Help:MGM Strategy with preschoolers?

[CamAnd]

I haven't been to MGM since my high school senior trip (17yrs ago). Planning to take my little ones 2&1/2 , 4yrs old 2nd week of May. Do you have to get there first thing in the morning to avoid crowds? We also are doing the Fantasmic Dinner Package so we'll be staying till closing. What attractions geared for this age group should we do first?

 

[lclark0621]

The playhouse Disney show is fantastic for little ones!

Mostly there are the shows in MGM for the kids. They can do the Great Movie Ride, but alot of it is shows.

We normally always take a mid day nap, except for our MGM day. We always do the fantasmic package & have "dinner" (late lunch) around 4:30pm or so. So that kind of kills going back for a nap, unless we are there at opening, which is RARE for my family.

The Muppets 3D one is great for little ones (and big kids to). MGM is a great place to meet characters not found elsewhere, like Jo Jo & Goliath from Playhouse Disney, Mike & Sully, right now you can meet Chicken Little & Abby, etc.

We usually get there around 11:00am & stay through Fantasmic. We try a later start since we know there will be no time for a break. My DS will nap for a while in his stroller, and if he doesn't fall asleep on his own (which is REALLY rare), a quick trip to Voyage of the Little Mermaid & he is out like a light. That cool, dark place, just makes me (and me) pretty sleepy.

We dont usually go during heavy crowd times, but we dont usually have a problem with crowds at MGM. If we want to ride any big rides, we just use Fast Pass.

 

[ratfam]

When our kids were young, MGM was not a full day park for us, there just wasn't enough that we thought would interest them without scaring them (for my ds at the age of 4, even seemingly innocent things like Muppetvision 3D were out, although he had been fine with it when he was younger). But seeing Fantasmic was a priority. So what we did last trip, when the kids were 4 and 7, was have a relaxing morning at the hotel pool, eat lunch at the hotel, then clean up and head over the park mid afternoon. Our "must sees" were Playhouse Disney Live, Beauty and the Beast show, the afternoon parade, the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground and Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We checked show schedules ahead of time so we were sure to arrive in time to catch the last Playhouse Disney show of the day (as I recall it ends earlier than some other shows). We had to stay on a tight schedule but in under three hours we had done all of these things and also taken advantage of some of the street performers, and we were at our Fantasmic dinner package seating. We saw Little Mermaid between dinner and Fantasmic. The dinner package was fabulous with young kids becase we didn't have the long wait for Fantasmic. We got through the whole evening with no crabbiness due to planning the shorter day. In the past, when the kids were even younger, we had tried to spend more time but we just found that they really didn't care at all about things like the backlot tour, and dh and I decided that while they were that young we would prefer to limit our time in the park and enjoy the things we went to rather than trying for a longer day to do child swap at the adult rides.

Another option would be to go in early and take a long midday break, but since there just wasn't that much that interested the kids we found the late arrival worked better for our family.

This year the kids are 7.5 and 10 and we are planning an entire day, but when they were the age of your kids it was definitely our last favorite park.

 

[NYBlue1]

Hi there!

We just returned from the World with out 2 yr old triplets and I would say out of all the parks MGM was the one they enjoyed the least. Besides the playhouse disney show there was not anything else they truly enjoyed, besides the parade. The great movie ride made one of my kids freak out, she was petrified, I felt aweful thinking the only scarey thing in there really was alien...well aparantly mostly everything else was too...I did not realise how LOUD the ride is, I think that was more scarey than anything else. My son and other daughter did not mind it so much but were not thrilled with it.

The kids favorite things were, any playground,any ride that went in circles outside and fireworks, I figured they would be petrified, boy was I wrong.

If you are going to try the 3D movies my suggestion is being in a seat where you can get out if you need to , again two of the kids were ok, one petrified, keep in mind that most of the Disney 3Ds have some effects that could scare a toddler also, I dont want to give too much away to folks that have not been to them but if you are unsure what im talking about, feel free to PM me and ill expalin further.

Have a great trip!

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

I would check this site before departing for WDW. It has great info on the schedules for shows and who to find where for character Meet & Greets:
http://pages.prodigy.net/stevesoares/

As far as recommended attractions for the pre-school set:

• Playhouse Disney
• Muppetvision 3D
• Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground
• Voyage of the Little Mermaid
• Beauty & the Beast Stage Show

I would avoid:

• Sounds Dangerous (completely dark at times)
• Tower of Terror*
• Star Tours*
• Rock 'n Rollercoaster*

*height restrictions​

The rest of the attractions, I would say depend upon the child. Indiana Jones and the Lights, Motors Action! shows can be loud and there are explosions. The Great Movie Ride can be boring for them, and there either a ganster or western scene with some "shooting" in them. The Backlot Tour is pretty tame up to a point and then Catastrophe Canyon (explosion, fire and flood) can be very intense for young children. WWTBAM will not be the highlight of their day but isn't frightening.

There's probably enough at MGM to make it at least a 3/4 day park, longer if the crowds are heavy or if the timing the shows is spread out. Enjoy!

 

[susykt4]

We took our kids last April when they were 4 and 2 1/2. MGM was their least favorite park. They liked Playhouse Disney and the Honey, I shrunk playground and NOTHING else. The Great Movie Ride scared them half to death because it was so loud and after that they were pretty much ruined for MGM attractions. Princess-loving DD didn't even like the Little Mermaid show. I was shocked because I had assumed MGM would be their 2nd favorite park after MK!

We returned this January (kids now 3 and 5) with the intention of doing the 2 attractions they liked and then meeting lots of characters. This time we went much later in the day and stayed for the parade which we all absolutely loved! DD5 loved the Muppet 3D movie, DS3 was bored but we didn't have to take him out or anything. We met tons of characters and had a good afternoon there. I definitely don't think you need to get there at opening unless the adults are going to do a lot of baby swapping for the big rides. (My parents were along for our April trip and my mom stayed with the kids while Dad, DH and I did Rock 'n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. We were at the opening "rope drop" and had almost no wait for either ride but it still took us about 45-50 minutes to do both. The kids were very bored waiting for us.)

 

[goofy's friends]

I have to agree that MGM was our kids' least favorite park. The stuff was too scary, too rough, too loud, too foreign to a preschooler. Ours just didn't understand the whole movie-making thing. Would recommend though: Playouse Disney, Mermaid show, Beauty and the Beast,Playground, See Power Rangers and Mike and Sully. OUr son (4) loved Star Tours, but not our girls. NOTHING else appealed to them at all. We missed the parade due to rain, they would have enjoyed that. Animation tour, Backlot tour, GMR, Indiana Jones, LMA : All of these were too much for them and they hated them. They didn't enjoy Muppets probably since it isn't as interesting as Mickey's Philharmagic taht we loved. They also didn't know the characters except Kermit.

If I had it to do over, I would go in an afternoon and do what they liked, parade and all and skip everything else. Fantasia is OK, but don't sit too close with preschoolers--too hard to see what is happening and more scary.