any advice on mgm for toddlers?

[jenniferma]

Hi everyone-- we are doing a whole day in MGM this trip and will be traveling with a one and three year old. Does anyone out there have any tips for MGM? On our last trip our dd was 2 and we went at 3 and only stayed a couple of hours. We did Playhouse Disney and she loved that.. we're planning on doing that, Beauty and the Beast show, Little Mermaid and the parade-- are there any other spots your kids LOVED? Any great character meeting sites?

thanks so much in advance--
jennifer

 

[babby]

If your children are Toy Story fans they can meet Buzz, Woody, and Jessie at Al's Toy Barn. It's a character meeting spot in the back around Muppet's 3D. Speaking of Muppets 3D, they may enjoy that show too. Kermit and Miss Piggy were out for pictures as well in that area on our last trip. We didn't wait to take photos with them because my kids didn't really know who they were, but they sure knew Buzz, Woody and Jessie. Have a great trip.

 

[luvmk]

You might want to check out the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. My kids can spend hours in there. Even if you don't want to spend a lot of time there, it is pretty cool to check out for a short time. Enjoy your trip!


Rachel

 

[GlennandAnn]

The best advice I have for families with toddlers at MGM is to take them to New York Street. There are hardly ever any people over there (there's not much to see), so you can turn the kiddies loose to run off a bit of that energy they have saved up from sitting in the stroller!


Ann

 

[minmate]

The characters come out all around the Sorcerer's Hat and just past that... at various timed intervals... Mickey appears in his sorcerer outfit (so I'm told -- this is one place we have never seen live Mickey -- we weren't really looking though) -- we DID see Pooh and friends and what was different here is we saw characters in pairs actually -- so one line for two characters... such as Minnie and Pluto together, Donald and Goofy together, etc.. also so Rafiki, King Louie and more....

Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure is a fun playground type of place your kids would probably like. I believe it is closed until July 9th though.

Muppets 3D Movie is good too -- for 3 yo at least.... not really scary at all as I remember.

My kids absolutely loved the parade here too. The characters come out in convertibles decorated in various themes. We like it better than the MK afternoon parade.

We haven't tried the Indiana Stunt Show so I don't know how kids would like that. And while we took the little ones on the Great Movie Ride, but it's likely to be scary for the little ones. It was a bit scary for ours.

Since a lot of the things you'll do at MGM require sitting and watching... make sure you plan time for the kids to be active too. Playhouse Disney, as you know, they can get up and dance... but the other shows are more sit-down.

We just returned from a trip with a 5, 4, 3 and 22 month old -- they liked MGM a lot --

 

[Lollipop Mom]

MGM actually has a great spot for meeting Mickey. He is in his Sorcerer's outfit and is in a soundstage just beyond the Millionaire soundstage. Look for the little gloved hand thingy that indicates a character meeting spot. It's sort of tucked away and inside where you can't see from the street what is going on unless you open the door. We've never had to wait behind more than 2 or 3 other people and my kids have had more time with him here than any other character meet and greet in the parks. We see him at Chef Mickey's but the kids love the Sorcerer's outfit. Nice backdrop for pics too!

Playhouse Disney is great for little ones. The playground is neat but every time we've been it's been SOOOOO humid in there that I just can't stand it for too long. Plus inevitably there are older kids (like 10 and up) in there too and my 2 and 4 year old get sort of trampled. The parade at MGM is our least favorite but is still cute. MGM is the park that isn't a great fit for my family and having the rudest person I've ever encoutnered in my life stand in front of my kids during the parade so she could take pics of the parade with her daughter's face in the background didn't help much (they were next to us waiting for the parade to start so it's not like we were behind them to begin with, we were actually there first).