Family of 5 First Time to Disney HELP!

[Maria Lombardi]

Hello to all. So just a few months ago my husband and I agreed that we were going to experience Disney for the first time and bring along ALL 3 of our kids. We have booked our hotel reservation and purchased a dinning package for every day. We will be going November 2018. We have a 5 day hopper pass. My kids ages are 5(Girl),4(Boy), and 2(Girl)!! I am completely overwhelmed with all to do and what to do. I have not created an itanairy yet and do not even know where to begin. If all you pro disney experts could give me advice for first timers going I would greatly apprciate the help. Such as what rides, where to dine, must see characters, walking distances, strollers for 1 or strollers for all, what to travel with what not, cost expected to spend while their, exct....

 

[Happy2BMommy0812]

My advice is to subscribe to touring plans for your first trip. They have suggested iteneraries you can print out depending on what pace you want to do.

Otherwise, my big advice is don’t try and do it all - your kids are young and I guarantee they will get tired and melt down. Plan your 3 fastpasses per day as your must dos, and let your family’s energy level dictate the rest!

My kids hated waiting in line for characters, so my advice would be to do a few character meals and get the characters that way. My kids loved the Disney junior Hollywood and vine meal at that age. We liked crystal palace for the Pooh characters. Tusker house or chef mickey’s or garden grill for the main characters. For princess characters, there is conderella’s Royal table, but that is 2 dining credits. We tried the Ariel and rapunzel breakfast at trattoria al forno last year and loved that! There is also Akershaus.

I suggest strollers for all unless your kids walk a lot. My oldest used a stroller untilnsome insane age - 7 maybe. His brother walked at 5, but we carried him as he day went on. Now at almost 10 and 7, they walk, but we don’t stay all day at the parks. We do 4-6 hours and then come back to the hotel to swim.

 

[Have3Kids&aHusband]

Our girls loved BB Boutique at Cinderella's castle and then doing the Princess breakfast at the castle. While the girls were at BBB, my husband & son went on some rides at MK. Our son still enjoyed the castle breakfast even though just princesses there. He's pretty easy going and goes with the flow.
On another trip we did O'hana's breakfast. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved Stitch & Lilo and the breakfast food. (I actually like this breakfast better than Chef Mickey's) We ate at O'hana's for dinner on the trip prior to that and the kids didn't like the dinner food.
I think sit down meals are actually great with little ones! Our kids loved going inside where it was an air conditioning and it gave them time to sit & relax. We never had an issue with behavior.
The kids enjoyed Coral Reef's ambience and my son even questioned why we're not going there on our next trip.
All three enjoyed Be Our Guest - but we didn't do that until our youngest was 5.

We went for our anniversary one year, so we had the kids go to the Kid's Club at Polynesian. The kids were a bit worried about going at first. But when we went to pick them up, all three asked if they could go back the next night. They were actually annoyed with us when we said no. We had them go again on our following trip and the three couldn't wait to go.

All three enjoyed the Goofy roller coaster next to the Dumbo ride. Our son was into cars when he was really little, so he really enjoyed being driven around the race track in Tomorrowland. All three loved Buzz Light Year and Toy Story Mania.

 

[Maria Lombardi]

My advice is to subscribe to touring plans for your first trip. They have suggested iteneraries you can print out depending on what pace you want to do.

Otherwise, my big advice is don’t try and do it all - your kids are young and I guarantee they will get tired and melt down. Plan your 3 fastpasses per day as your must dos, and let your family’s energy level dictate the rest!

My kids hated waiting in line for characters, so my advice would be to do a few character meals and get the characters that way. My kids loved the Disney junior Hollywood and vine meal at that age. We liked crystal palace for the Pooh characters. Tusker house or chef mickey’s or garden grill for the main characters. For princess characters, there is conderella’s Royal table, but that is 2 dining credits. We tried the Ariel and rapunzel breakfast at trattoria al forno last year and loved that! There is also Akershaus.

