Hi friends! I know it has been A MINUTE. Work has been keeping me extra busy this time of year, plus we’re in the middle of flu season (read: everyone in my family is constantly sick). BUT I have some fun and exciting things in the works—so stay tuned!
In the meantime, I wanted to share my top 13 tips for traveling to Disney with young children. My family (6 adults and 3 kids) went over Christmas and as the master planner of the trip, I learned a lot! So of course, I wanted to share what I learned with you! Let’s jump right into it!
Tip 1: Plan ahead, make dining reservations, get fast passes.
This one is the most important. If you do nothing else, do this. This one has several points, so I’m going to talk about general planning first, then making dining reservations, and last booking fast passes.
Plan Plan and Plan Some More
First things first, my general tip for planning ahead is start planning as early as possible. You will save money and get better reservations. If you plan early enough, you will have plenty of time to map out your entire planning process. By this, I mean you can book dining reservations 180 days in advance of the first day of your vacation—and you should put that date on your calendar and put reminders on your calendar to map out your dining reservations (“Plan A” and “Plan B”) BEFORE your 180-day mark hits. You can book fast passes up to 60 days before your Disney vacation starts. Again, put this date on your calendar and map out your fast pass choices BEFORE you get to your 60-day mark.
You should definitely use the My Disney Experience website to help you plan ahead and make your selections. I’ll link it here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com. This website offers loads of information. I used it to find the dining reservations and rides that I thought the kids would most enjoy. You can search for restaurants and view menus. You can search for rides and see recommended ages. There is even a “Mom’s Forum” where you can search for answers to frequently asked questions and also ask your own questions. It is an awesome tool.
If you want to take your planning another step, you can search for YouTube videos on reviews about different rides, restaurants, parades, and also any special events that might be going on during your vacation. I’ll put the link to my favorite Disney YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnpWedLQdHpZqhgTLdB9Yyg. I subscribed to this channel in the months before my trip. I was able to find out which restaurants had the best food and which ones were the hardest to book reservations for. This YouTube channel also provides information about new things going on at Disney and updates those videos often. I was able to learn about special parades, new food items, and rides that had just opened.
Let’s Talk Dining Reservations
If you book your Disney vacation early enough, you will be able to make your dining reservations 180 days before your first day of your vacation. If you are staying on a Disney resort property then you will be able to book all of your dining reservations for every day of your stay once you hit your 180-day mark. In comparison, if you do not stay at a Disney resort property, then you can only book the dining reservations for the day that is 180 days away. So for example, if you are staying at a Disney resort, once your 180-day mark hits, you can book for every day of your Disney vacation. If you are not staying at a Disney resort, then once your 180-day mark hits, you can only book for the first day of your vacation. Then the following day, you would book for day two of your vacation and so on. So the person who is staying on the Disney resort has already had the chance to take all of the good dining reservations and times before it even becomes available to book for the person not staying on a Disney property (see tip 4 for more reasons to stay at a Disney resort property).
On your 180-day mark, you should wake up early to have the best chance of booking the hardest to book restaurants. Your booking window opens at 6:00 am on your 180-day mark. Once your window opens, you should book the hardest to book restaurants first. So, the first restaurant I booked was Cinderella’s Royal Table at Magic Kingdom. When I went to book it, my ideal day that I wanted to eat there wasn’t available. So I booked what was available and planned the rest of the Disney trip around that. I had an excel spreadsheet open and updated it as I went along to make sure that I had at least one dining reservation for each day. If you’re not good with excel, just write them down on a piece of paper. Another general recommendation—don’t overbook yourself on dining reservations. I chose one per day (dinner almost every day and one breakfast day) and found that was perfect.
Young Kids Don’t Like to Wait—Get Fast Passes
On your 60-day mark, you can book fast passes. Unlike for dining reservations, it is not as important to wake up at 6:00 am on your 60-day mark to book your fast passes. In fact, I booked mine over a week after my 60-day mark had passed and still got everything I wanted, including some big sought-after adult rides like Space Mountain, Expedition Everest, African Safari, and Rock N’ Rollercoaster. However, if there is something you really want to make sure you get, just wake up at 6:00 am when your 60-day window opens. If you’ve never done fast passes before or don't know what they are, they are passes that allow you a one-hour window to get in a much shorter line for the ride that you have the pass for. This cut down our wait time, which was so important with young children. You can only book three fast passes per day, so choose wisely, and also be sure to plan around your dining reservations.
