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need Disney World advice
I'm looking at planning a trip for 5 nights/4 days of park tickets or 6 nights/5 days of park tickets at either Wilderness Lodge or Port Orleans Riverside (or possibly French Quarter). We will be taking our 2 boys, who are 2 and 5, and I am so excited!
I could use advice from those who have taken young children on how many days you would suggest, whether a park hopper would be helpful or too much for this age, etc. Also, we are more likely to stay more days at Port Orleans due to price, but the proximity of Wilderness Lodge with the boat to Magic Kingdom is very appealing for heading back for a nap.
Also, we will probably go again in 3-4 years, so this won't be our only trip, but it also won't be something we do every year. We are probably going to skip Hollywood Studios to allow for more time at the other parks. We definitely want to go to Epcot and have seen a few ideas online of what our boys might enjoy there. We plan on doing a breakfast at Chef Mickey's at some point, and I'm interested in going to Downtown Disney the day we get there (midday).
Has anyone used the in room babysitting service, Kids Nite Out while at Disney? We are considering a date one night but aren't sure about hiring from a service like this.
Any tips are appreciated!
Re: need Disney World advice
I would add park tickets to the day you arrive and depart, it is only something like $10 a day once you get past 5 days. I have stayed at both Port Orleans French Quarter and Fort Wilderness Lodge. We had a 2 year old at Fort Wilderness and the boat was convenient because you could roll the stroller on and off, but I didn't find it any faster than the buses. I didn't like our room at the resort, it was really small and dark, we were on the first floor which was actually below grade, so we never had any sunlight. The lobby was really nice, but the room was not. French Quarter had more motel style rooms with the doors opening to the outside, but the resort itself was a manageable size, which meant it was a quick walk to the pool, restaurants and buses.
I found the easiest way to do Disney with a toddler was to get up early, head to the main park for the day and once the crowds got big and she got tired, we headed back for nap. We usually went to a different park in the evening for dinner/fireworks, so the park hopper was a must. We didn't nap every day, we really played it by ear with how she was doing and how the crowds were.
We skipped Hollywood Studios two of the three times we have been with Finley. We took her this last trip for one day of the 7 we were there, that was plenty. Fantasmic is a really neat show at night there, so it might be an option to do one night after you were at another park during the day.
For breakfast, I would skip Chef Mickeys and do the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom instead. It is Winnie the Pooh and friends, which is fun for toddlers. Make your reservations for before the park opens and you get in the gates before anyone else. We have so many cool pictures of us on Main Street totally empty before our reservations at 8:45 am (park opened at 9 am that day, make sure you check and make sure the hours of MK that day, they vary.) We did a dinner at Chef Mickeys and it was so-so, for the money, I didn't think it was worth it. Mickey and all his friends are available for pictures in Epcot, you just need to wait in line for them, which was never longer than 20 minutes. I found Chef Mickey's to be rushed as far as the character interactions went. And for just meeting Mickey, meet him at Town Hall in the main square where you enter the MK. Last time we were there they had the "new" Mickey for pictures...he talked! His mouth moved and everything, Finley was amazed.
I don't know about the babysitting service, so I can't comment on that.
Best of luck in planning! We have been to Disneyworld with Finley 3 times and Disneyland once, she loves it and we are already planning our next trip in the fall after we go to Disneyland Paris this spring.
So Tasty, So Yummy
We just got back from staying at the wilderness lodge! it is DEFINITELY worth the extra $$ for the proximity to the magic kingdon and the monorail. all of theboats we took, though, made you fold your stroller before getting on. you could not roll a child in stroller on to the boat (both the larger boats and smaller ones were making people fold the strollers).
we wouldn't have used park tickets on the day of our departure because our plane left at noon, but have a;lways found the park hopper pass to be invaluable. sometimes you just want tog o somewheer else, plus you can take better advantage of the magic hours. we have alwys used tickets on the day of arrival, everyone's really excited to get out there.
we did chef mickey's a few years ago and it was kind of a zoo... like PAGAS said, rushed charcter interactions and just a LOT of people. this trip, we did the Mickey's Backyard BBQ, which was fun, and my niece got to meet mickey, minnie, goofy and chip & dale. there were a zillion little ones there, and they loved dancing with the characters. she also did the character meeting thing at epcot (but did it during magic hours). we ran into daisy duck and stitch one day at the entrance to epcot, and she re-united with chip and dale at the entrance to magic kingdom one evening. we met sleeping beauty in France at epcot. donald duck appears in mexico at scheduled times, and a bunch of the princesses and Beast appear in the countries as well.
i'm laughing that PAGAS's room was too dark at Wilderness Lodge... ours was so effing bright when we had the curtains open, we mostly had them closed (our balcony faced the front of the bu ilding). what i loved most about it was that we were right around the corner from a little "living room" area, and when it was too loud in the room from kids, i could go out there and relax in the white noise of the lobby. it is such a comfy, welcoming place... and the pool is great.
our mode of operation is to adjust schedules so that we're waking up late, and staying out late. the night time magic hours are truly magical. that may be impossible with a toddler, but I think Kel managed it with kendall a few years back (though to be fair, kendall had a later schedule than most little kids due to the hours her parents work).
i have no input on the morning magic hours because i was never up that early. the boys woke up super early one day because they wanted to do Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom, and there are no night magic hours.