I suggest strollers for all unless your kids walk a lot. My oldest used a stroller untilnsome insane age - 7 maybe. His brother walked at 5, but we carried him as he day went on. Now at almost 10 and 7, they walk, but we don’t stay all day at the parks. We do 4-6 hours and then come back to the hotel to swim.[/QUOTE

My advice is to subscribe to touring plans for your first trip. They have suggested iteneraries you can print out depending on what pace you want to do.

Otherwise, my big advice is don’t try and do it all - your kids are young and I guarantee they will get tired and melt down. Plan your 3 fastpasses per day as your must dos, and let your family’s energy level dictate the rest!

My kids hated waiting in line for characters, so my advice would be to do a few character meals and get the characters that way. My kids loved the Disney junior Hollywood and vine meal at that age. We liked crystal palace for the Pooh characters. Tusker house or chef mickey’s or garden grill for the main characters. For princess characters, there is conderella’s Royal table, but that is 2 dining credits. We tried the Ariel and rapunzel breakfast at trattoria al forno last year and loved that! There is also Akershaus.

I suggest strollers for all unless your kids walk a lot. My oldest used a stroller untilnsome insane age - 7 maybe. His brother walked at 5, but we carried

My advice is to subscribe to touring plans for your first trip. They have suggested iteneraries you can print out depending on what pace you want to do.

Otherwise, my big advice is don’t try and do it all - your kids are young and I guarantee they will get tired and melt down. Plan your 3 fastpasses per day as your must dos, and let your family’s energy level dictate the rest!

My kids hated waiting in line for characters, so my advice would be to do a few character meals and get the characters that way. My kids loved the Disney junior Hollywood and vine meal at that age. We liked crystal palace for the Pooh characters. Tusker house or chef mickey’s or garden grill for the main characters. For princess characters, there is conderella’s Royal table, but that is 2 dining credits. We tried the Ariel and rapunzel breakfast at trattoria al forno last year and loved that! There is also Akershaus.

I suggest strollers for all unless your kids walk a lot. My oldest used a stroller untilnsome insane age - 7 maybe. His brother walked at 5, but we carried him as he day went on. Now at almost 10 and 7, they walk, but we don’t stay all day at the parks. We do 4-6 hours and then come back to the hotel to swim.

This is helpful advice. I will defenitly do my best in letting the kids pace take the lead. And as for strollers do they have double strollers their? How expensive is it to rent strollers?

 

[Maria Lombardi]

Our girls loved BB Boutique at Cinderella's castle and then doing the Princess breakfast at the castle. While the girls were at BBB, my husband & son went on some rides at MK. Our son still enjoyed the castle breakfast even though just princesses there. He's pretty easy going and goes with the flow.
On another trip we did O'hana's breakfast. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved Stitch & Lilo and the breakfast food. (I actually like this breakfast better than Chef Mickey's) We ate at O'hana's for dinner on the trip prior to that and the kids didn't like the dinner food.
I think sit down meals are actually great with little ones! Our kids loved going inside where it was an air conditioning and it gave them time to sit & relax. We never had an issue with behavior.
The kids enjoyed Coral Reef's ambience and my son even questioned why we're not going there on our next trip.
All three enjoyed Be Our Guest - but we didn't do that until our youngest was 5.

We went for our anniversary one year, so we had the kids go to the Kid's Club at Polynesian. The kids were a bit worried about going at first. But when we went to pick them up, all three asked if they could go back the next night. They were actually annoyed with us when we said no. We had them go again on our following trip and the three couldn't wait to go.

All three enjoyed the Goofy roller coaster next to the Dumbo ride. Our son was into cars when he was really little, so he really enjoyed being driven around the race track in Tomorrowland. All three loved Buzz Light Year and Toy Story Mania.

Thank you for the advice. I will defenitly plan to meet the characters as part of dinning

 

[MommyinHonduras]

And as for strollers do they have double strollers their? How expensive is it to rent strollers?

they do but look into Kingdom Strollers. They drop off and pick up at your resort, are more comfortable and cheaper than Disney.

