Travel group: My family of 4 (Me, DH, DD14, DS9), Sisters Family (DBF, DS14, DD12) Mom, Dad, DNiece 9. My family was last at WDW 4 years ago, Sisters family when the kids were 6 &4, Sisters DBF when Epcot was still being built & Mr. Toad was around, Mom & Dad 5 years, DNiece first trip. Total-11 people.
They left the planning to me. I gave Mom & sister options for dining & it was easy to agree. They didn't care about FP's. They knew I would make the best decisions for the group. No arguing or problems at all in the planning stages.
My group traveled well together. We stuck together for all things except the last day when we split up guys & girls. Everyone was up and ready on time, no complaining. We did early mornings arriving about 45 minutes before park opening, leaving after TS lunch and then headed back in the evening for night time shows. We only had one meltdown/grumpy time and that was after our waterpark day. Everyone was just tired. We all got some sleep and woke up with much better attitudes the next day.
We loved the Magic Bands and FP+! Had a couple of issues upon entry, but they just took our pic and away we went. That happened to 3 of us on the second day. After that everything worked perfectly. I scheduled our FP's for 10, 11 & 1:30 most days. Lunch ADR's went faster than I thought and I could have scheduled the last one for 1pm. We did do some waiting around for our times, but we used the time to visit. It was never more than 10-15 minutes. We are not re-ride people so we managed to accomplish a lot (for our standards.) We did 10 rides between 7:50 and 11:45 on EMH Thursday, 2 were FP (HM & 7DMT), ate lunch at 12 and then did PP FP before heading out. (This also included the headliners.) We had an equally successful Tuesday (last day) at MK with the girls. The focus was FL & Princess M&G. Between 7:50 & 8:50 we did 5 rides & met Ariel. From 8:55-11:20 we met Merida, Alice & White Rabbit (together), Cinderella & Rapunzel (FP), Peter Pan, Tiana, Elsa & Anna (FP). We also had a couple of bathroom breaks in there and waited 5-10 minutes for our M&G FP times. We were in line for Merida by 8:55 and were the 3rd or 4th family (she started meeting at 9:15). The longest wait was for Alice, maybe 20 minutes? Tiana was in Heritage Hall in LS, there was practically no wait.
The Frozen fireworks were the best nighttime show we saw. Absolutely loved them. Sad to say Illuminations is no longer my favorite. The lasers were hard to see and the globe part was too long. Still love the music. Love MSEP and Wishes.
We battled the heat by using frog toggs & drinking lots of water. I minimized time outside by keeping our planned attractions close together. We did not crisscross the park for FP. Our 1st MK day we did TL>Frontierland>LS>Fantasyland (Lunch was BOG.) HS was our worst heat day. It's so hard to plan that park effectively. AK wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We all thought the crowds were not that bad! We were all pleasantly surprised.
My family all said this was the best vacation ever. It was definitely our best WDW vacation. None of us wanted to leave. So, for all of those traveling with extended family, it can be done. You can stay together and have it work. We hit all of the highlights and then some. We added some rides in on the fly because we had time and the lines were reasonable. The longest ride line we waited in all trip was maybe 20 minutes, at the most. We would all do summer again in a heartbeat.
Any questions on what we did, strategy with a group or anything else please ask!
They left the planning to me. I gave Mom & sister options for dining & it was easy to agree. They didn't care about FP's. They knew I would make the best decisions for the group. No arguing or problems at all in the planning stages.
My group traveled well together. We stuck together for all things except the last day when we split up guys & girls. Everyone was up and ready on time, no complaining. We did early mornings arriving about 45 minutes before park opening, leaving after TS lunch and then headed back in the evening for night time shows. We only had one meltdown/grumpy time and that was after our waterpark day. Everyone was just tired. We all got some sleep and woke up with much better attitudes the next day.
We loved the Magic Bands and FP+! Had a couple of issues upon entry, but they just took our pic and away we went. That happened to 3 of us on the second day. After that everything worked perfectly. I scheduled our FP's for 10, 11 & 1:30 most days. Lunch ADR's went faster than I thought and I could have scheduled the last one for 1pm. We did do some waiting around for our times, but we used the time to visit. It was never more than 10-15 minutes. We are not re-ride people so we managed to accomplish a lot (for our standards.) We did 10 rides between 7:50 and 11:45 on EMH Thursday, 2 were FP (HM & 7DMT), ate lunch at 12 and then did PP FP before heading out. (This also included the headliners.) We had an equally successful Tuesday (last day) at MK with the girls. The focus was FL & Princess M&G. Between 7:50 & 8:50 we did 5 rides & met Ariel. From 8:55-11:20 we met Merida, Alice & White Rabbit (together), Cinderella & Rapunzel (FP), Peter Pan, Tiana, Elsa & Anna (FP). We also had a couple of bathroom breaks in there and waited 5-10 minutes for our M&G FP times. We were in line for Merida by 8:55 and were the 3rd or 4th family (she started meeting at 9:15). The longest wait was for Alice, maybe 20 minutes? Tiana was in Heritage Hall in LS, there was practically no wait.
The Frozen fireworks were the best nighttime show we saw. Absolutely loved them. Sad to say Illuminations is no longer my favorite. The lasers were hard to see and the globe part was too long. Still love the music. Love MSEP and Wishes.
We battled the heat by using frog toggs & drinking lots of water. I minimized time outside by keeping our planned attractions close together. We did not crisscross the park for FP. Our 1st MK day we did TL>Frontierland>LS>Fantasyland (Lunch was BOG.) HS was our worst heat day. It's so hard to plan that park effectively. AK wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We all thought the crowds were not that bad! We were all pleasantly surprised.
My family all said this was the best vacation ever. It was definitely our best WDW vacation. None of us wanted to leave. So, for all of those traveling with extended family, it can be done. You can stay together and have it work. We hit all of the highlights and then some. We added some rides in on the fly because we had time and the lines were reasonable. The longest ride line we waited in all trip was maybe 20 minutes, at the most. We would all do summer again in a heartbeat.
Any questions on what we did, strategy with a group or anything else please ask!
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