Has you child FREAKED on a ride??

[princesskimberella]

We are leaving in just 5 short days for our first family trip to WDW and my DH is really worrying about our youngest (DD3) getting scared or freaked out in the middle of a ride. Since halloween this year she has beed afraid of alot of thing, has anyone had a child that was skiddish with things and do ok with characters and rides. I figure this trip is for the kids anyway so we will just go with the flow. She is really excited and cant wait to see Mickey and ride peter pan. I guess last minute jitters!!!

 

[HelenePA]

I've never been to disney, but we've done other amusement parks... I will say none of them have ever freaked out on a ride but my oldest thinks WAYY too much before the ride... and freaks herself out in line and is fine once the ride starts (so I look like one of those bad parents making my kids go on stuff they dont want to ) Good Luck! I'm also having those worries about when we go down to disney with my yougest who will be almost 2.

 

[karibritt01]

Start out with fun rides to break her in... Small World, Pooh, Carosel, Peter Pan. Then she will be a little more relaxed about riding in general. As for characters, try to see on of the 'people' first. We saw Cap. Hook first, and my DD freaked! Next we ran into Aladdin and Jasmine, and she relaxed. After that, the rest didn't bother her. Just my luck to find a villian first...

 

[stephgles]

We took my dd to disney for her 2nd trip in September 06 (she was 28 months at that time). She did great. Loved all the princesses. Was a little nervous around the characters but would go to them if I was with her or dh was with her.

The only ride she didnt care for was The Haunt House. She loves Scooby Doo so we told her it was like the ghost in Scooby. That freaked her out even more. She loved Pirates of the Carribean and Snow White's scary adventure, which I thought she wouldnt care for.

We recently took her to NYC and went to the Disney Store there. Goofy and Chip and Dale where there and she didnt even think twice about going to them.

We are looking forward to our next trip in September.

Good luck and enjoy every moment. I had plenty of happy tears while there and still get them thinking about that trip and our future trip.

Stephgles

 

[Kae]

DS wasn't happy when he was four at the the begining of PotC too loud, we got ear plugs loved it from then on. Wore the plugs at alot of attactions. Little Mermaid he was on my head But that was after Tough to be a bug, Hopper coming out of the wall did him in.

DS is now 9 & I told him he has to do Mermaid all the way through this time We have not taken our kids on Snow White or the 3d at Epcot.

Kae

 

[clori]

when we went with dd 3.5 she was afraid of various things. I doubt even as an adult that she will go on the boatride in Norway. She loved rides such as star tours but was afraid of Winnie the Pooh (never understood why). The one thing that really surprised me was that she was scared on Tomorrowland transit authority. I could understand boredom or falling asleep on the People Mover but I was surprised by the scared reaction. We went back to Disney when she was 5.5 and the only thing she was really afraid of was the ride in Norway (which we didn't attempt to go on) but wasn't afraid of anything else that she has prior issues with. While we didn't have any fear of characters we ended up riding IASW many times that trip. She was fine on Jungle Cruise until the very end then something scared her on that too. We are now just in the thinking stage and the ideal time for us to go back is when my younger dd will be 3.5 so we aren't sure about that. However even with dd being scared of various things we had a great trip. The things I've heard other kids are afraid of like the 3d ITs tough to be a bug dd loved at 3.5.

 

[Wigit12]

My niece (4 at the time)freaked out when they closed the doors in Haunted Mansion. They let us out a side door. Couldn't convince her that the rest was more "funny".

 

[LIZZIEANDTOMMYSMOM]

I couldn't resist replying to this. My DD was 5 on our last trip (she has been 7 times and never scared). We knew she was a little wierd about things so we weren't pushing here. She didn't do Snow White or Peter Pan. We let it go. Keep in mind DS (3) was on TOT and Dinosaur! Anyway, after Soarin', we went to go on Living With the Land. You know the boat ride though the Greenhouses. She SNAPPED! Screaming Crying, yelling I can't believe your making me do this! I was never so embarrassed. We made her tough it out but in the end she was OK! I guess it just goes to show you never know what will scare them!

