Calling Disney experts. I've got some basic logistics questions
Our trip is the third week of January. Flying in Sunday afternoon and flying out the following Saturday mid morning. DH has a work conference Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, but otherwise, he'll be able to do things with us. We are staying at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista which is on the Disney property, but is not an official Disney property [so no Magic Express bus service]
Here are my basic questions:
1. What shoes should I wear? I'm not a huge tennis shoe wearer, but should I become one? Otherwise I have my Merrell clogs and arched flip flops which are the only two shoes I can wear when I'm pregnant and have achy feet.
2. How much time should we allot for Downtown Disney? Would it fill a day, a half a day or just a few hours?
3. What should we do with our time? I'm trying to figure out what's an achievable schedule without overdoing it. Zach is still getting up every 2-3hrs at night to feed, so I don't have a ton of energy. I can get very active for a day or two and then I need a day to take it slower to catch back up. MH is thinking of doing one park Monday and another on Wednesday. Then Tuesday would be either chill in at the hotel or walking downtown Disney. Is that too conservative tho? Is downtown something I can put the two in a stroller and do myself on Friday when he's at work? I guess if all else fails, Katie would love to just ride the monorail around, right? She's still asking about the trolley from Hilton Head this summer. If you had a three year old and a two month old, how would you schedule your days?
4. What items do you make sure you have packed in your backpack to go to the park? After reading posts on the disboards, I'd need a mule to haul everything they recommend. What do I realistically need to take?
5. Along those lines, they recommend buying souvineers at home and pulling them out when you get there, since they will cost three times as much in the parks. Is this necessary? I did buy a mickey mouse sippy and a glow wand but anything else I should get?
6. Is it worth it to do a character breakfast? If one of us took her, it'd still be $86 for a freakin waffle. Worth it at this age or not? She is so hit or miss with her shyness so we my get awesome pictures or we my not.
7. Buy an autograph book or make one?
8. What to do about a stroller? I have a MacLaren Volo and a City Mini Single with a carseat attachment. I also have an Ergo and Dawn offered to loan me her Snuzzler so Zach could ride in either stroller safely. We often take Katie out with a harness now, but when she gets tired, she does like to fall asleep in a stroller. I thought about taking the City Mini and then when Katie wants/needs to sit, DH or I could wear Zach. Then I started wondering if it would just be eaiser to rent a double stroller so we wouldn't have to wear him.
9. Take carseats? Katie has her own seat on the plane. I haven't checked to see if her carseat fits on the plane. Zach will be in my arms. I haven't figured out how we're getting from the airport to the hotel yet, but I know we won't be renting a car.
Thanks for helping an OCD novice out!!
Katie, Duke Gardens, 6months
Zach, Duke Gardens, 6months
Photo courtesy from the amazing Ever You Photography!
Re: Calling Disney experts. I've got some basic logistics questions
1. I wore my flip flops and was just fine. But I live in flip flops so not sure how sensitive you are.
2. I would do Downtown Disney one evening. You won't spend more than a few hours there
3. I would do Magic Kingdom and and Animal Kingdom if you are narrowing it down to two. You can go online and get free maps that are personalized to what you want to see! I would also plan around the parades. (Hint on the parades: they fill up fast, but if you see where they are keeping a spot open until the parade comes and hold back a bit you can fill right in and get front row. But you have to be quick about it! Works for us every time!)
4. I got big water bottles and packs of crackers, and snacks (sweedish fish etc) and honestly that is all we needed. You don't want to haul anything more than you have to.
5. Hit up the Disney store after Christmas. Buy one thing for every night. That is what we did and it was wonderful. Every night we were there my daughter and nice got to open a present. It saved us hundreds!!
6. We skipped the character dinners when my daughter was 2. When she was 4 we went and booked a package thru disney and ate at the drive in (Hollywood studios) The princess castle (magic kingdom), Chef Mickeys (magic kingdom) and one more (I forget-some place inside magic kingdom) Chef Mickeys was AWESOME. Well worth the money. But like I said we did a package/all inclusive so I don't know how much it would have been. But every character came to the table and spent a lot of time with us. It was very very fun for the girls. We will do it again next time. (make sure you make reservations)
7. Make or find one online. Buy a mickey pen for them. (again, disney store)
8. Get an umbrella stroller you don't care about, then you can leave it at the gate and not worry about it disappearing while you are on rides. Again, the less you have to worry about the better. Plus they are smaller. Think umbrella stroller, and a book bag. Thats all you need.
9. Disney has a bus transpiration system. Its very handy. If you are staying at a disney hotel you don't need a car or car seats.
Have fun!!!
Just saw this link when poking around on the preschool board:
https://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/61372190.aspx
Only popping in for a quick second but I would recommend getting a reservation at Chef Mickey's to see the characters. When we last went it was much more reasonable price wise and you get to see a lot of characters. It's in the Contemporary.
And yes, to just riding around on the monorail to take a break-I'm sure Katie would love it!
Shoes--I could never to flip flops for Disney but when we go to Disney, we are hard core.
My company was doing a fitness program around the time we last went so I was wearing a pedometer. I averaged 16 miles of walking per day! So I always wear sneakers. But if you are taking it easy, flip flops may be OK. I would need more padding than that for extended walking.
Have a great time!!