Bonus Tip
So you know to start planning early, book your dining reservations, and get your fast passes, but how should you schedule each of your days? You don’t want to overbook yourself and miss things that you took all this time to schedule, right? I found that for young kids, planning my days as half days worked best. So if I had an evening dining reservation, I would book all of my fast passes in the afternoon and leave the morning completely open. If I had a morning breakfast dining reservation, I would book all of my fast passes in the morning, with the first one being at least an hour and a half after my breakfast dining reservation. This allowed us some downtime at the hotel (and allowed nap times at the hotel if needed). Planning a trip to Disney involves a lot of before work, but it is so worth it.
Tip 2: More on dining reservations: make some that aren’t at the parks and account for even more wait time past your reservation time.
First, I’ll talk about the extra wait time for dining reservations. Now here is one tip that I hadn’t heard (and I had done a lot of research—see tip 1). When you make a dining reservation, you have to check in…and then wait. So even if you have a reservation at 6:30 pm, you might not get seated until 6:45 pm or later. Knowing what I do now, when visiting Disney with young children, I would make the dining reservations between 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm. I had one reservation at 7:05 pm, we didn’t get seated until 8:00 pm…and…well…my son Roman didn’t go to sleep that night until 11:00 pm. That was outright exhausting. So just take my word for it and try to schedule most, if not all, of your dining reservations for dinner no later than 6:00 pm. And I know what you’re thinking…4:30 pm is too early. But it’s really not, I promise. You’ll likely actually be eating at 5:15 or 5:30 pm if your reservation is at 4:30 pm.
Now let me talk about dining reservations that aren’t at the parks—instead, they’re at one of the Disney resorts. Our absolute best dining experience (agreed by all 6 adults and 3 children) was at The Grand Floridian Resort—1900 Park Fare. This one I lucked into because I cancelled our reservation at Be Our Guest (Belle’s Castle) and took this one last minute instead. This could be a good thing to do on your day that you don’t go to one of the parks (see tip 5). We loved this. It was so relaxing. There were hardly any people there (because everyone was at the parks) and the food was delicious. I’d highly recommend not only researching restaurants that are at the Disney parks, but also research (and book) a restaurant that is not at a Disney park (I highly recommend 1900 Park Fare).
Tip 3: If there is a reservation that you weren’t able to book, keep calling and requesting it as you approach the few days before your vacation starts (and even after your vacation starts).
After I had made our dining reservations and booked our fast passes, my sister mentioned doing Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for her three-year-old daughter. We only had about 6 weeks until our vacation and all of those reservations (at both Disney Springs and Magic Kingdom) were booked. Leading up to the beginning of our Disney vacation, I called every few weeks to see if they had any openings—and of course they didn’t. But, the day our Disney vacation began, as I was driving and en route to Florida, I called again (by this time, I had the Disney vacation number saved as a contact—which, if you’re a nut like me, I’d recommend doing). By some miracle, they had an opening that just so happened to be at the perfect time—during the open time I had after our last fast pass for the day at Magic Kingdom and before our dining reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table. You see, someone had overbooked themselves and I was able to snatch it up. So don’t give up hope if you go to book at your 180-day or 60-day mark and something you really wanted was taken—you can always try later (just know what does and does not fit into your schedule—see tip 12).
Tip 4: Stay at a Disney resort, if possible.
My main reason for this one is that you get to use the Disney transportation system and don’t have to worry about parking (and then taking the golf-cart like train to the front of the park). This saves time and, if you’re flying, keeps you from having to bring car seats (because you don’t use car seats on the Disney buses, not even the one from the airport to your hotel). It’s also easier and less expensive. Staying at a Disney resort allows you to take advantage of the free bus system, monorail system, and soon to be completed skyline, which allows you quick and easy access between all of the parks and resorts. Now you could certainly stay at a non-Disney property and drive to a Disney resort, park there, and take advantage of the bus system, but then you have to make sure you have car seats (and that is easier for some than others). Just something to consider.