 

[mtemm]

DS2 had a hard time on the first couple of dark rides. we started with dumbo (fine) then went to Pooh (he got a wee bit nervous and freaked a bit) then headed to I think peter pan, again, a bit nervous, but he's a total mama's boy so he buried his head in my shoulder. we went on small world and he was in love, then the carousel, a huge favorite. by the time we did pooh again, it became his favorite ride. it just took a few of the dark rides for him to get comfortable with them. he did pooh around 4x, peter pan 3x, the haunted mansion 2x. He was too small for things like splash, so goofy's barnstormer was the most exciting ride he went on. but that was outside, so not so freak-inducing. he even ended up doing snow white on our 3rd mk day and he had no problems.

 

[belle&beast]

DS turned 2 on our trip and had never shown signs of being afraid of anything, so we took him to the Haunted Mansion, thinking he wouldn't understand it anyway. Bad idea! When the CM snaps his fingers and the lights go out in the stretching room, he freaked and cried through the rest of it. DD was 4 at the time and loved every minute of HM, but Soarin' scared her.

 

[3boyzmom]

We went to DW last January ... DS wa just turning 5 and is freaked out by a few things. I learned that no matter how much he begs, Dinosuar is a big NO! But he really freaked out in It's Tough to be a Bug ... also when Hopper appears. He's seen the show before abd the movie a 1000 times. When hopper came out he ... this is absolutley true ... he screamed, jumped out of his chie and ran, screaming, to the wall with the exit doors. He got tangeled in the curtains while the nice CM tried to help me direct him out. My poor child. The other 2 were fine.

 

[lindsey]

When we went in 2004, my niece was 4yr old. She was afraid of characters, so we stayed away from that interaction with her. (My oldest was also afraid of any characters, so I had already experience with that). She was afraid of any ride inside. We took her on a few that were not frightening (UofE, Pooh, JtoI) and I talked her through each ride, explaining, or making up funny stuff. We knew better than to take her on anything that might really scare her. Anything outside was great. We had to pick and choose, but there is still so much to do and see that it was ok.

 

[OhioFamily]

We are leaving in just 5 short days for our first family trip to WDW and my DH is really worrying about our youngest (DD3) getting scared or freaked out in the middle of a ride. Since halloween this year she has beed afraid of alot of thing, has anyone had a child that was skiddish with things and do ok with characters and rides. I figure this trip is for the kids anyway so we will just go with the flow. She is really excited and cant wait to see Mickey and ride peter pan. I guess last minute jitters!!!

My DD7 screams on everything!!! I don't consider this a freak out since in between screams she's laughing hysterically, as are most of the people on the ride.

So fair warning to anyone going next week...anyone sitting behind or infront of us might need earplugs

 

[solgent]

My youngest is pretty timid. She was nearly 8 years old (just days away from her bday) when we were there and she freaked out on Splash Mtn and Haunted Mansion. Loved Pirates though, thank goodness, and Kali River Rapids. Did not attempt BTMRR, Space Mtn, Everest.

I thought she would not like Splash and questioned her repeatedly when we were in the (short) queue. But she insisted she wanted to go. Quickly changed her mind when we were underway. Oh well. I thought HM would be OK because the ride motion is not scary, no drops, etc. But she did NOT appreciate the atmosphere. Unfortunately the ride stopped more than once when we were on it. I just talked to her quietly and drew pictures for her on my Palm Pilot.

 

[LaraK]

DS freaked on Ellen's Energy Adventure the dinosaurs were too loud I guess. That's a long time to sit crying. Luckily, he only really bawled when the noise level was really loud, so no one heard him.

