Hardwood floors refinishing. Is it possible?

Wife and I have been in our home for 10 years and the home is 18 years old. Floors looked good when we moved in but could now use some refinishing. Is it true that we should just plan on moving out of the home for the 5 days or so it could take and will there still be a mess to clean up, no matter how much care the crew takes to minimize it? I can understand if there is no escaping the extra dust but is there a system out there that maybe spares on the leftover dust? At our age we're not sure how much we can take on with this.