First Disney trip with Toddlers!!

dbroussard0905

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jul 25, 2019
Hey everybody! First off, thank you in advance for tips and tricks!

My wife and I booked our Disney trip for May, and we are beginning to plan out the trip. We have a 3 year old and a 2 year old at time of trip in May. We plan on doing a 4 day, one park per day, pass. We plan on two days at Magic Kingdom, one day at Hollywood Studios and one day at Animal Kingdom. We are staying off property, however. My wife and I would like to try and still do the larger rides,but I know the kids can't. Fingers crossed we get to do Star wars 🤞🏻! Any and all tips and tricks to help this trip be smoothe and fun!
 
Hey everybody! First off, thank you in advance for tips and tricks!

My wife and I booked our Disney trip for May, and we are beginning to plan out the trip. We have a 3 year old and a 2 year old at time of trip in May. We plan on doing a 4 day, one park per day, pass. We plan on two days at Magic Kingdom, one day at Hollywood Studios and one day at Animal Kingdom. We are staying off property, however. My wife and I would like to try and still do the larger rides,but I know the kids can't. Fingers crossed we get to do Star wars 🤞🏻! Any and all tips and tricks to help this trip be smoothe and fun!
We also don't plan on purchasing tickets until April 🤞🏻
 
If the kids aren't tall enough for any of the big rides, I would have each of you stagger your FP selections if possible. Person A 1030-1130, Person B 1145-1245 for example.

The hardest rides to get FPs for will be flights of passage at AK, Slinky Dog Dash or Millennium Falcon at Hollywood Studios and the mine train at Magic Kingdom.


Honestly the key to a successful trip with toddlers is flexibility. My then 20 month old daughter HATED every ride we went on, so I gave up on rides. Although oddly the rides at Epcot were her favorite (Frozen Ever After, Living Seas with Nemo, Living with the Land)
 
I agree with above poster, the key is flexibility. We started going when my son was just shy of 3 and I was a single mom so it was just the two of us. That meant no rider swap, we rode what he wanted to or could. We went slow and on his schedule. If I saw he was getting tired, we would grab a bench or a piece of lawn and just rest or go back to the room. It helped that we stayed on site and had PHs so if it got too crowded we just went to another park. He hated strollers so he walked 90% of the time. I think I rented a Disney stroller once or twice later in the day but otherwise it was slow walking and just enjoying being there.
 
We went when my kids were four and almost two. My husband and I love rollercoasters but since we wanted the trip to be mostly about the kids we picked one or two rides each day to do without them. We definitely missed some we'd have liked to have ridden but doing rider swap took up a lot of time. And there were so many rides we wanted to do as a family.
I highly recommend a toddler carrier for your two year old. It made waiting in lines so much easier!
 
In addition to all of the above, the big thing for me has been making sure little ones stay hydrated and move at their pace. Frequent stops for food and bringing along some tried and true snacks always helps.
 
Took our 2-year old for the first time last year, previous trips were just myself and DH. Prepare yourself ahead of time to be okay with missing something you really wanted to do. We didn't get to watch the parade at MK because little miss was having a meltdown and we had to book it out of there fast to get her back to the hotel for some quite time. Disappointing, yeah. But we made other memories.
If your kids are early risers, take full advantage of getting out the door early. We were never at the parks before 10:30am pre-kid. But since we were up with her anyway we made it to the park early and WOW we got so much done before lunch that we could spend a little time relaxing in the afternoons.
If you have never been before try to familiarize yourself with some of the rides that are touted as "kid-friendly" on here and other sites. For example: Journey of the Little Mermaid is okay for most kids but my kid is terrified of Ursula. If I had not been on it before (or watched a ride video) I would not have known just how in your face and larger than life the animatronics are. So we chose to skip that ride with her.
 


Oh my 2 year old was tough during our Thanksgiving trip.
granted, he’d just turned 2 weeks before and we were there for 3 weeks so he was really out of his routine, over stimulated and exhausted.
The hardest part for us was that he didn’t want to be in his stroller and didn’t want to wait in lines. He also had a hard time exiting a ride because he wanted to stay on and go again. We eventually resorted to an iPad while wItinfwhich helped.

He was a very young 2 so however you may not have those issues!

We ended up splitting up (we have a 5 year old also, who was fine!) a lot, one of us walking around with the little one while the other did something with the older.

We found scheduling ADRs during the little ones nap time worked well for us. We would get him asleep in his stroller right before lunch time and he would sleep through our meal. We just brought his own food for him or ordered him a QS meal and fed him before or after his naps.
 
Been twice with little ones - kids were 4yo and not quite 3yo the first time and almost 5yo and 3yo on the second. With a 2yo the biggest thing is to take advantage of not having to pay for them at character meals. We found the kids loved character meals - we've done Garden Grill and Crystal Palace - and not having to pay when our youngest was 2yo was a significant savings.

Do your kids usually eat a good breakfast? If so, we find out right away the importance of big breakfast either before even getting to the parks or first thing once you get there. Bringing a bunch of their favorite snacks with you to the park as they can be a lifesaver when you are waiting in line as well.

With rides, and with everything really, be prepared for them to surprise you with what they really enjoy. For some unknown reason my kids LOVED Gran Fiesta Tour at Epcot and we rode it 4 times during our first trip. I find it to be an enjoyable ride, but I still can't explain why my kids love it so much. Also, when we were in Pandora in AK we got them the Night Blossom frozen drink, and they were amazed with the popping boba balls. They talked about it the rest of the trip.
 
Flexibility is key, like others said. I only make one ADR a day and all our ADRs are lunches. It’s a nice break in the middle of the day and then if the toddler has had enough you don’t have to worry about suffering through or cancelling a dinner ADR.
 
My oldest is 5 and has been 4 times since she turned 1, and my youngest is 3 and has been 3 times since he turned 1. I love bringing toddlers to WDW!

Here are my tips for success ....
-Be flexible! Move at your toddler’s pace. We never try to hit a certain number of rides in a day. We don’t check things off a list. We just enjoy our time in the parks. My kids have found joy in so many things there that are not headliner rides.
-My kids are early risers, so we know mornings are prime park time for us. With a 9am park opening, we’ll enjoy the short rope drop lines until 10, then we have our FP around 10, 11, and 12 or 1. We always book our 3 FP to be finished by lunch time or shortly after and then we play the rest of the day by ear. We can book more FP, go back to the resort for a swim if we want, hop to another park, etc. If your kids are early risers, I really like this approach.
- Most of our ADRs are for breakfast or lunch, and we only book a few meals per trip ahead of time - usually character meals. Sometimes we will book an ADR on the fly on the same day if we feel like it. We really like to keep everything after lunch time open to do whatever we want. Quick service is nice so we can just feed the kids when they’re hungry.
-Some kids are good at napping in the room, some are not. Mine are definitely NOT. Mine will nap in the stroller if they are tired, but they will absolutely not nap in the room. If one is napping in the stroller, one of us will take the other to do something then switch and visa versa.

We learned what works for us as we went along. There’s so much you won’t know until you get there, so that’s why my biggest piece of advice is to not over plan and to be flexible.
 
I've taken my daughter since she was 11 months old, I think the most important thing is to schedule a nap or break time mid day.
 

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