Tip 5: If you are staying at a hotel with a pool or a Disney resort, plan a day in the middle of your vacation to just stay at the hotel.
If your kids are young, they need to wiggle and run around. It’s hard to let them do that safely at the Disney parks (don’t want any lost kids at Disney—coming from someone who was lost at Disney as a kid). At the parks, they need to be close by you at all times, which means they have a small radius to move around or they’re restrained in the stroller or baby carrier. To give your kids a break and allow them to stretch their legs, I’d suggest staying at the Disney resort (or off property hotel) one day (preferably in the middle) of your vacation. Now, we didn’t actually do this when we went, but I really wish we had. On the day that we had a breakfast dining reservation, we were able to get back to the hotel early enough to have a bit of time playing on the playground, in the splash pad, and in the pool. This was hands down (and unanimously) one of our favorite times of the entire trip, and I wish I had planned a whole day of it.
Tip 6: Take a look at the weather forecast before you pack.
It was December when we went. The two weeks before we were there, the highs were in the upper 50s to low 60s. The week that we went, it was 70-80+ every day. I brought jeans and never wore them. Luckily, I had brought enough shorts and light sweaters for myself, but I definitely ran out of shorts for Roman (and he ended up wearing dirty ones one day—and he’s a toddler, so I mean dirty). Also, if the weather forecast says 70-80 and you’re not from Florida, just know that 70-80 in Florida feels hotter than what you are probably thinking. It also seems like the sun shines brighter there, so be sure to bring sunscreen.
Tip 7: Take lots of snacks and water.
Bring enough snacks each day for everyone in your family. Then once you think you have enough, stuff a few more in your bag. The last thing you want to be dealing with is a hangry baby/toddler/spouse, and you don’t want to be hangry either. And yes, you can bring water into the parks! I packed an entire bag containing just water and hung it onto my stroller (so my bag didn’t get heavy). I used a bag from Ju-Ju-Be, called a Fuel Cell, which is insulated and holds 4 plastic water bottles (and still has room for small snacks). The top handle unclasps so you can hang it right over a stroller handle without taking up any of your stroller hook space. It kept the bottles of water I put in there pretty cold all day even without an ice pack (in 70-80 degree Florida weather). I’ll put the link to one here: https://www.ju-ju-be.com/collections/lunch-bags. This tip also saves you time and money! You won’t be stopping to purchase snacks and water as much, which means you’re not buying the overpriced snacks and water in the parks and you’re not having to stand in (inevitably) another line to do so! Win-win!
Tip 8: Definitely bring a stroller and a baby/toddler carrier.
Bring the stroller because your kids may need to take a little nap in there. Plus, you’ll put them in there at different times of the day because there is a lot of walking involved when you go to Disney. But make sure you bring a stroller that you feel comfortable breaking down and putting up…there will be a lot of that when traveling on the buses. I also recommend bringing a baby/toddler carrier. Your kids probably won’t really want to be in the stroller (and certainly won’t tolerate being in there most of the day). They will want to be out and looking around. This is when the baby/toddler carrier comes in handy. It will save your arms. Just throw the kid on your back (or front depending on age) and get going—hands free!
Tip 9: Make a stroller sign.
Can you tell yet that I’m a super planner nerd yet? This one really helped us find our strollers quickly. I made the sign in Word with some cute Disney characters and our names. Then I put the sign in a clear plastic sleeve that already had holes for a binder, added string, and attached it to the stroller handle. An easier to find stroller meant less wasted time looking for my stroller after I went in a store or on a ride (because all of the strollers look the same--it's a giant sea of black).
Tip 10: Buy the Memory Maker, it is worth it (especially if traveling in a large group).
First, if you don’t know what the Memory Maker is, it is a pre-purchase of all of the photos that the working photographers take of you at Disney. You need to simply scan your Magic Band after the Disney photographer takes your photo and it is instantly linked to your My Disney Experience account (see tip 1 and tip 12). For those of you who really know my family, my making of this recommendation might come as a shock. My dad, sister, and I all love taking photos. We all have very nice cameras and my sister is a professional photographer. So why do we need the Memory Maker? It’s because when we went we had young children and a large group. I wanted pictures with everyone in them, and, when traveling with young kids, I didn’t want to have to rely on trying to find someone to quickly (did I mention we had kids) take our photos. Also, when meeting the characters, you don't get a whole lot of time to take photos. Disney has hired people who are always there to take those photos for you, and it is much quicker to use them than to take your own. The photos we got from the Memory Maker are our favorite, and they were worth every penny that we spent. Of course we took full advantage of our Memory Maker and stopped to take photos almost any time we saw an opportunity—so if you’re going to spend the money, make sure to actually take a lot of photos!