 

[2019TripIdeas]

We’re in a similar boat with 3 kids just a bit younger (Will be 4/2/18months for next trip). We’re planning a trip for this coming Spring and just hanging around here is helping me get my bearings

We’re bringing our citi GT double for the younger 2 with a glider board for our oldest to hop on when necessary. Our oldest is active and expected to walk a lot at home and I think she’ll be good that way. We’ll also do lots of extra walking before the trip. It sounds like GTs are available thru the rental companies and can be delivered straight to your hotel if you stay on site.

As far as planning, I’ll be interested to hear more of the how too! I’ve got a google doc going to organize our must dos, potential restaurants etc before we start the actual booking process.

We did Disneyland with 2 of them (I was pregnant with our third) and the kids had a blast. We prioritized rides we could all do together (haunted mansion, buzz lightyear, Pirates) and more kiddie-ish rides that the kids loved (dumbo, the carousel!) and I’m finding that WDW has tons of great options like that.

 

[Klayfish]

Here's the best advise I can give...we're well seasoned veterans now, but have been going with all 3 of our kids since they were 4, 1, 1.

If it's your first trip, you will not see it all. Don't even try, don't stress over trying to. It's not going to happen. You're far, far better off to "stop and smell the roses"...take the time to enjoy the things you get to instead of trying to see it all in a rush.

As for planning, that depends on your style and nature. I would poke my eyes out if I had to use a spreadsheet, document or other similar type thing on vacation. I truly would decline to even go. It's just not our style. But some like to have a spreadsheet to plan out every minute of their day, and it works for them. How do you prefer to vacation? Either way, at the minimum I would suggest learning the FP+ system and at least making those in advance. How much you plan the rest is up to you.

Stroller? For us, we used them until our kids were 8....seriously. And they're all athletes, but we just felt it better not to wear them out walking everywhere. But you'll find this is a very personal decision too. If you do use them, I'd suggest bringing your own, personally I think rentals are a huge waste of money if you already own some.

What rides? I'd suggest checking out ride descriptions on WDW website, using YouTube (if you are OK ruining the "surprise" of the ride). At that age, they obviously won't be tall enough for the big thrill rides, but tailor your plans to the things they're interested in.

I know my answers aren't super specific, but so much depends on your personal style. The advice many will give you is what works for them. For example, we don't "rope drop", we think it's a waste of time. But that doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just wrong for us. So the best advice I can give is to determine what style of vacationer you are (organized, wing it, early morning, etc...) and then you can start to dial your plan in more.

 

[Happy2BMommy0812]

This is helpful advice. I will defenitly do my best in letting the kids pace take the lead. And as for strollers do they have double strollers their? How expensive is it to rent strollers?

If I recall, double strollers are like $35 a day and singles maybe $17. We never rented them. They are hard plastic and have little to no storage. We splurge a lot at disney, but for our family, the Disney strollers were just not appealing. That being said, the big advantage to renting them at Disney is you don’t have to cart them on the bus from your hotel to the park. Folding it up, getting all the junk out, carrying the huge stroller into the bus while the other parent wrangles the kids - it was a pain. With the Disney strollers you pick them up at the front gate in the park and drop them off. Also, because they are a harder plastic, you could probably squeeze your 3 little ones into one double stroller.

Many places in Orlando Re t them and deliver them to your hotel, but for us, we didn’t feel like this made sense because we still had the problem of lugging it on and off the bus.


We always brought either 2 umbrella strollers or our double jogger. When we had the double jogger, we usually drove to Disney and left the jogger in the car and drove to the parks each day. When we had umbrella strollers, those were much easier to get on and off the bus, but if we had our car, we still took the car to the parks.

Do they make a triple umbrella stroller/easy to fold up stroller? If so, i’d buy one of these instead of paying to rent one. You could buy on Craigslist or buy online and then sell it when you got home. Sometimes people can break even buying a stroller for a Disney trip on Craigslist and then selling it for the same price after!

 

[Klayfish]

You could buy on Craigslist or buy online and then sell it when you got home. Sometimes people can break even buying a stroller for a Disney trip on Craigslist and then selling it for the same price after!

