Going with a 1 year old?

[Marnm02]

I'm pretty experienced with Disney. Went there a lot as a kid, did the College Program in college, and went there for our honeymoon.

We are probably going to go next fall, and will be bringing our daughter who will be 14 months. My parents will probably be coming too.

I can tell you all about fun things to do as a young adult, but going as a family with a baby is new territory for me. Any advice about what/where to do/see/eat/stay/etc with a child this young?

ETA: My siggy is obviously not updated since I was on here last planning our honeymoon. I'll update it soon, but wanted to post this asap so we can start planning

 

[MommytoaSweetie]

You'll love bringing your DD to Disney World! We took our DD#1 on her first trip when she was 14 months (it was actually our first time at Disneyland) and it was awesome. For us, we mostly forgot about the "big" rides that she couldn't do with us (other than we'd ride some when she was napping or here and there with a fastpass so she didn't have to wait long for either parent during the babyswap thing), because the trips are now for her (and her sister this time ). There are a TON of rides that kids can do with you - anything without a height restriction. We wore DD in our Ergo for some of that trip and it was a huge help - we'd leave her in there while we went on ride after ride for the first hour or so in the park for Fantasyland rides (the rides that would later have a long wait) and left the stroller in one spot. The Ergo also helped for anything that could be scary or loud because she could immediately bury her head in us and felt secure to look if she wanted, or "hide" if she felt that need.

DD wasn't a big fan of characters then (even those she was starting to "know" - and that fear escalated as she got older - we're hoping it's diminishing some for this trip ), so I was thankful that we didn't have any character meals planned with her - they wouldn't have been worth it for us, but you know your kid best, and for us it's helpful to save $$ if we don't need to spend it (our DD2 will be 10 months on her first trip and we ARE doing character meals, mainly for DD1). There are pretty good options for food and keeping healthy options available, and under 3, kids aren't on the dining plans so they either share with you or you can order them a separate meal (sharing works fine for us, and at buffets they can get their own plate no big deal, and no one charged us for a cup of milk for DD even though they could have). As for where to stay, obviously I think that a deluxe with close monorail or boat access would probably be easiest for transportation, but it's not feasible for us, so we've done value and it's fine for our family. We thought about going Moderate this time, but we're going during the winter and the kids wouldn't really appreciate the nice pools and such at this time that it's still not really worth it to us right now. Anyway, I know I'm rambling and you'll get plenty of advice on here! Have a wonderful trip!!