Hollywood Studios doesn't have a whole lot of little kid stuff. The Little Mermaid thing there is cute, though. The Great Movie Ride seems calm, but it scared the crap out of my 9 year old neice.
Epcot has an adorable Fiding Nemo ride and the "Turtle Talk" thing at the end of it is super-entertaining for everyone. Spaceship Earth is fun!
Enjoy : ) We had an absolute blast, and hope to stay at the polynesian next time. we fell in love with their soft serve Dole Pineapple Whip and actually rode the boat and monorail there to eat so we could have it for dessert a few times!!!
I abhor Downtown Disney. I mean I hate it. It's the most un-magical place on earth during the day, lol. Pleasure Island may be more fun, though. We;ve never done any of the adult entertainment type stuff.
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We went to WDW last May with our two girls, who at that time were ages almost 5 and 3.
We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge and very much enjoyed it. We loved the pool areas and the ferry rides each day. On our last morning we had breakfast at the Whispering Canyon Cafe and thought the food, service and atmosphere were wonderful.
Unlike Jax and PAGAS, we never used our Park Hopper option. Since it was our first trip to Disney as a family and I was the designated trip planner, I found it easier to focus on one park at a time once we got there, so in our case it was a waste of money.
We had five days worth of park tickets. My Bible was the Unofficial Guide and I used their touring plans for young children to get through each park. There's also a lines app you can load on your phone and it will give you approximate wait times for the various rides - I used this quite a lot, along with Fast Passes, to move through the parks pretty efficiently.
We spent 2.5 days in the Magic Kingdom, one day at Animal Kingdom, and one day at Epcot. Both our AK and Epcot days were very long, and we chose not to leave for naps. The girls were troopers and didn't seem to mind. We did come and go from the Magic Kingdom on our long days there, mainly because it was so convenient to do so. We saw just about every attraction at MK and rode every ride but a couple of the roller coasters. One thing that surprised me was how little fear my girls had. They both went inside the Haunted Mansion - my 3yo laughed the entire ride and older DD enjoyed feeling "scared."
Older DD wouldn't have anything to do with the characters but younger DD loved loved loved them. We hit Chef Mickey and had breakfast with Cinderella and the princesses. We also ate dinner at the California Grill and watched the fireworks from the rooftop of the Contemporary Hotel our first night at Disney and it was magical. In the end, I wished we'd made more sit-down dinner reservations!
Don't miss seeing the fireworks from inside the park and for sure don't miss the electric light parade. Those were both great experiences for us.
Epcot was a surprise favorite. We enjoyed AK, but Epcot was a bigger hit with all of us. My older DD rode the Soarin' ride twice and loved it. I could have spent days at Epcot!
We didn't visit Downtown Disney nor did we use any babysitting, so I can't speak to those questions. Hope this info helps!
I'd call and ask about the stroller and boat issue. It was a HUGE PITA to fold up the stroller for the bus when I went out on my own with Maddie and she was asleep. Try carrying a 42 lb kid on one arm and your bag/stroller in the other when you are out of shape!
The monorail made life so easy because the kids could sleep in the stroller coming off/on.
I also highly recommend NOT stuffing the bottom of a stroller full of stuff because every time you enter/exit a park you have to empty it, and to fold it down to get on the bus you have to empty it.
If you can't see getting around that, I'd plan on not doing park hoppers and planning your schedule so you can be in the park as long as possible on one day. If it is you, DH, and your small kids you can do that.
We had 10 of us so we had split desires to go various places and used our park hoppers because of that. But I really used the park hopper on only 2/5 days.
One nice thing - had we known what hell MK was going to be the day Bieber was there, and had we known Bieber was there, we would have gone to another park and the park hopper option would have been great in that case.
So in summary, park hopper = fabulous when you have older kids who come/go easily and you aren't dealing with strollers and/or if your kid can't nap in a stroller. If your kid can nap in a stroller just fine and you can stand to be in the park all day long, I'd skip the park hopper tickets and save $$ that way.
- Paula Deen to 104.1 KRBE's Producer Eric 9/17/2011
So Tasty, So Yummy
ooh-- and the line apps are great. the one we used (Disney World by Undercover Tourist) also gives you a green/yellow/red as far as park capacity. MK & HS were at capacity a couple of times when we were there-- thankfully they happened to be days we were elsewhere. Some of the info was incorrect, though... like one night it sad the teacups were closed, but they were open.
the boat captains (if you can call them that?) were a great information source. they had good stuff to say as far as which parks were fuller/not as full, and were super helpful when we had questions.
interesting note: since disney is private property and they don't charge for the boat rides, the boat drivers don't have to have their captain's licenses. their boat driving hours do, however, count toward their captain's license.
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If you stay in a WDW resort you can have packages delivered to your resort so you don't have to lug around all day.
I will always pay the extra $$ for the park hopper.