1st Time for my 2 year Old! +PLEASE HELP+

[YesterDark]

Usually ours is like this (we go in August):

6am me-wake up, shower, dh wakes and showers and the kids are up by 6:30 ish. We all eat breakfast in the room with stuff we purchased outside of the bubble. I fill up ice in our thermos containers add water, kids pack them (they are old enough to carry their drinks now) .
7-7:15 we leave our room and head to whatever park is opening at 8. If there is no park that opens early that day then we leave a little later.
12ish have lunch at park and then leave. Siemens times we say eat earlier and do one or two more rides as we walk out.
1ish back to room via monorail or boat most of the time, occasional bus. And we would nap. Now I can swim since I figured it out...every other day is a park.
4ish if the nappers are still asleep, wake them, shower and return to park (usually MK or Epcot for us.
5-6 find dinner somewhere as we are walking, sometimes QS at the resort.
Stay til park closing.

For us, that $100 park ticket (not $300), means no sit downs on park days. We only do 2-3 sit downs per trip anyways. But the price of a nap/rest is vital to us and makes everyone, even the adults much happier.

I am just thinking of how tired my feet were in August as I have plantar faciatis. On our mid day break, I hopped in SAB and my feet and the sand=heaven.

Yeah you've got the system down, can't wait for my kids to be older so I can do the same.

• Staying within Boat/Monorail distance is fantastic.
• Kids being old enough to make it to park close opens up a lot of possibilities with mid-day breaks.
• $300 ticket is for a family of three for a single day. That's where the number came from.

 

[monorailsilver]

Yeah you've got the system down, can't wait for my kids to be older so I can do the same.

• Staying within Boat/Monorail distance is fantastic.
• Kids being old enough to make it to park close opens up a lot of possibilities with mid-day breaks.
• $300 ticket is for a family of three for a single day. That's where the number came from.

Even when they were younger we still took a mid day break. Honestly, we all needed it! Kids are exhausting to parents as is the FL heat. My oldest when she was 15 mo old stayed up for illuminations but she had a nap in the afternoon. DH and I took turns leaving the room, we did laundry, sometimes we took a cat nap.

 

[sponica]

Even when they were younger we still took a mid day break. Honestly, we all needed it! Kids are exhausting to parents as is the FL heat. My oldest when she was 15 mo old stayed up for illuminations but she had a nap in the afternoon. DH and I took turns leaving the room, we did laundry, sometimes we took a cat nap.

I'm one of those people if I go back to my room, I'm NOT leaving it again. We use a table service lunch for the same thing, we're out of the heat, sitting and relaxing. (my 20 month old was allowed to nap in her stroller at Tiffins, that was the best lunch ever). We also cheated and had the in laws come down for the trip (to some degree that was more work though)

 

[monorailsilver]

I'm one of those people if I go back to my room, I'm NOT leaving it again. We use a table service lunch for the same thing, we're out of the heat, sitting and relaxing. (my 20 month old was allowed to nap in her stroller at Tiffins, that was the best lunch ever). We also cheated and had the in laws come down for the trip (to some degree that was more work though)

I get it how some don’t want to leave.

But we go early, like leave at 7am early and it’s summer and it gets hot and crowded and we are hot and smelly and sticky and our feet are tired. So putting them up on a bed is heavenly plus we get clean (again). Or even swimming is just as relaxing. Plus I think a lot of day trippers arrive mid morning and by the late afternoon they are getting tired and just want to leave.

We don’t do TS on a park day or for that matter daily so that wouldn’t work for us.

Haha on more work with the ILs!!!

 

[YesterDark]

We typically do a character meal mid day on our busier park days. Nice 1-2 hour break in the AC and the kids have fun.

 

[lilmissy7789]

We typically do a character meal mid day on our busier park days. Nice 1-2 hour break in the AC and the kids have fun.

That's actually a really good idea!!! I think my little will need a nap, she's never been one to sleep in the stroller, but if she's tired enough I think she'll sleep! and We are taking my parents with us, so they can always take her back to the room for nap/rest time & my hubs & I can stay in the parks & enjoy some "us" time

 

[NYCgrrl]

i took a 2.5 and 3 year old and both consistently begged for the pool and told me swimming was their favorite part. So be sure to plan pool time.

Same can hold true for older kiddos. Our first trip the kiddos were 10 and 7 y/o. Booked the trip in mid June and arrived in time for the 4th of July. Was able to get a quick fast and in a hurry education in Disney and booked almost all the rides and restaurants wanted except anything Pandora and 'Ohana. Took a lot of staring at the 'puter time but got it done.
On day 2, after successfully getting on the "Mountain Range coasters" via FPs we were on our way to 7DMT and one of the kiddos said he was hot and wanted to go back to the hotel for pool time; the next kiddo joined in too. Thought of allllll the time I spent getting the ride and then gave up. If they wanted the pool, why not? It was their chosen vacation, the money had already been spent, so no sense making self crazed about the recent past. Got to see what their vision looked like and it was fun too.

 

[stephnerninnie1984]

We went with my 2.5 yr old and 6 year old in November 2017 and it was the BEST! We had a 5 day park hopper so we typically did 2 parks a day (open Epcot, close HS). We also did a mid-day break which was sometimes back to the resort and sometimes just finding a quiet corner of the park for my LO to nap in the stroller. We also had a “rest day” in the middle of the trip where we just enjoyed pool time and Disney Springs.

Things that worked for us: to make getting through security easier, everything in my bag was organized in gallon bags. So I had a bag of snacks, bag with diapers/wipes, and bag of change if clothes for both kids. This also made it so I didn’t have to bring the whole bag with me when all I needed to do was change a diaper.

We made plans (FP+ and which park when) but remained flexible. There is SO MUCH to see and do and it can be a little bit of sensory overload for LOs so sometimes we would just let her run and it helped. Some of our favorite pictures from the trip are the ones where she was just enjoying running up and down in front of the Little Mermaid ride. Pure joy!

We booked 2 character dining experiences and both of our children really enjoyed the one on one interaction with the characters. We did Crystal Palace with the Pooh characters first and then 1900 Park Fare with Alice and Mary Poppins. (That one was more for me ) They loved getting the characters to sign their autograph books and my daughter (who is now 4) still enjoys looking through it!

Invest in the Memory Maker. It seems like a lot of money but TRULY worth it. It really is nice to have someone else catching the moments and not have to worry about it at all.

Some of my daughters favorites rides were Pooh, Small World, Little Mermaid, and Dumbo at MK, Frozen and Nemo at Epcot, Safari, Boneyard playground, Lion King show and Triceratops Spin at AK, and Frozen sing a long and Toy Story Mania at HS (this was probably the park with the LEAST amount of things for her to do. We met a lot of characters here to fill time while brother and dad did some of the big rides). She loved it. Even the long days. She never once asked when we were going home and cried on the day we started our drive back to Atlanta. We spent 7 days total in Orlando.

Someone said your child won’t remember but maybe mine just has a great memory because she STILL remembers details from that first trip that she will remind me of. We have since moved to Florida and become Annual passholders so we go to Disney a lot but nothing will beat that first trip and the magic she experienced!