My birthday present About This Page:

[CollinsFamily]

I've finally gotten my Grand Gathering people to agree to sit down and finish planning the Disney stuff for our upcoming vacation October/November this year. It's sad that I had to tell them that what I wanted for my birthday (which was Monday the 13th) was to get together with them Thursday (because I knew no one had anything planned that night), cook dinner for them (yes, I get to cook dinner for my birthday. How screwy is that? At least someone else is buying the ingredients!) and hammer out the Disney stuff.
I've got a poster board calendar with movable options so we can play with dates and times, pictures saved, my all important passporter book (with poor taped in pages), videos I've found, a short break down on each park and the resort we will be staying at (2 cabins at Fort Wilderness), Disney notebooks and pens to hand out to take notes in, and a very sarcasmic speech planned.
If anyone has suggestions of little known fun facts, or anything else I can do to make this night even more super fun, please share! Keep in mind that of the 11 people going on this trip, only my husband and I have ever been to Disney. Our last trip was our honeymoon in 2003.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

[LouigiAnne]

Good Luck with your planning, I remember how hard it was getting everyone together and to agree on plans for our Grand Gathering last October! And most of all just in case you need it to get thru your Birthday Dinner!! Hope you have a great trip. LouigiAnne

[chezp]

What a wonderful idea - I hope it goes really well and

[bitterchickey]

Happy Birthday, and good luck--it is so hard to make everyone happy, but compromise is the key!

[Tigger1221]

Originally Posted by bitterchickey

Happy Birthday, and good luck--it is so hard to make everyone happy, but compromise is the key!

what she said

Happy birthday though!

[bitterchickey]

LOL gee I wonder how we'd know that...

[Colexis Mom]

Sounds like a great plan!!

[home4us123]

Good luck planning!!

[mickey0823]

I hope that everything goes well!

[mojjo]

I would maybe give everyone a chance to say what is there "must do" at the parks so you guys have an idea of what people are going to be leaning to when they get there.

Also, suggest time apart. It's not like you have to spend the whole trip together.

Is there a "kids night" or "adult night".

[christiejay]

I love all the things you've gathered for the evening! It sounds a lot like the "Presentation" I gave to my husband the first time we went together. He had only been twice, for a couple days each time, many years before. So I gave him everything I had! It was a lot of fun for me, but I'm pretty sure his eyes were glazing over by the end of it. It was very overwhelming! I had pictures, maps, brochures, even a few nice souvenirs for show and tell.

My advice would be to simply stick to the basics as much as you can, especially since most of the people have never been. First-timers really have no way of understanding the large scale of the parks and the resorts and how it will affect them. Many times they will say they want to see and do everything, not realizing how hard it is to do that, and how tiring it can be.

I like what somebody else said, to try to get each person's must-see attractions, and then go from there. Hit the highlights of each park, and get everybody's opinions on what they want to see and do. Or either just try to get a feel of how much time you'll all be together, and when you'll be splitting up. You may simply need to be prepared to make one general itinerary for everybody and hand it out to them each day. In that case, you could use your best judgment for what the majority would enjoy, and then be flexible on the trip to make a few changes. Once they spot a particular thing in the park that looks interesting to them, it's hard to keep on a schedule after that.

When both of our families went with us in 2000, we would meet up at a particular park first thing in the morning and ride the "big" stuff together. Some days we followed the same general plan for a while, other days not. But we had always gone our separate ways by mid-afternoon. However, we did not have any ADRs all together (we did some individually), we didn't do any of the "grand gathering" activities, and we were staying at different resorts so I can't help you out too much there.

Have you stayed at the cabins before? We did on that trip and loved it. Yes, the transportation took a little longer but we didn't mind. There were lots of things to do, we fixed our own breakfast every morning, and even had a cookout on July 4.

Have a great time, and Happy Belated Birthday!

[CollinsFamily]

Thanks Christie for the information. Yes, I plan on getting each person's must do's and finding ways to work things in. Basically, I'm planning to pick a park for the day, pick the ADR's and backups for each, and then decide whether to stqrt in Tomorrowland, Adventureland, or take the train back to toontown fair first, respectively for each park. (That was confusing, I hope you understand) We'll pretty much let the days go as they will except that everyone knows we need to be at _____ restaraunt at ____time.
And, now I am annoyed. I have been cancelled on for the 3rd time. We have 2 weeks to figure out the ADR's, and I put a lot of work into getting this stuff ready for tonight. They are just begging for flow charts and powerpoint presentations here. Now if only I had a copy of powerpoint on my home computer...GRRR!
And I forgot to say that we haven't stayed in the cabins yet, but they look wonderful and we're really excited about ataying there this trip.

[christiejay]

Ha! I was just telling Jay about how you're doing a "Presentation" of your own tonight, and he kind of rolled his eyes at me as he was remembering the one I gave him. Anyway, his comment to me, if I did one for his sister for our December trip, is that I would need PowerPoint for it. So funny that you should mention that!

[CollinsFamily]

I'm definately thinking Powerpoint and an overhead projector........ LOL. Got the Disney DVD, and goody bags for everyone. Sigh. I worked so hard on this, and now it's cancelled. I could cry.

[CollinsFamily]

Originally Posted by bitterchickey

Happy Birthday, and good luck--it is so hard to make everyone happy, but compromise is the key!

I would love to compromise....if I could get anyone to sit down with me and give me an opinion. At this point, I'm going to set it up a plan on my own just in case, and on the off chance we actually do get together before August 1, I'll compare the 2 and see how close I got to what everyone else wanted. If all else fails, I've got DH's and DS15's brains to pick.