First time to Disney with 2 and 3 year old

[jmblount]

My husband thinks the best thing to do is to stay at the park all day and let the kids nap in the stroller. Our condo is 20 miles from Disney. His thought process is that with all of the effort it will take to leave the park, get to the car, get out of Disney, make the 20 mile drive, we will waste 4 hours of the day leaving for lunch and our naps. Anyone else have a condo fairly far from Disney? What did you do? IMO, we should take the time to make sure the kids get a decent nap so that we can go back to the park and stay into the evening. But going in and out of Disney twice in one day might be a bit much. Not sure...

 

[Hannathy]

I'm with your husband! That would take a tremendous amount of time and effort. Depending on the time of year the traffic could be very bad getting into and out of Disney.
If you want to leave in the middle of the day it is best to stay on site or at least within a couple of miles of Disney.

We never left, mine always slept in the stroller.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

I agree with your husband. I think that once you spend all that time to get back to your condo you won't want to go all the way back to the parks. We always stay on-site and we frequently just had our kids nap in their strollers when they were that age. I'd find an out-of-the-way spot in the shade and let them sleep, or walk through air-conditioned stores.

You might schedule some early days where you leave the parks early, like by dinner time, and have a quick dinner and put the kids to bed early to catch up on their sleep.

 

[Ashlander]

I agree - nap at the park. Running back and forth will tire everyone out more.

 

[frtchr]

Will your kids sleep in the stroller? Mine won't. Too much to see.

 

[ktlm]

I agree with your husband. My DD did fine at ages 2 and 3 with just stroller naps and staying in the park all day. We've done that on 3 trips. In fact, the only time DD ever had a melt down on her first trip was when we tried to get her to leave MK to go back to the resort for an afternoon nap. We were close by at WL. We dragged her kicking and screaming from the park and all we got was an angry child who refused to nap for 2-3 hours when we got back to the resort. When we finally gave up trying to get her to sleep and went back to MK, she turned happy and immediately crawled in her stroller and took a nap. Stroller naps worked great for us. I think your husband is right that tou will be losing a lot of valuable park time if you go back and forth that far each day.

 

[RMulieri]

With that distance, I wouldn't leave unless you MUST.

 

[Sgt Mickey]

We stay on Disney so we do leave the park and go back to our room but I wouldn't want to drive that far to a condo to take a nap.
I will say that is the best thing about staying on disney is mom and dad can napand boy do we need it

 

[jj1403]

My kids slept in a stroller. It seemed to work well. I think if you leave and you are that far away more than likely you won't be back.

 

[Hannathy]

For the OP have you investigated how long it is going to take you to drive those 20 miles? I know it sounds short but depending on the time of year and direction you are coming from those 20 miles could take you well over an hour.
Traffic can really back up around Disney. I think you need to get an honest estimate of the time involved before you start thinking thru any plans.

 

[LuLuO]

For the OP have you investigated how long it is going to take you to drive those 20 miles? I know it sounds short but depending on the time of year and direction you are coming from those 20 miles could take you well over an hour.
Traffic can really back up around Disney. I think you need to get an honest estimate of the time involved before you start thinking thru any plans.

Though I've never been to WDW with children, I did live near Orlando for a while and visited the parks fairly often. So, I have to completely agree with Hannathy. As much as I think my kids will need a mid-day break, if we were staying that far away, I wouln't bother leaving. If we needed to leave early then I'd just call it a day and not return to the park(s) that day.

And someone correct me if I'm wrong because it has been ten years since I lived in Florida, but as someone who remembers sitting in Orlando rush hour traffic, I don't think I'd want to be heading back to the parks during rush hour.