Yes!! My suggestion exactly. We did this ourselves.

 

[JAMIESMITH]

We used a stroller on our last day the year my daughter was four. We probably should have rented one at least one other day or slowed down a bit. We didn’t use one at all when she was six or seven.

Do put a midday break in your schedule: a nap, pool time, or a table service meal. Character meals are fun, but the quality of food is not quite as good. The characters also distracted my daughter from her food.

 

[Maria Lombardi]

Here's the best advise I can give...we're well seasoned veterans now, but have been going with all 3 of our kids since they were 4, 1, 1.

If it's your first trip, you will not see it all. Don't even try, don't stress over trying to. It's not going to happen. You're far, far better off to "stop and smell the roses"...take the time to enjoy the things you get to instead of trying to see it all in a rush.

As for planning, that depends on your style and nature. I would poke my eyes out if I had to use a spreadsheet, document or other similar type thing on vacation. I truly would decline to even go. It's just not our style. But some like to have a spreadsheet to plan out every minute of their day, and it works for them. How do you prefer to vacation? Either way, at the minimum I would suggest learning the FP+ system and at least making those in advance. How much you plan the rest is up to you.

Stroller? For us, we used them until our kids were 8....seriously. And they're all athletes, but we just felt it better not to wear them out walking everywhere. But you'll find this is a very personal decision too. If you do use them, I'd suggest bringing your own, personally I think rentals are a huge waste of money if you already own some.

What rides? I'd suggest checking out ride descriptions on WDW website, using YouTube (if you are OK ruining the "surprise" of the ride). At that age, they obviously won't be tall enough for the big thrill rides, but tailor your plans to the things they're interested in.

I know my answers aren't super specific, but so much depends on your personal style. The advice many will give you is what works for them. For example, we don't "rope drop", we think it's a waste of time. But that doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just wrong for us. So the best advice I can give is to determine what style of vacationer you are (organized, wing it, early morning, etc...) and then you can start to dial your plan in more.

Love this advice. It helps more then you think.Thank you

 

[Klayfish]

Glad to hear it. Definitely determine what style you want to vacation...wing it vs. scheduled, fast paced vs. slow paced, etc...then go from there.

One other thing I'll mention. WDW is big. No, huge. No, scratch that, utterly enormous. If you've never been, it's hard to describe. You will do more walking that you think.

You'll also be a deer in headlights when you walk in. It's overwhelming. Embrace it, don't fear that feeling. Soak it in, look around, enjoy what you're seeing. I've been to WDW a lot, and still get goose bumps every time I walk onto Main Street in Magic Kingdom.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

So many of your questions are things that people will have varying opinions on. A lot will depend on what your interests are as a family and things like what your normal routine is with naps and bedtime at home. Most people will probably recommend that you stay somewhat close to your kids regular schedule, so if they're up early and in bed early, hitting rope drop and skipping the night shows might work best. For my family, my toddler sleeps until like 11am and goes to bed between 9 and 10. My 7yo gets up by 830 for school but is able to be more flexible. Rope drop would have been terrible for us. We woke the kids up around 930-10 and then headed to the parks, then stayed until close. Go with your gut on that, but don't be afraid to tweak things when you get there based on how the kids are handling it all.

Strollers- Are you staying on site? Will you have a car or are you taking the Disney buses? If you rent strollers at Disney, you can't take them out of the park and you are probably going to want them for the trek to the car or while waiting for the bus, so I would being your own or rent from an off-site vendor. If you will be using the buses, remember that strollers will need to be collapsed before you get on. It's not a huge deal, but given that you have 3 small kids and presumably only 2 adults, I would bring/rent off-site a double stroller. The kids can take turns riding, but then you only have 1 stroller to deal with on the buses. One adult can handle the stroller and the other can wrangle the kids.