Tip 11: Call your hotel ahead of time to make sure they have bath tubs, portable cribs, and crib mattresses.
So I found out on the YouTube channel that I had been watching (see tip 1) that the Disney resort we were staying at had been doing some room renovations. Some of the rooms might not have tubs (the rooms were being renovated from having tubs to just a standing shower). Side note—why would Disney renovate the rooms to not have tubs!? They know families are traveling with young kids! Anyway, with young kids that take baths, it would be a problem for us to not have a tub. We also had some people in my group who were driving to Florida and others who were flying. Traveling with kids is like packing up your whole house, so if you don’t have to bring it, you don’t want to bring it. A portable crib is one of those things that most hotels have available if you ask for it. Some hotels, however, also have the extra cushiony portable crib mattress and some hotels don’t. I called our resort ahead of time to make sure that we had a room with a bath tub in it and that we were able to get a portable crib delivered to our room (which we were able to do). It was nice to know those things in advance so we weren’t having to scramble if we were assigned a room that had been renovated and did not have a tub. Our Disney resort confirmed though that they did not have the extra cushiony portable crib mattresses, so, since we were driving, we packed that. We were staying for several days and I wanted my son’s sleeping arrangements to be as comfortable as they could be. It’s just nice to know these things and plan for them ahead of time because…toddlers.
Tip 12: Download the My Disney Experience App—and use it!
This is the other big one! If you do only one other thing from this list besides tip 1, do this! The My Disney Experience App is free to download. If you’ve planned your trip using the My Disney Experience platform then your entire itinerary will be on this app. Dining reservations, fast passes, planned parades you want to attend…all of it. Every adult in your group should have an account and should have this app. If you’ve linked your plans to everyone’s My Disney Experience account, they will be able to see the itinerary here too. You can also see things like bus times, maps, and wait times for rides. You can even order your food ahead of time through the app at some Disney restaurants and go pick it up from the pick-up counter when it is ready (this keeps you from having to stand in line to order and then wait again to get your food). Yay for another time saver!
One extra awesome perk about this app is that if you have an issue with one of the rides you’ve scheduled for a fast pass, the app will tell you and you will automatically get it resolved through the app. For example, when we had scheduled our Rock N’ Roller Coaster ride, the ride was temporarily shut down for maintenance that day. We automatically got a notification in the app about the ride being shut down during our fast pass time and we were emailed instructions for how to get reimbursed for our missed fast pass window due to maintenance. We actually came out on top on this one because we got a new fast pass that could be used any time anywhere in the park we were currently in (Hollywood Studios), and even specifically included all of the “big rides” as available to us for a fast pass. So even if we couldn’t book the fast pass for the ride we wanted through the app before (because they were all booked for the day), we had an override for the system and got to do anything we wanted. How awesome?! So basically, the additional perk is that you’ll get extra notifications through this app about important Disney park related news.
Tip 13: Be flexible and have fun!
No matter how much planning you do, there are always going to be surprises. Remember that you are doing this for your kids, so take your cues from them. Give them grace and give yourselves grace. If your kids are tired, let them sleep. If they are hungry, they are not going to enjoy anything until they have something to eat. If they are just dying to meet a certain character, stand in line to see them! Don't worry if you are not going to make all of your reservations or fast passes (just remember to cancel your dining reservations 24 hours ahead of time). Keep those positive thoughts flowing (you're at the happiest place on earth after all) and have fun with your family!
That’s All for Now!
Alright guys, that is it for my top 13 tips for traveling to Disney with young children! I think you could also take these tips and adapt them for traveling to any theme park really—the main things are to plan ahead, don’t overbook yourself, have plenty of snacks and water, and HAVE FUN! Have you traveled to Disney with young kids? What age do you think is best for their first trip to Disney? What travel and planning tips would you recommend!?
