibly your family) grow, you may need extra space.
 
We slept 4 adults (DH, myself, in-laws) and a turning 3 year old in a room at AKL for a week. We had a great trip! Bathroom and changing clothes was a little more complicated than I imagine it would be with just you and your kids, but it was still great.

We also shared a room with our kids at Beach Club...me, DH, DD-3, DS-3, DS-10 at the time. Beach Club rooms are a little bigger than FQ, but no problem. Our kids are weird and actually constantly try to sleep in one room together (we don't always allow it); they would camp out in our room every night if we let them!

Just for reference though, the rooms at POFQ are 314 sq feet. The rooms at Beach club are 384 Sq feet (same at AKL if you rented DVC). 70 square feet may not sound like much, but when you're sharing space with other people it can make a big difference!
 
I think you'll be fine. On our trips when I was a kid, we would regularly sleep 3 adults and 2 kids in a single value resort room with no issue, and that was my mom and I, plus my aunt, uncle, and cousin—the bathroom/changing situation will definitely be easier for you with just your immediate family.

I have three kids those exact same ages, and we just did a single-room non-Disney hotel stay for Thanksgiving. It went fine with the five of us. My kids all share a room at home, so even sleeping and napping in the same space weren't a problem. Don't let the naysayers get you down!
 
Honestly, I would never, ever do it. We're a family of 5 and I couldn't imagine staying in one room. We stay offsite and rent a 3-4 bedroom house. So yeah, I'm a naysayer. For me, it would be a dealbreaker. Being stuck in one room...no thanks.
 
We are 5 (current ages 12, 9, 7) and most always stay in one room when we travel generally and always when we stay at WDW. It gets cramped but we are great at creating space where needed. The suitcases fit under the bed, hamper in the closet and make use of the desk and drawers, even in the bathroom, to put everything away. We've stayed at CR and CBR. As others have said, by the end of the day, everyone is tired and sleeps well (the boys share 1 bed, and my daughter gets the sleeper) and and during the day, we all just kinda hang out on beds/chairs as needed.
 
We went with our kids (4 and 23 month old twins) and stayed in a studio at Boulder Ridge. We had the murphy bed that our 4 year old just loved. The twins shared the pull out sofa. It worked fine, but was a little annoying trying to get them all to sleep the one day we actually went back to the room for nap time. We were gone from the room most of the time and everyone was exhausted at bedtime so it wasn't a big deal not having a separate sleeping space for them. And for our kids, having them in a separate unfamiliar place would have been very difficult.
 
Family of 5 here. When the kids were young we stayed at POR but as they got older and bigger we started staying at BC. We have spent many vacations (WDW and others) sharing one hotel room.
 
We always share one room, not sure why so many people think it's such a problem. (Kids are currently 16 and 9, have been vacationing in one room their whole lives.) I will admit it's a little harder now with a teenager, just because she gets moody and it would be nice to have her own space to get away from us, but we deal. With younger kids it's much easier because they (usually!) still want to be around you all the time, so it's like a special treat.

The only issue I can really understand is if people want to go to bed at different times, but on vacation we are always playing so hard that we all crash as soon as we get back to the room anyway.
 
I'm cheap ... we stay in one room unless it is above the occupancy limits. Right now the kids are 11, 11, and 9 ... but we have been doing it since they were born. It is nice when we are in a suite situation, but that isn't always an option. At WDW we have stayed at CBR, Fort Wilderness, CR, BC, and GF with five people. Normally DH and I just go to sleep when the kids do ... we may watch something on our phones or answer emails for awhile, but everyone is usually pretty tired at Disney so it isn't an issue. I wake up in the morning earlier to shower and get ready and usually manage to do that without waking everyone.
 

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