Sorry for the word castle, I had a lot to share, I guess. We went a couple weeks ago, took our three boys (7, 5, 1.5). My wife did most of the planning, I’ll tell you what we thought worked out pretty well and what didn’t. In addition to all this, there are loads of apps and blogs and such that will help tell you how to spend your time/ make an itinerary. Worth browsing over, for sure, just to get an idea of what’s there to do, if nothing else.
Find out when the parks you want to go to are open, then get there as early as you can. Since you’re staying on property, you can get in during “magic hours,” meaning before folks who aren’t on property by an hour or so. Do this. Even in early November the crowds were pretty solid. Since you’ve got a 4-year-old, you’re going to be up at daylight anyway, might as well get rolling. We’d get up, get there early as possible in the mornings, rock it out for a few hours, then head back to the motel for a midday nap. You might want one too. By 2-3PM we were usually back at the parks, and stayed until pretty late.
Take advantage of the fastpass option on the more popular rides. Normally you can collect those, figure out how much time you have, then go do something else for an hour or so. Come back, jump on the ride, and move on. Somewhere there’s a Group VP/ Operations Director at Disney whose career-making idea was “hey, let’s get these people out of the lines so they keep spending money!” Heh. Oh, also – they have a time window on there, usually something odd like 11:55-12:55. Note that in the lower corner there will be a marking of “GP :15” or so, meaning “grace period” so if you get up there at 12:58 instead of 12:55 they won’t hassle you. In reality, the employees are generally reasonable, they probably wouldn’t give you any problems unless the crowds are just insane.
For staying on property, we got a meal plan, so we had credits to use for meals when we wanted them. This time we opted for a mix of “counter service” (like fast food, they hand you a tray) and “full service” (sit down restaurant) meals. Next time we’ll skip the full service. All the places we ate were nice but not incredible, and the logistics of “hey we have to drop what we’re doing to get to our reservation at _ by __” was just annoying, plus you wind up having to tip on the Official Inflated Disney Price, so you wind up paying some money on that end anyway. If you go to the Irish place Ragland Road at downtown Disney, though, get the bread pudding. I’m not a dessert guy, but it was absurd. Possibly the best dessert I’ve ever had.
Epcot was cool – we went during the food and wine festival, so we ate a lot of snacks. I’m not sure if it’s set up that way most of the time, I got the impression not. BUT – there are beers all over. Get a Harp from the fish and chips stand in “Ireland,” mosey around for a little while. Get a Sapporo at the Japan stand, stand around and watch the Taiko drummers go nuts. Observe the huge outdoor model train setup in the Germany area, get some candy at Karamell-Kuche. Soarin’ is a neat ride, one of those IMAX rides – simulates riding a hang glider. Worth doing. At park closing, fireworks at Epcot are RIDICULOUS. Smoke and lasers and huge flamethrowers over the lake. Worth seeing, I’m ruined for any other fireworks ever now. Kind of redeemed Epcot for the kids too, they weren’t super fired up about it except for Soarin’.
Animal Kingdom is neat. We did the safari truck ride twice. The kids ate it up, and I thought it was pretty neat myself. GRM types will dig the big 4x4 flatbed with seats and a canopy, fording streams and whatnot. My wife’s chronic migraine deal was acting up this day, though, so we didn’t really hit this park hard. We’ll do it next time.
Magic Kingdom, we spent 3 days. At the end of that I felt like we’d done that park justice, but we’ll go back and as the kids get bigger they will be into different parts of it. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was a hit this time. Fun little rollercoaster. Pirates of the Caribbean, Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse- those were cool, sort of a classic Disney thing. Across from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is a little stage where there’s a Jack Sparrow “join my pirate crew, ye scurvy dogs” show that happens. My boys ate it up. “It’s a Small World After All” was a big hit with the baby. The mad tea party teacup ride is a classic, the kids loved it. Same with the Tomorrowland Speedway – your son will like both of those. Crank on the teacup ride and show off your dad-strength getting it going super-fast, then let him drive the go kart while you work the pedals.
Getting pictures of the kids made with the characters was something the wife really wanted to do, but it proved to be pretty annoying- everybody wants to do that. I’m gla we did it, seeing what pics we got, but this process in general was the single most irritating part of the trip to me. They all have handlers that are tasked with managing crowds around them, some of them were better than others at helping you figure out how to get your picture, “the line will form here in about 10 minutes” etc... Speaking of pictures – look at the photopass thing. Yeah, it’s a sales pitch, but it’s a pretty neat thing, and might save you from schlepping your camera around, if you want. Some of the photographers are better than others. My wife is a photographer herself, we opted just to buy the disc with images and she could process/ crop/ retouch some of them when we got home. There are a few good ones in there, and the ones that aren’t are at least as good as the snapshots we would have taken. So I’d say it’s worth it. I filled in with snapshots on my iPhone and little video clips.
Magic Kingdom is alcohol free, btw. I thought that was going to be the treatment, but the kids were having so much fun I found I didn’t care.
I went with an open mind, and planned to make sure the kids had a blast. In doing so, I had an incredible vacation myself – which I did not expect. With kids the age of mine, I expected it to be painful, it was not. Do try not to be those people (you’ll see them too) that look like they’ve just endured the Bataan Death March because they are trying to fit everything in. Remember to relax, you’re on vacation. Have fun!
