7 Days with 3 small kids - What order to see parks?

[darnold]

We have 3 little ones, 6 months, 2.5 and 4.5 years old. We arrive on Friday afternoon and leave the following Friday evening. Which park should we go to on Sat. and Sunday? I have heard several strategies - avoid the crowds at MK on weekends, dont go to MK first because the kids will be dissapointed with the other parks...etc.

I have Dinner reservations at EPCOT at 7 PM on Monday, then plan to stay and see the fireworks.

I have breakfast reservations at MK on Wednesday at 8 AM.

I plan on buying Park Hopper passes but have not decided if I need 4 or 5 day passes - I am leaning to 5 day passes.

Suggestions for my daily itenary and 4 or 5 day passes?

 

[GinaNJ415]

Here's a couple websites that may help:


http://www.allearsnet.com/pl/planning.htm
http://www.undercovertourist.com/Tickets/day.htm

remember Grad nights are April 23,24,30 and May 1. MK closes at 7:00 and no fireworks at MK these nights.

 

[Boo]

We always do MK the first full day of our arrival no matter what day it is or crowds b/c we feel it just gets us in the Disney mood. We have small children too, almost 2 and 4. So, even though we may go to MK first- we don't necessarily stay all day. We do the rides we can that our kids can go on, then we are ususally out of the park by lunchtime and back to the hotel (we stay on property)for food, pool, nap- whatever. I think the best strategy with little ones is just accepting that you can't do disney commando style. We slow our pace down considerably, but we love seeing the excitement of the kids as they react- if that means spending 10 minutes for them to look at a fountain or topiary- so be it

We usually stay for five night/ six days at a time, but only visit parks on three to four of those days. We do a character dinner the night of arrival as part of our back to Disney celebration, MK the next day. Downtown Disney or pool the next day followed by late afternoon/ evening at Epcot. Next day we ususally do MGM in the morning- again back to the resort for afternoon and some kind of activity outside of the parks. Back to the MK that night. The fourth day we will spend a few hours at AK.

Like I said, we take it slow and don't see EVERYTHING there is, but for us it works.

 

[Magic2000]

We've also traveled to Disney many times with little kids - and we've always had a great time!!! You just need to slow it down a bit and the kids will be fine!

We always start our trip with a visit to the Magic Kingdom! Our first and last day is Magic Kingdom!!! There are things that will be a lot of fun for your children at the other parks:

At Epcot, be sure to let the kids make their masks at the kid cot stops! At each country, they can color and glue things on their mask etc. And, the CM will stamp it from that country! My youngest DD has quite a few of these at our house now, and she loves looking at how she decorated them each time!

At MGM, there's Bear in the Blue House, Little Mermaid (it can be a little loud though), and the characters are out and about too!

At Animal Kingdom, be sure to visit the petting zoo! And, Camp Minnie/Mickey.

Have fun planning your trip and be sure to take lots of pictures!!

 

[mattlm]

Agreed with what's been said: Take it easy and let the kids set the pace. Don't plan on seeing everything. If you are staying on site - take some time in the middle of the day and chill by the pool. Remember your there to have a good time and not ride all of the rides. It will be great seeing it through their eyes.

BTW - 8:00 AM breakfast at the MK is agressive. Depending on where you are staying, very agressive. Buses, monorails, boats, etc. are just getting going and, besides some walking, you may end up waiting on a ride. Plan accordingly.

 

[Doc and Family]

We have done that and continue to do so.
Everyone has given good advice--our best trips are when we let the kids run the show--to some extent. Dont push them and take a break now and then.

Our favorite thing to do depends on if you are staying on the grounds or not. If so, we recommend taking advantage of the Early Entry days at the MK. Only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are open. We are able to do everything in FL twice before the gates open for the regular day guests, and the boys seem to be more relaxed about the rest of the day because they had their choice of rides without any lines. They are more agreeable to breaks also.

Also, if the 4.5 year old finds some favorite rides (ours LOVE Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain RR), I would suggest the baby swap. Your 4.5 year old will get to ride twice in a row--a big thrill for any kid.

Have a great trip!

 

[Stitch Inside]

We always "bookend" our trip with visits to MK. I just have to see the castle before I do anything else. We may not stay there long (based on crowds), but we have to go there the 1st and last day to say our hellos and good-byes.

 

[trracers]

We start or end each day at the MK. It is my DD6's favorite park! Ok, and DH44's favorite and my favorite!! Seems like we road the boat from WL every morning then took other transportation monorail or bus to whatever else we wanted to do that day. The exception was on AK day, we started there and then went to MK. I guess we were there 7 or 8 days and spent 75% of our time in MK!! I think one day we had to go to Epcot first for our Norway breakfast, too, but we went to MK after that.

