Can We Slow It Down with an 18-Month-Old?

[MouseFan88]

Hello all!

I am so, so excited to be in the midst of planning another Disney vacation. But this one is so very different from all of the others because our family of two rope drop-til-closing, kamikaze-touring-style adults is going to be making our first trip to WDW with the newest love of our life, our daughter who will be 18 months old when we travel! We swore to ourselves that we'd never attempt WDW with stroller-aged children. We swore we'd wait until Pandora and Star Wars Land construction was done. But .... we caved. Why? I'll get to all of that, and I'll be looking for LOTS of tips/advice from other, more experienced Disney parents. But first let's get introductions out of the way!

My name is Becky, and I'm a life-long Disney addict. I read the blogs. I buy history books off of Amazon. My family visited WDW multiple times when I was growing up (about once every 3 or 4 years). About 5 years ago, I married DH, who we'll call J. J had only been to WDW once, which I considered a tragedy. Which is why we went to Disney for our first anniversary:


And since we were some fun-loving DINKs (double-income, no kids), we managed to sneak away from our home in the Midwest to go to Florida a few more times. We celebrated J's milestone 30th birthday with our first-ever cruise:


Because we're admittedly super-fans, we even made the pilgrimage to Marceline, which I highly recommend.


In 2015, we found out we were adding a new Disney fan to our family, and of course her baby shower was Minnie-themed:


And this February, Baby E turned 1! Which definitely required a stellar Disney-themed first birthday:


As you can tell, we are fairly Disney-obsessed around here, and I'm a big planner (an engineer by training and a data analyst as my current career means I like having things planned out), so I'm already elbow-deep in numbers-crunching and opinion-wrangling. So I'll be back later this afternoon to share some more details about our trip and to throw out some questions to try to get some advice from all of you knowledgeable folks. Thanks in advance for following along!

 

[MouseFan88]

Alright friends! Time to discuss how our now single-income family that had already decided AGAINST going back to WDW before Pandora and/or Star Wars Land opened and AGAINST going back while we had stroller-aged children got bamboozled into another Disney vacation!

As you now know, we're Disney-obsessed, so it isn't very hard to convince us to come back to our personal black hole. But what really sealed the deal was an offer we just couldn't pass up ...

In all of our previous WDW visits, we've always stayed in value resorts (other than a trip with my family my senior year of high school when we stayed at POR) because we stay in the parks from rope drop to park close and only use the rooms to shower and crash! Since we've lost our cushy double income status, we didn't foresee that changing when we eventually started bringing kids with us. But ... a certain travel company released their annual Labor Day special, and I got curious (a dangerous thing) and asked for a quote. Turned out we could do 5 nights with 3-day tickets (HS is a waste of my money at this point) with a free water park ticket at my most favorite DELUXE resort for less than what I've normally paid for 5 nights and 4-day tickets with park hoppers at a value! You all know I couldn't pass that up.

So the plans are .... drumroll please .... we'll be staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge from September 5th through 10th!!!!

I can't even stand the excitement - seriously. Our first-ever deluxe for our first-ever family trip. Crazy!

Here are the tentative daily plans for now:

Sept 5th: Arrive nice and early at MCO (hoping for a direct flight), spend the day at AKL and Disney Springs
Sept 6th: MK all day! Must-do is a First Haircut package at the Main Street Barber Shop. Any other tips for baby's first MK day?
Sept 7th: EPCOT. Food and Wine? First time! A day of strolling the World Showcase and utter gluttony.
Sept 8th: AK. Baby girl already loves our local zoo, so I know this will be a big hit. And brand-new Pandora? Yes please.
Sept 9th: Some time at a water park (which is best for babies?), and more relaxing at AKL
Sept 10th: End the dream and fly back home

As I'm starting to get more of the details nailed down, I'd really love any input anyone can give me about doing Disney with a 1-year-old. I feel totally out of my element, and would really truly appreciate anything you could shoot my way. I'm going to post some specific polls over the next few days, but any free-form insights likes tips or things you over-looks or must-dos with babies would be absolutely amazing.

Now for my first poll, since my dining reservation window is opening soon: I would like to do one character meal with Baby E. I haven't done one since I was a kid, so my knowledge is definitely outdated. I've read reviews online, but if anyone has first-hand experience, I'd like to know.

What's the best character meal for the really little ones?
Taking into consideration cost, interactions, etc ....

• Crystal Palace
• Cinderella Castle
• Garden Grill
• Akershus
• Tusker House
• Any of the non-park options?