Rides- How tall will the kids be and if tall enough, would they want to ride some of the bigger rides? Google the height requirements and look at the info for each ride. Some kids get scared on certain small rides with no height req (like Haunted Mansion and Pirates), but others preschoolers find them lame and would rather go on things like Big Thunder and Soarin. My toddler loved everything he was tall enough to ride on. You know your kids best. For rides that not everyone is tall enough for, you can use rider swap so one parent can stay back with the too short kid(s) and get a rider swap pass to ride later by going through the fastpass line (so you don't have to wait as long).

Restaurants- Since you have the dining plan, I would recommend hitting up some character meals as then you won't need to wait in line in the parks to meet them. You can take a break, enjoy a meal, and meet some characters all at once. These also tend to be higher priced meals, so they are a great value on the DDP. At buffets and family-style restaurants, the 2 yo can eat free, so that's a bonus too. Some of our favorites with kids are Garden Grill (Mickey, Pluto, Chip, Dale), Crystal Palace (Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore), CRT (Cinderella + usually 4 other princesses- 2 dining credits), Bon Voyage (Rapunzel, Flynn, Ariel, Eric), and Tusker House (Mickey, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy). Buffets can be a little difficult sometimes with kids because of having to take turns to get food, carry multiple plates, etc, but it is doable. Look at the menus for restaurants and see what might interest you.

Don't try to plan every second of your trip out as with kids, you never know when something might come up and you need an unplanned break or snack, or the kids want to ride the dinosaurs 8 times in a row and there's no line. Come up with a rough idea of what park(s) each day and schedule your ADRs and fastpasses. I personally wouldn't try to plan down to the minute like 9am rope drop, 905-935 Pirates, 935-940 walk to Flying Carpets, 940-950 ride Carpets, 950-1005 walk to HM.... Some people like structure like that, but as I said, with kids things often take longer than expected and you don't want to stress yourself out trying to stick to a strict plan and being afraid you'll miss something.

Take a deep breath, relax, and you will have a great trip.

 

[KenHutch]

Everyone else has posted ideas better than mine but I would add check out Allears.net and YouTube. With AllEars you can check out the menus and read some reviews (and take the reviews with a grain of salt) and with YouTube you can check out all the rides and shows and figure out a lot of what will or won't work for your family.

 

[sponica]

If your youngest is still in diapers, I'd get those delivered to the resort (along with whatever snacks your kids generally like, for us it's goldfish, teddy grahams, etc)

Magic Kingdom is huge, I've been 6 times and there are still things I haven't done. What are the must dos in your head? I still go in with a list of things my trip NEEDS or it's not complete. If you have more than one day in Magic Kingdom, I would just immerse yourself in half the park one day, and half the park the next.

Your older 2 kids are old enough they might have an idea of what Disney is in their head (for example my 5 year old niece asked if I was eating breakfast with Cinderella when I go down in 4 weeks)

Take a deep breath, relax, have fun.

 

[LNMom]

I am not a veteran, but your questions spoke to me. I am planning a trip now for my family (11, 8, and 3). We have done a 2-week road trip up Hwy 1 in CA, Bogota and Cartagena Colombia, and Italy for a month, yet going to DW seems like so much work. We did go to DW 4 years ago when there were just 2 kids.
Here's what I have learned from my previous DW trip and other travels:

1) Identify your goal for this trip!
My goal is for my family to have fun together.
For some it is to ride every ride, or to meet certain characters. Having a goal will help you to organize and prioritize. Choose one goal, because more than one means that you are then organizing and prioritizing goals, and that's just too much work for vacation.

2) Streamline!
As a fellow mom of three, I know that you know how to do this with expert precision! But, you also know that moving a family of 5 is like herding cats. Apply this knowledge to DW x 5!
DW is intense with so much to do and see, so take as much intensity out as possible by making things really easy for yourself.
For me, I can't have an elaborate schedule with a particular order and times for rides. One child will need to go potty, and as soon as I walk out of the restroom, then another will want to go potty, and the whole plan will be off. When we went to DW the first time, I had no plan whatsoever. We walked into the park and went on rides as we encountered them (to be fair, it was mid-Sept. and the parks were empty). My only commitment was the ADRs, but I even ended up changing those times/locations twice in 5 days because we just weren't going to make it.
For our trip this fall, I have a list of restaurants that I'd like to eat at and believe my kids would enjoy (just a list with lots of options in each park; I will make dinner reservations for a few nights).

