My family calls me a Disney Fanatic, an over planner (yes I use Spreadsheets). I’m attempting to create a budget and plan for our Multi generation for the Summer of 2020. It’s never too early to plan, is my motto! I’ve been using Summer 2019 as a template, noting prices will increase in all aspects. Our family comprised of my 2 sons and their families. So 5 Adults and at the time of our trip one son’s family consist of .son - 10 ( will also be considered as an adult at that time), daughters 6 and 2. Other son has a daughter - 7 and a son - 3. I’ve been looking at going the week after 4th of July and hoping for free dining, and accommodations options at one of these, 3 rooms at Pop, 2 family suites at AoA or 2 rooms at CBR. I hear July is one of the worse months to go, because of the heat, humidity and rain, but it could be free dining and lower ticket prices, but I’m still hoping the crowds would be less than June, all subject on the new Star Wars land. Anyone have any valuable insight with July stays or multi generation trip planning Jedi’s and Princesses, all comments welcomed! Just one more note, I’m not personally keen on sleeping on a sofa bed!
Wish I could help but as I’ve never done “group” planning, have never gone with kids, and have NEVER gone in July (at least not in the past 35 or so years), there’s not really much I can tell you.
As far as planning for those Princesses and Jedi, I would suggest that it might make sense for perhaps one day to be set aside where the families “mix and match”!
So those wanting to meet Princesses go do that:
- MK for Tales with Belle, Ariel’s Grotto, M&G at Fairytale Hall, meet Merida etc
- Epcot for some of the others like Jasmine (less easy to plan, but the daily guide will have timings for them IIRC)
- Maybe a meal at Akershus / CRT etc
Whilst the wanna be Jedi go off to DHS to do all things Star Wars:
- Jedi Training
- Galaxy Edge if you can get an FP for one ride (both are going to be the top tier I’m sure)
- Star Tours
- March of the First Order
- Launch Bay with lots of time to do the meet and greets, plus look at all the exhibits
- Star Wars nighttime show
That way, everyone gets to pick the “experience”, no one is hanging around waiting for little sister to meet Belle etc.
Rooms? Whichever is cheapest! Each family will need their own space. What about you? Will you wat your own room? Maybe with one or two of the grandchildren?
As for the heat. Well we did one summer and found it slowed us down. We aren’t rope drop people, so my advice would be to do rope drop until noon, then swim and back to the parks in the cooler evenings. Again, maybe be prepared to switch around, so maybe some days the little ones have an earlier night with one set of parents, the others go back to the parks for some “late night fun”.
But if you know they won’t cope with early starts, then don’t plan for them! Plan around a later start, even if that means missing out some stuff or a whole park.
I don’t have much to say other than I would go with 3 rooms at Pop. I have a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids) and we are taking my single adult best friend with us. I looked at the family suites and I just can’t see those pull out beds working for the adults. My friend has back issues and I prefer not to create any for myself or DH. So we are going with 2 rooms at Pop.
Thanks, and traveling with family summer is our only option. It will be our first trip in July, previous trips were late May and early June. I’ve had the luxury of traveling solo during the fall twice which i really enjoyed with only a hint of guilt! I did bring back lots of presents for them!
Great tips, I’m hoping one Princess meal with cover the Princess greets, another Mickey type meal for the little ones and hoping to do the Star Wars experience meal to eliminate multiple character greets and do rides. I suspect at least for MK and AK, that we will do a break mid day. For E and HS I’m hoping to remain in the park and do a sit down meal and show mid day. For the rooms I’m really leaning on 3 rooms at Pop. Anyone know if they have adjoining rooms in the Preferred Pool buildings?
We found 3 rooms at Pop the most cost effective for our multi-generation trip. Gave each family their own bathroom and we had plenty of sleeping space.
July is very HOT and extremely HUMID. I’ve done WDW once in July and wish to never repeat it. Rope drop, mid afternoon break, and then head back out early evening is a good strategy. Wish we would have done that! My dad was a RD to close kinda guy when I was growing up.
Early Morning Magic at MK is all the rave these days. It was a lot of fun! Got a lot done, and didn’t feel too gutted with the price tag since it included a meal - regardless that it was served on Styrofoam or paper plates… it was still good enough! You can now meet the princesses during EMM at MK too!
I can only speak to the princess angle as we aren’t SW folks.
Akershus is/was a 1 credit meal. Will knock out a lot of princesses. CRT is a 2 credit, and highly overrated one IMO for that matter. Both take a reasonable amount of time to accomplish, but CRT took longer in my experience.
HS is now also offering an EMM for Toy Story Land.
For a Mickey type meal in a park, we really like Tusker House in AK.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate your feedback and the great suggestions! I’m really leaning towards Pop and excited about being on the new Skyline. Waiting on those reviews!
I’m not the one to give advice on larger group planning, but I do have to say Disney spreadsheets are the best spreadsheets. 
I also liked Akershus over CRT. If anyone has a favorite princess, I’d still recommend a separate meet and greet. My daughter loves Aurora, and even though we met her at both princess meals, we met her in Epcot and that was the best…so personal and special 
Also, characters are subject to change at the meals (like I think I read sometimes they have Mary Poppins at the princess meals, and though I love her, doesn’t seem to fit to me).
From the reviews, I have to agree and I think my family would do better with a buffet, Elsa and Anna is on the list, I rather do characters in EP rather than MK. The only character missing is Moana, was hoping she would be added to MK or to the Poly! My last trip tried to meet Merida, but she apparently was MIA, I’m assuming she was doubled booked with MVMCP activities.
We did July for the first time last year - it was our first summer trip. Worked out well enough we plan to repeat it this year. It’s hot and very humid, but our days worked well getting up early, doing stuff and then looking to bail around 1 to 3 at the latest to avoid the worst heat. Rest in the room, nap and then we were ready to go out again at night. Worked well for us, although we didn’t have young children to deal with either.
One note, afternoon thunderstorms are the order of the day due to the heat - we swam far less than expected since often when we would have swam around 3:30 the pool was closed due to lightning. If swimming is high on your list, it may be wise to schedule some non-afternoon time to do it…
Overall the rain wasn’t bad - we only got caught in one downpour that was truly epic and more often than not it’s refreshing. But the lightning can put a crimp on pool time…
Thanks and good to hear that you survived! We have been to the parks previously with each family and even in June we dealt with the rain and the heat, but never left the park and returned. This trip I’m planning an extra day for non park day, so for the swimming hoping for our arrival day, the off day and more than likely we won’t return to AK once we get to ride AFoP because of how hot and humid the park gets, the kids will be happy with evening swims too! Now that you bring all this up, maybe we should do 7 nights instead of 6 so we can really enjoy it! I think i need to redo my spreadsheet!