 

[disneyfan'ole]

For us it is the opposite, she cries when we tell her she is not tall enough for a ride. She has been on the TOT twice and loved it, Everest, Space Mtn, Mission space (but the non-spinning one) (which is great BTW), Big Thunder Mtn, splash mtn. She wants to ride the Dinosar twirling ride and Rockin roller coaster!

She is very adventerous and I am proud to say that she does NOT get it from me! I am a chicken!

 

[teacher100]

My kids totally freaked out in Tough to Be A Bug. They were 4, 8 and 12!

When my oldest was 4 he got bored during one of the last boring movies at the Universe of Energy. It was before the update with Ellen. He started whining and this lady kept giving us nasty looks even though we apologized. I'm not sure what she wnated me to do, becuase scolding or anything else would have only made him worse. I looked everywhere for a CM so I could exit with him, but they were no where to be seen! I wonder what would have happened if someone had a true emergency and can't find a way out. It's hard to believe that Energy is one of his fave's now!

 

[Tinklvr]

When my oldest DD was 2, we took to WDW for her second time. She went for the first time when she was 10 months. She went on everything during the first trip and was fine.

We made the mistake of taking her on Snow White. She got scared, but it was managable b/c it is such a short ride. However, she was then afraid of every dark ride. Before we realized just how scared she was of the dark, we went on Ellen's Energy Universe. It was horrible. As soon as it got dark, she screamed. Like a pp said, there are no CM anywhere and you are in a ride vehicle so you can't leave. Everyone was staring and shaking their heads at us. I even heard one lady say, "that poor child!" I felt so bad for my daughter, and the ride is sooo long, like 40 min or so. Luckily, we got her to close her eyes and hold her ears when we went through the dinosaur part. She screamed for the first ten minutes though.

 

[Order66]

My twins were 6 on their first trip this past May. Our first ride in MK was Space Ranger Spin. It's a bit dark and one of them was a little nervous. He's been to amusment parks before, but this was his first experience with inside Disney rides. He also tends to get himself worked up before a ride, then is fine on it. Usually. We explained the ride to him, it's a little dark and you get to shoot Zurg. Just around the first corner he began to cry hysterically. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he was scared Zurg was going to shoot back and he might die. Once I calmed him down that everything there was all pretend he loved it. Rode it 5 more times, once just him and his brother alone.

Stitch Escape, they both hated. It's pitch black at points and the smell.....if they weren't strapped in they would have been out the door. They were not happy about it but I told them they were stuck. They did say let's not go on that one anymore. They didn't care much for any of the 3D movies. The 3D scared them a little bit in certain points in a couple of the movies, but I think it was more the extra effects (water, wind, etc.)... that they didn't like at all. Tough to be a bug was worse than Philharmagic. To this day my son doesn't ever want to see any movie advertised in 3D because he thinks they are all like Disney ones.

You just have to let the kids decide what they want to try and if your child needs a push or not to try new things. I got one son on SM telling him it would be like flying a Jedi Starfighter and he was all about trying it when he's not real big on coasters. He did OK but didn't want to do it again. My other son loves coasters and went on SM multiple times, EE once but was in no way going to be talked into ToT. He saw the height and that was it for him. Maybe next time.

 

[Gillennj]

This is a great topic. We will be going in early March (isn't everybody?) and DS5 is VERY timid, nervous and shy. He reacts to things exactly as I did when I was a kid and I remember stuff that freaked me out (for no real reason)very well. Looking back, it made NO sense, but I was terrified and could not be convinced to do anything in that state. I grew up in the shadow of Cedar Point, and did not ride a roller coaster until 14, and I only rode the small ones. Today my wife has to drag me on the big ones

DW and I have agreed to gently work on him before we go, and to not push him too much while we are there. The trip is for him and his sisters, so we will let him do what he is comfortable with. We will let him observe and choose what he wants to do. Hopefully he will be fine. When he gets excited, he loses some of his shyness and fear, so hopefully all will be well. He LOVES Disney and is looking forward to it. DD2 is fearless and very social, so hopefully that will help to break the ice with characters at least.