Pack as compact a day bag as possible. You will have to park the stroller for rides, so a small bag with no valuable in it will allow you to just leave the day bag.
You know the drill: Hand sanitizer, hand wipes, tissues, sunscreen, water bottles (I use soft, packable refillable ones).

3) Plan for inclement weather.
The most brilliant recommendation I have seen is for a large park of disposable ponchos used just once and tossed. I can't deal with folding up 5 wet rain jackets. Disposable ponchos it is for us!

4) Dining Plan
I have not purchased a dining plan. I did the math and it is not worth the cost for my family (even free dining isn't worth the cost upgrade to rack rates on rooms--renting points it too good of a deal). I also can't keep up with who has used which credits. Since you have the plan, make a chart so that you can track credits. Make it super simple so that you can keep track easily.

I hope you have time to post a trip report because I want to hear all of your recommendations for having a great time at DW!

Happy Travels!

 

[piratepride]

Definitely plan on daily afternoon naps. you will ALL need it. Make sure your Fast Passes are the rides the kids are most interested in. Character meals will be a good option for you so you can enjoy them at the comfort of your table without the lines and heat at the parks! Crystal Palace, Tusker House, Princess Breakfast at Epcot, Chef Mickey's and Hollywood & Vine (if your kids like Disney Jr.) are all great options especially if you are adding the regular dining plan.

I would plan two days at MK and one day at each of the other three parks. Two days at MK can spread out the Fast Passes for you as there are more rides at MK.

Have a great 1st trip, planning is the key but be flexible and try not to over plan. With three kids that age adjustments will probably have to be made.

 

[unrequited23]

I pretty much agree with what everyone else has posted above. Try to keep your family on schedule. If you have early birds try to RD as much as possible. Keep meal times as consistent as possible, if not plan them for 30 mins EARLIER. It sometimes takes longer to get food (at CS) or be seated (at TS) at Disney than in the real world. Hungry kids are not fun. Bring familiar snacks and plan at least one meal per day where you know there is food on the menu your kids will eat.

I would take time to research. YouTube ride videos and travel books from the library will help learn about what you can do at Disney. You will be able to see what is most important for you family and what does not interest you. It has been said before but you will not be able to do it all...and that is ok.

You might want to reconsider the park hoppers and the dining plan. We went when the kids were 2.5 and 5 and only went back to the parks one night. The other days were headed back to the resort around 4 to relax, swim and have dinner. Everyone was tuckered out by 9, grownups included. Run the numbers for the restaurants you want to eat at and see if you will save with the dining plan. The CS portions are really huge. Sometimes, the kids and I would share an CS adult meal, or they would share a kids CS meal and I would get a kids CS meal.

If you don't want to do a ton of in depth research, I suggest you checkout easywdw.com cheat sheets for each park. There are color coded maps that show which rides develop lines the quickest and a FP priority list. Just skip what the kids aren't interested in/are too short for.

And whatever you do, don't invite both sets of grandparents to come with you. Trust me, I speak from experience.

 

[Swaggerwagon]

Hello,
I am also a mom of 3 and we go to Disney every year. I agree that park hoppers may be too much, hopping between parks takes time, extra footsteps for little feet, and energy that is precious. Just think about the logistics of taking all 3 kids grocery shopping and multiply that by like 1000, hehe!
Rope drop is a beautiful thing with little kids, they get up at the crack of dawn anyways so take advantage of the low wait times.
I have learned not to overschedule meals. Expecting the kids to behave at a dinner table and wait for food adds to our vacation stress, not enjoyment, they are happiest with a pizza.
Finally, we take a day off for every day we go in a park. This saves money and adds to our vacation relaxation time. Inevitably, their favorite days are the ones spent by the swimming pool.