 

[captJack88]

We have 3 kids, DD7, DS5, and DD2 and were there for 7 days as well. We did a 5 day PH, mainly because the kids had never been there, and I nor DW had been to MGM or AK and we wanted to do all 4 parks plus a PH day. Now that we've done it, if we go for 7 days we will only do a 4 day, maybe even a 3 day PH. You will need mid-day breaks, we did on most days, DD7 and I stayed at MK all day while DW and the other 2 went back to the hotel. Our park schedule went like this:
Fri- AK after check-in for 1/2 day, the MK that night
Sat- MGM 1/2 day to MK
Sun- day of rest
Mon- EC, mid-day break, back to EC
Tues- MK
Wed- day of rest
Thur- do it all again day
Fri-check-out

I would base this trip on your 4.5 yo and things (s)he would enjoy, the 2 yo will enjoy it while you're there, but won't remember much after you get back. Hope this helps some, if you have any more questions, I'll try and answer as best I can! Hope you have a magical time!!!!!

 

[wannabee princess]

Eeks I typed out a huge reply and it didn't post! Trying again!

Questions - are you staying onsite? are you early morning people? will you take afternoon breaks?

Sat - MK take midafternoon break, return to MK for evening parade and fireworks.

Sun - take day off.

Mon - Epcot take midafternoon break, return for reservations and Illuminations.

Tues - take day off.

Wed - MK for breakfast and take midafternoon break, head to MGM for evening and if doing Fantasmic (may be intense for the young ones?).

Thurs - AK and after the break in afternoon head back to MK

I do like to start and end at MK. I think the two days off after late nights are necessary. AK is more relaxing in my mind, so I think you could do it after Fantasmic (if you choose to do it)

 

[dougsmom98]

We have three young children and on our last trip the oldest was 4 and the twins had just turned 2. We were there between Christmas and New Years and we knew the crowds would be pretty large so we got 5 day Park Hoppers because we thought we would need extra time. Like you, our two youngest were free because they were under three. If you think it will be busy I think you should go for it and get the 5 day Park Hoppers. They never expire so if you were tired after day four, it's not like they will go to waste. Touring with children can slow you down so you may need the extra day to make up for that. From what I understand from other people on this board, most people take a break in the middle of the day. We didn't really do that. We got there when the parks opened and rode everything that was a "must see" at least once, very often twice, prior to 11 am. As it started getting busy, we used Fast Pass a lot. Around 12:30-1:00 we would have lunch. In MK there is a fairly large place in Tomorrow Land where you could get chicken tenders, burgers, hot dogs, french fries... It was out of the sun and fairly cool in there. Sorry, I can't remember the name. We took our time with lunch, rested and revived ourselves. We did a few more rides and then found a spot to sit and wait for the parade. The parades were one of our favorite things to do at the parks. We didn't do character breakfasts or autograph books so this was our kids' big chance to see the characters and they were thrilled. The Stars and Motorcars parade at MGM often gets a bad rap, but that was my favorite. It is all characters. The MK parade stops along the route and kids get called out to interact with the characters. That was a thrill for my oldest. At AK the characters come around during the parade and shake hands with the kids and high five them as they walk the parade route. It was fantastic! After the parade, we would do a few more rides and then head back to the hotel for a swim, dinner and bed. We were offsite and found once we got back to our room it was hard to go back to the parks at night, especially with the kids. We did go back twice though. The kids fell asleep in their strollers and it was really a treat for my DH and me to have some "quiet" time strolling around the parks and taking in Disney magic. Another suggestion would be to visit MGM to be in the middle of your touring plan. There are a lot of shows and it will give your feet a break. Animal Kingdom is also a great park to do in the middle because you can really do it at your own pace and really take it in. Those two parks don't seem to be as crazy as MK. We did do MK three out of the five days though. We didn't do Epcot during the day, only at night so I can't give advice on that one. I do have to admit though, once my kids went to MK, that is all they wanted to do. They were ok with going to other parks as long as they knew the next day would be a MK day. We also had to explain that all of the parks were park of Mickey's Disney and that it was important to see all of it.
Good Luck.

 

[darnold]

Thanks for the advice everyone, this is what I have planned so far. BTW, we are staying off-site and have a rental car. We are basically morning people. Someone in the post above gave a good site to determine busy days at the parks.

Friday - arrive 1 PM, maybe Downtown Disney or pool at the condo.
Sat. - Animal Kingdom - (maybe MK in the evening?)
Sun. - EPCOT half day
Mon. - MGM - EPCOT in the evening
Tue. - Day off, pool day
Wed. - MK
Thur. - Open day to do whatever we want
Fri. - MK, leave at 6:30 PM

This schedule was determined by going on the low attendance day for each park. However, it feels like I am cheating myself for not going to MK earlier in my trip - Maybe we could do half days at AK, EPCOT and MGM - then go to MK in the evenings?

 

[trstno1]

Darnold - I like your plan. I think starting at Animal Kingdom on Saturday is a good idea. If you were to start at Magic Kingdom that day, it would be very crowded. Also, your kids might then expect every park to be as magical as MK.

Similarly, Epcot is a good plan for Monday.

I'm using a similar plan for my upcoming trip, but I'm going to the MK on Tuesday so that we can see Spectromagic. In recent months, Spectro has only been shown on Saturdays and Tuesdays (unless it's busy), and the Saturday during our trip is a grad night.