Saturday, June 4, 2022

Cozi Family Planning

We love using the free Cozi app for planning our Branson vacations. 

A great bonus with this app is it's a family shared calander/planning app. You can add all the family members you want to be part of it by adding their email address and giving them the password. Then they can download the app and sign in. We find the free version is plenty for us. But, the paid version is not that expensive and you could split the cost if you wanted to.

I will warn though that anyone you add has administrative controls to the app. So they can add and delete family members or events. Because of this I would strongly suggest selecting a family leader or two to be in charge of adding events and family members. And being firm with the others to either not add events or family members without running it by the leaders and especially, under no circumstances, to delete events or family members without discussing it with the pre-selected leaders.

Also because of this if you are using this for a large extended family reunion or event, I would make a account for only these kinds of trips and if you want cozi for your normal personal and immediate family needs to make a second separate account. Plus you may not want your extremely extended/distant family seeing a your personal business. 

Thankfully, we haven't had any issues with this. And I only use it for my immediate family and close extended family that I trust explicitly, ie my mother in law, father in law, my own parents, and my siblings. And of course my husband and children. So I use my normal one. At the same time I usually only add my extended family for the duration of the trip, then delete them from the account the rest of the time. Lol

We love using Cozi because, I can plan everything hour by hour. And all members can see the exact itinerary at any moment. 

A tip I will give is more information in the event the better. Give the briefest, but most coherent title to the event. But, put exact location/address in the location. Put phone number, address and operating hours of all destinations in the notes section as well as any confirmation number that may need to be relayed at the event/destination. I find having all that information readily available in the event makes things so much easier and smoother. 

I like having the phone number and operating hours in the notes because sometimes the best laid plans get disturbed and go out the window. So if we start running late, I can quickly see the operating hours to see if we will still make it before closing and the phone number to call and ask if we can reschedule, or at least give them a heads up we are running late, if it was a pre-scheduled event. Extended family members can easily find the address this way and also call the venue and let them know the confirmation number and that while most the party may be there on time, they may be late. All this helps.

Going with the above, I highly suggest looking up each location 1 to 2 weeks before departure to make sure all addresses are current, call the phone numbers to make sure they are current and not defunct and everything is correct before you are actually there and scrambling realizing they moved or changed their number. And since 2020 making sure their operating hours are even correct. And the way things can get all twisted up, that if they have any reservations/confirmation numbers are correct.

Also my family are creatures of habit, and often go to the same places the same time of year every year. So I can have a lot of these events auto repeat every year. I especially likey grocery list for vacation to repeat because it's hard to remember everything we need and I don't want to end up back there 60 times. I always make it a pick up order. But, auto repeat, I have been able to keep track of exactly what we need. Eliminate things we didn't use and add things we forgot we would need. I also like keeping the address of any hotel we stay at. As some towns have several of the same kind of hotel, but different locations then the next year I can't remember which location it exactly was. I just tweak all the repeat events every year a couple of months before to make sure they are still wanted/needed and with current information. 

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Busy Days!

Here's my advice - go early! The turnstiles open at 8:30 every day, no matter when opening is scheduled.  Be in the Parking lot by 8:15....