Family trip with different arrival and departure dates

Brian918

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jul 7, 2011
My family is looking at a trip back to Disney Thanksgiving weekend of 2020. I am in the early planning stages and just trying to get up to speed on the changes since our last visit in 2012. MDE seems to be the biggest change in terms of planning. Also, for the first time, we will have different travel arrangements and I'm curious how the best way to book would be.

On Thanksgiving, my wife and I would be arriving with our teenage sons. I'd like to reserve a 2 queen lake view room at CL for the 4 of us. On Saturday of Thanksgiving, my daughter and 3yo Granddaughter would be arriving. On Tuesday afternoon, the boys would return home so they didn't miss any more days of HS and College. My wife, daughter and granddaughter would stay until Saturday.

I'm wondering if I can book the same lake-view tower room for the whole trip? We would stay with the boys in that room until the girls arrive on Saturday. Then for the Saturday - Tuesday portion when everyone is there, we book a 2nd room....King Theme park view for my wife and I? Once the boys leave, we go back to the lake view room with our daughter / granddaughter.

I'm thinking I would reserve rooms-only since I know Thanksgiving rooms will be hard to get and less likely for a discount. I'm just trying to figure out how this will work with the MDE, specifically meal and fast pass reservations. Is this doable? Or is there a better way to manage this trip?

Thank you in advance!
Brian
 
I think I would do the following:

Lake View Room: Put yourself as the lead guest, with your wife and two sons also listed on the room
King Room: Put your wife as the lead guest and then list yourself as the second guest

When your daughter and granddaughter arrive, go to the front desk and explain that you will now be going to the king room and you would like your daughter and granddaughter to be listed on the lake view room (they should give them magic bands at that point). When your teen sons go home, go back to the front desk, take them off the lake view room and put yourself back on (You will have to pay an extra adult fee for the remaining nights). I hope that makes sense.

As far as meal reservations, you can make reservations for as many people as you'd like, so that isn't a concern. For FP+, if your sons and daughter have separate MDE accounts, simply make sure everyone has valid ticket media linked to their profiles and that you are all connected through Friends and Family. If you are only using one MDE account, again, simply set up profiles for everyone and link valid ticket media. You will then be able to make FP+ for everyone for your entire lake view room stay when your 60 day FP+ window opens up. As long as one person in an MDE account is listed on an onsite reservation, you can FP+ for all people connected to that MDE account whether they are staying in your room or not.
 
DW14 - Thank you so much for your detailed answer! I was afraid that I could only make dinner reservations and fastpasses for those listed on the room reservations at the time of booking. Your answer seems to alleviate that concern. Thanks again!
 

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