Help! Height Restrictions and 3 1/2 yr old

[1sttimedisney]

Can anyone give this first timer to Disney some advise on how to cope w/ 1 child who is 36 inches - so she doesn't meet a lot of the height requirements where her 2 siblings do. I'd like to try to avoid splitting the family up. I don't want her to get her feelings hurt when her siblings go on rides that she isn't tall enough for.

Any advise you could give would be much appreciated!!

 

[Divamomto3]

I have a similar situation. My older 2 boys are 10 and 8 and my youngest is 2 1/2. He definitely wont' be able to do a lot of what they can do, but I going to compensate by making them do his stuff...like watching Bear in the Big Blue House at MGM! Everyone is going to get their special things to do.

 

[Elk34]

Our daughter turned 4 during our recent trip. We were worried about her not meeting the height requirements on some of the bigger rides. But in reality she didn't WANT to ride those rides. We thought that she would be fearless since that is how she always acts in "real life" but at WDW she turned into a light weight. So we usually split up on the rides and one of us would take her on a smaller ride and the other would go on a big one. There always seemed to be rides that she liked near the bigger rides. By BTMRR and Splash Mtn there is Alladin. By Space Mtn there is Buzz or Astro Orbiter or the teacups. Beware that some of the rides that we thought would be easy for her weren't, like Snow White. A lot of the rides have darkness and loud noises. bring a little flashlight. We did and were glad we did. I just wished we had brought earplugs for her.

We were lucky to have their Grandparents with us to take her to some of the smaller attractions too.

One tip. If you are a family of 4 with an older child also you should use the younger child's ticket to get fastpasses too. That way one adult goes with an older child and then the other adult can go with the older child too. Our 7 year old ended up riding twice as many rides as anyone else.

If you don't want to split up you will be forced to go to the smaller attractions and shows.

 

[tjmw2727]

Your going to have to split up for some but not all the rides but Disney helps makes it fun. Use "baby swap" so mom and dad can ride with older siblings without waiting the line twice. If the youngest is over 3 you can also get a FP for a ride with the youngest's pass and return to ride when its convenient. Dh or I always took the youngest to do something special while others rode a height restricted ride. This could be doing a re-ride of a favorite - esp if it is close by to the ride the older kids are riding. Example is re-ride of buzz lightyear while others rode Space Mountain or re-ride of Peter Pan or IASW while others rode Haunted Mansion. Often we would plan rides for when youngest would generally nap - that helps. You can plan for an ice cream treat or special souviner shopping. The train ride around the park is perfect while others ride Spl Mtn and or BTMR as one of the entrances is next to Spl Mountain. Don't forget the simple fun of playing in a fountain or meeting a character - older kids may not be as interested as younger one anyway.

Have fun
TJ