Disney World With a Large Group

If you are traveling to Disney World with extended family or a large group, there are a few logistics that you do not want to overlook.

In this post we will cover…

• Booking the same room category
• Requesting connecting or nearby rooms
• Linking your party in your My Disney Experience account
• Booking Dining Reservations

How to be in connecting or nearby rooms

Below you will see steps you can take to increase your chances of having rooms close to one another.

If you want to see if you can make your trip happen with just one room, a suite or a 2-3 bedroom villa, check out this post first.

Book the same room category

Disney resorts offer different views and preferences for their rooms. And many times, booking different categories will put you in different buildings.

For instance, the Value Resorts and most Moderate Resorts, offer standard rooms or preferred rooms. In most cases standard rooms will be in buildings farther away from the lobby, whereas preferred rooms will be in buildings closer to the lobby.

At these resorts, if you book a standard room, but the other family books a preferred room, you most likely won’t be in the same building.

You could luck out and be bumped up to a preferred room, but I wouldn’t count on it. In this case, you will have to work out your priorities – room type vs. being closer to the other family.

On the other hand, as you see below, it is a possibility to be in two different categories but in the same building at Pop Century!

If you are staying at Art of Animation, and one family wants to be in the Cars Themed Suites and another wants to stay in the Little Mermaid Rooms, you will be across the resort form one another.

Other resorts offer different themed rooms, such as the Pirate Rooms at Caribbean Beach Resort or the Royal Guest Rooms at Port Orleans Riverside.

If your family books a Pirate Room, but your parents book a preferred room or a standard room, they are going to be in a different building at the resort.

I think you get the point 😉

Request connecting or nearby rooms… multiple times

Booking the same category is only the beginning of the pursuit to receive connecting or nearby rooms.

Although Disney World will not guarantee your parties have connecting or nearby rooms, their goal is to make you happy. Therefore, they will do what they can to meet your requests.

As for you, don’t forget to make your requests known throughout your planning process.

First, always request a connecting room when you make your reservation. Your Disney Travel Planner will know how to do this. Be sure to let him or her know what you want.

Then, 60 days in advance when you are doing online check-in, you will have another chance to let your requests known.

Finally, I always recommend calling your resort the morning of check-in to kindly let a human being know your request.

And if you still don’t get it, I would try one last friendly call. You may think this is overboard, but it’s happened to me.

On the day of check-in I called and let my request be known. I got a text that our rooms were assigned and I eagerly checked the map!

It was almost like they put in the exact opposite request. I called back and kindly let them know my request, and ta-da! A new room assignment that was exactly what we were looking for.

Link your My Disney Experience accounts

Once you have your room situation figured out, you will want to make sure you can all plan together.

Can you imagine it’s time to book FastPasses and each adult is trying to coordinate their selections and make sure they are getting FastPasses for the same rides at the same times? What a mess!

How to Link your my disney experience accounts

I highly recommend linking everyone under “My Family and Friends” in your My Disney Experience (MDE) account and allowing each person to manage each other’s plans.

Below are screenshots of how to do begin setting this up on the Disney website on your phone.

Once you tap “My Family and Friends,” you may need to add specific guests to your list. Simply scroll down, click “Add Guest,” and follow the prompts.

If you have any trouble (which I usually do), call the MDE help desk at (407) 939-4356.

Be sure to allow each other to “Manage My Plans.” This takes you one step farther and you are able to book each other’s FastPasses and and each other on your Dining Reservations.

Below are screenshots on the My Disney Experience app, verifying you are linked and can manage others’ plans.

You can decide you just want one head honcho to be in charge of booking all FastPasses and Dining Reservations. If that’s the case, be sure that your head honcho has permission from each person to manage their plans.

Just a heads up, this may sound like a good idea while at home prepping. However, that is a lot of work and pressure to put on one person, and it’s not very practical once you are in the parks, especially if your groups slits up.

Have all the adults work together

If your group splits up at all, you are going to want to make sure people in each group have the ability to book FastPasses for everyone in their group.

For instance, say you are at Magic Kingdom, and everyone just used their last FastPass on Splash Mountain. Now you want to split up into 2 groups.

Group A wants to head to Tomorrowland and try to ride Space Mountain. Group B wants to head to Adventureland and ride Pirates of the Caribbean.

Your head honcho planner is in Group A. At this point, I’m not even sure what Group B would do… Each person would be trying to book their own FastPass for Pirates of the Caribbean for the same time. Which I don’t think has a good probability for success.

Basically, I highly recommend everyone be able to manage everyone else’s plans.

This way everyone in Group A could be working together to find a FastPass for Space Mountain, and everyone in Group B could be working together to find a FastPass for Pirates of the Caribbean.

Book dining reservations for everyone

Thankfully, booking dining reservations is a much simpler concept.

My theory in making Dining Reservations is “book now for the largest table you might need, and modify or cancel later.”

It’s hard to know 180 days in advance where each person will want to eat. Fortunately, you can book your reservations and cancel them up to 24 hours in advance without penalty.

You can also modify and remove guests from the reservation up until the actual reservation. This is simple to do.

However, adding guests is not always an option. That’s why I recommend you go ahead and book each reservation to include everyone in your party. You can always easily remove those who do not want to go.

What other tips do you have for doing Disney with a large group? Tell us below!