Walt Disney World with Kids

I came across a post on a discussion board asking if a 2 year old would have fun at Disney World. It's hard for me to realize that a lot of people have never been to Disney World and just have no idea what to expect. Most of my life I had gone to Disney without kids, so once I became a parent I realized I was entering uncharted waters. I decided to do some research and found a book that I've ended up using on return trips and recommending over and over.

Walt Disney World with Kids by Kim Wright Wiley has a wealth of up-to-date and insightful information that is spot on. She gives advice about which rides are likely to scare kids and which are not rather than just which ones they can get on based on height.

In addition to that book, the biggest thing I've learned is to take Disney at your kids pace. We always treat our Disney vacation with the thought that we will be coming back again. That removes the "this is a once in a lifetime trip so we we have to see everything" pressure. Although we are NOT morning people we took Kim's advice to heart and we get to the parks early. We usually leave in the early afternoon and retreat back to our accommodations to relax. We return in the evening. This does a number of things for us. First we avoid the worst of the crowds and heat. Second, it gives the kids (and us) a chance to rest both physically and mentally. Disney is exhausting mentally because of the sensory overload that is thrown at you constantly. Finally, it saves us money because we can eat outside the parks. The other thing we do is we break up our days at the park. If we are spending a week at Disney, then we'll probably only go to the parks for 4 days and spend 3 days at the resort or house. Better yet, we'll do like we did a couple of years ago and go for 2 weeks and just go to the parks every other day.

We've found that giving the kids time to enjoy things along the way is more fun that the death-march of trying to get in as many rides as possible. The kids enjoy the playgrounds at the parks as much or more than most of the rides. When the lines get long, let the kids play.

Another thing we have found is to find something they enjoy doing throughout the week. For our girls, this was getting autographs. However, our son wasn't the least bit interested in autographs when he was the same age. For him it was "squishing pennies." To be honest, getting autographs was cheaper, but it takes more time. We had to limit him to one or two penny squishes a day, but it really gave him something to look forward to and was a useful tool when he started to get bored during a long wait.