One major thing to remember: strollers are NOT allowed in line and you have to park them in a separate parking area and unload ALL your belongings and then walk to your ride/attraction.We brought our Chicco and it was good because she fell asleep every day in it. We were there for 7 days and did all the parks. My fav for Jocelyn was Magic Kingdom- did that twice.
We did the Character breakfast at Epcot, we had park hopper passes and you had to use one day pass to get in, and even if you were just doing the breakfast you had to use the pass.
As for the souvenirs and autograph book, you can go into any Wal-Greens/Target down there and buy the same crap for about 1/2 the price they sell it on Disney Property.
Downtown Disney will take maybe 2-3 hours MAX.
We brought Jocelyn's huge Britax Marathon on the plane-no issues.
I wore tennis shoes and croc flip flops.
We can talk more if I see you Wed and I'll bring the snuzzler.
1. Tennis shoes all the way. For that much walking, I can't imagine wearing flip flops. But that's just me. We're kind of shoe Nazis though..hehe--we don't do anything but tennis shoes for theme parks, the zoo, etc.
2. I'd dedicate no more than a 1/2 day ( a few hours) at Downtown Disney. It's really just shops and restaurants, for the most part. I'd plan to maybe do lunch and shopping around. They have an awesome huge Disney store there though--much bigger than the ones in the parks. You could probably spend a good hour in there. :-)
3. Our most recent trip was a whirlwind, and we did 1.5 days at Magic Kingdom. On our full day there, we got there at park opening (like 8:30ish, I think?) then stayed until after lunch, then went back to our resort for a nap, and came back after dinner (at the restaurant at the resort) for the fireworks/electric parade. We were on site though, and there was a boat that ran between MK and our resort. So that made trips back & forth easy. Make sure to check times on parades & fireworks before you make plans because they change each day. I agree that MK and Animal Kingdom are the ones I'd choose for K's age, if you weren't planning to do them all. I think your plan of 2 park days and a half Downtown Disney day is a good plan. I think DD is doable by yourself with the kids. Riding around on the monorail and checking out the resorts would be fun too.
4. This last time, we brought a couple of bottles of water, a full snack trap, hand wipes & hand sanitizer, sunscreen...and that's about it. Oh, and the camera bag. They do check your bags, and while you can bring in snacky foods, I think you're technically not supposed to bring like a picnic lunch or anything. We packed everything in the diaper bag (we have one that clips on to the stroller handle), so we could just grab it, and the camera bag, when we had to leave the stroller in stroller parking near the rides. I was never concerned about leaving our stroller, but I definitely wouldn't leave anything of value in it, of course. Also, they will sometimes move your stroller from where you've parked it--just to reorganize the stroller parking areas as needed. So don't freak out if you stroller isn't where you left it--it will be somewhere near by!
5. We bought Holly one $20 souvenir at the park. She was fine with not having more.
6. We did a character breakfast (Pooh & Friends at Crystal Palace), but we had the Disney dining plan, and it counted as our sit down meal for the day on that, and we didn't have to pay for Holly because she just "ate off our plates" (it was a buffet, so we could get as much as we wanted). Not sure how'd that work if you weren't on the dining plan. Holly enjoyed it and we got some super cute pics, but I'm not sure that we'd have done it if we hadn't been on the plan just due to cost
7. We didn't do autographs this time. She didn't even notice that others were doing that. She was a little wary of the characters and preferred seeing them from a distance at first anyway.
8. I would definitely have a stroller available for Katie somehow. It's a ton of walking, and she'll want to rest. I would either rent a double stroller from an outside company (like Orlando stroller rentals--they rent City Minis), or do the Ergo/stroller combo. I personally don't like the Disney strollers. They look cumbersome and uncomfortable, plus Zach really couldn't use it--they're not designed for infants, I don't think.
9. We did not take a carseat, but we stayed on site, so we had Disney transportation, and carseats aren't required on the buses. I didn't feel one was necessary for the airplane either. She was happy to just sit there buckled into her regular seat. I'd figure out your transportation plans, and go from there--most places (car services, etc) can add in carseats. If you won't need transportation other than to and from the airport, I personally would not lug 2 car seats down.
Have fun! We just went, but I'm ready for our next trip!
Also, if I had to pick two parks, I would do Disney and Hollywood Studios.
Hollywood Studios has a great Toy Story area, they have good shows. Hollywood Studios has a great night show as well. May not work unless you went to the park later in the day but it was really great.
I would definitely recommend tennis shoes, just for the sheer arch support and added padding for your feet.
Downtown Disney is easily an evening event (especially if you don't want to do a lot of shopping).
Bringing to the park is definitely water and snacks. Unless you're a die hard, I don't see much else being needed.
Buying some items before hand is a good idea, but you may want to buy one small thing just to remember the trip by.
Character breakfast is more fun when they can really remember it for years to come. I had fun when I was 14 at the character breakfast!
Make and autograph book.
I know nothing about car seats and strollers yet. heh
One thing my sister was telling me about last night (she was just there in September) was they have boutiques now in I believe she said the Magic Kingdom where they dress up little girls as princesses and little boys like pirates. She said this area was for 6yrs and under. That might be something a little more fun for her instead of the character breakfast. You can always see the characters (and get pictures with them) around the park - especially in Mickey's Toontown at Magic Kingdom where you can go into their "houses."
If you want something else to do, you can also go off property over to City Walk (Universal Studios) and walk around. It's not far from Disney. It's a Downtown Disney-esk area.