Your best tip for US/IOA with kids

[lizardqueen]

My best friend and I are heading to Florida in August. She has DD 11, DD 9 and DS 2. Having only been to US/IOA once myself (and that was 6 years ago), I'm not sure what the kids will enjoy. So for those of you that have taken kids around those ages, what are your best tips for those parks? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hug the Mouse]

In Universal we discovered Curious Georges Ball Factory last trip and our kids (DD 10, DS 7, DD 5) loved it. Kids can collect, vacuum, throw, shoot foam balls in a self contained building. Nothing high tech here, just a lot of fun. We had to drag them out after an hour.

At Islands the kids loved the play area in the Jurassic Park area. Climbing ropes, tunnels, water guns were among the fun activities for the kids to run around and expend energy on.

Have fun. We can't wait to go back.

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Your little one will really like that whole area leading to the Curious George ball pit. There's the Fievel play area, the Barney show and inside playground, and the Curious George water play area and ball pit. The bigger kids will like the Curious George stuff but probably not the other areas so much. My tip would for the adults to split up part of the time so the 2 yr old can play while the older kids get to enjoy rides. We went with 2 small children and we (Mom and Dad) took turns playing with the kids while the other went off to ride a ride or two. It worked out really well. We were all quite happy. In IOA, the little kids areas are more spread out and I think more appealing to older kids too so everyone should be able to stay together and have an enjoyable time.

 

[yaytezIOA]

IOA has Suess Landing, which has four rides for all ages, and an interactive play area. Toon Lagoon has a play area, Jurassic Park has TWO play areas (Camp Jurassic, and Discovery Center) as well as a small kids coaster. Lost Continent has a small coaster, and has loads of fun stuff to look at.....
USF is full of fun things for the little one, including the precious stuffed head characters that roam around, as well as face characters.....though your little one will have no clue who they are.....still fun. Physically your little one can go on just about every single attraction with a few exceptions (MIB Mummy) Emotionally, that is a different story. You will have to judge what they can handle, though my now 6 yr old loved every single ride she could go on (she was 2 at the time). Dont be overprotective, but if your little own looks like she's going to crawl out of her skin, most likely best to walk away.

 

[NurseW2Kiddies]

My tip is to try to take a break in the middle of the day. I'm not sure if where you are staying in conducive to doing that or not. That helped sooooo much when mine were little. We actually planned our hotel around being able to take breaks. They are 9 and 13 now and we still go back to the hotel in the heat of the day for a swim to cool off and relax. Then it's back to the parks at night again for more fun. It's swimmimg now but it USED to be that all important NAP. Have FUN!!!