Good morning to all! I don’t often write in the Disney blog but many of you may know me from my other blogs on this site, or from the forums. You may also know that I have just returned from a vacation to Disney World! This is no small feat as many of you already know: I have five children.
Read that to mean, 5 children who love, love, love all things Disney. Some of you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? So she has five kids!” The big deal is that they are all under the age of 8. . .to be exact I have a recently turned 8 year old, a recently turned 6 year old, a soon to turn 4 year old and not quite yet 2 year old twins. That is a full crew of little munchkins and suffice it to say that a trip to the Magic Kingdom requires some strategizing.
So if you are planning a trip to Disney World with your little kids sit up and pay close attention. We had exactly one day to do the Magic Kingdom, and with my father in law leading the way (I will never understand how he didn’t end up working for Disney), we did everything. . .or at least everything we wanted to do.
Tip #1 Plan your meals!
Reservations for character lunches/dinners should be made before you even get on a plane. Our lunch reservations for the Crystal Palace were for 11:30. When we got there at 11:00 AM, secure in our own reservations, we watched a slew of sad and disappointed faces as the hostess announced that they were filled up until 9pm that night! You do not want to be eating dinner at 9pm with toddlers!
Tip #2 Hit Toontown and Fantasyland first!
Most parents think about all the cool things at Disney and a playground doesn’t exactly fit my idea of “cool”. However, for my kids it was exactly the kind of thing they wanted to do: just play. Even my 8 year old loved Minnie’s and Mickey’s houses. Most of the attractions that are appropriate for the preschool set are found here so it’s a great place to start.
Tip #3 Large talking cartoon characters can be scary!
Who knew that someone wouldn’t like Winnie the Pooh? One of my twins acted as if Winnie and his pal Piglet may have been the devil incarnate. Then I looked around and saw lots of similarly aged toddlers crying and screaming. What amazed me though was the parents determined to get that once in the lifetime picture. Think: do you really want a photo of your toddler screaming next to Piglet? Just snap Piglet all by himself and put it in the scrapbook. . .your little one will thank you later.
Tip #4 Plan for naps!
If you have only one day to do the Magic Kingdom you really have two options: power your way through the day and hope your toddler is well behaved even without a nap. Or, plan a ‘downtime’ during the day where little ones might sleep. With two toddlers I can promise you that had we not planned for nap time, it would not have been pretty. I have to give kudos to Disney as they have a wonderful family space that is clean, pretty and quiet. There is also a nursing mother’s room if needed. This wasn’t really an option for us so what we did instead was put the sleepy twins in their strollers, and then planned to go do attractions that would really appeal to the older children in our group.
Tip #5 Photo ops are not fun!
Scattered throughout the park are cute little places where you will find signs that read: Photo Opportunity. Maybe I have unusual toddlers or maybe it’s because there are two of them but they were definitely not into standing still while my in-laws got the cameras ready and snapped the shot. The first time was fine but after that it was overkill. Instead, we got some great pictures of the kids playing and having fun!
Look for some more blogs about our trip to Disney World!