How much can you realistically get done in a relaxed style day?

[duck524]

We always pack in as many attractions as we can in the morning hours when crowds aren’t as bad, and our energy and stamina (for all that walking) is at its peak. Then after lunch we slow down and just somewhat relax, enjoying the atmosphere and doing whatever extra FP rides we can get. It’s the best of both worlds for us. Just try to make sure you have FPs for her must-dos and enjoy your time.

Excellent advice. Thank you.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Well...my kids are older now, but looking back....

1) Character meals - kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Ya gotta eat and lines for Princesses, etc are insane. Just spend the $ on character meals and be done with it. Must book 180 days in advance at the crack of dawn.

2) Rope drop. Just do it. As another poster stated, rope drop and hit a couple of rides with no fastpasses so schedule your FP starting around 11.

3) Afternoon parades - If you're not going to go back to the room in the afternoon, some down time in the stroller eating a dole whip watching the parade is a nice re-charge. And a wave from Tinkerbell just might suffice if you don't get the meet and greet done.

4) Consider a stay (or split stay) at a monorail resort and Epcot area resort. BLT will give you the option of walking (pushing a stroller) to/from MK. BWV or BCV are walk to Epcot and HS (BWV being more in the middle). Plan your MK days during the monorail stay and your Epcot / HS days at the other. This saves tons of time on transportation, which IMO is the biggest time-suck of them all. You can rent points at DVC resorts for about the price of a stay in a moderate.

If you are talking about THIS December (2 months from now) you are probably out of luck on the DVC rental and possibly the character meals. Get those FPs! Disney takes planning really really really far in advance. Unfortunately.

I have never done EMM so others can chime in. I'd hope that that will enable you to accomplish a lot and you can take a relaxed pace after that.

All that being said, I took both my girls for the first time at 3 y.o. and it is the most magical time! I believe that set them up to be life-long Disney lovers. They are 16 and 20 and always wondering when the next trip is.

Have a great trip! We will be there this Dec and are looking forward to our first MVMCP!!

 

[duck524]

First let me say how exciting for your little one !
She is going to be so excited !
I just returned from WDW less then 24 hours ago ... so sad ... here are a couple of thoughts for you EMM at Hollywood studios for you will be a waste of money IF she doesn't like rollercoasters or rides that whip you because it is only toy story land. Slinky dog has a couple of drops but also several hoop de doos that really get your belly and alien swirl really whips you around a lot and you have no control over it. Now she will probably like the midway mania and the meet and greet with woody and Jessie but I don't know it would be worth the extra hundreds. Midway mania is the easiest of the 3 to get fast passes for and the meet and greet lines are usually 20 minutes.
For the day you do your EMM at magic kingdom if your back in storybook circus when the park opens you will be able to ride Dumbo and meet the characters in their circus costumes before anyone else even makes it to that part of the park... then head towards the carousel and Mickeys Philharmagic and your done with fantasyland by 10am
Fast pass haunted mansion, enchanted tales with belle, and pirates ... you'll be golden !
I feel like Hollywood studios is a short day park unless your Star Wars fans... Beauty, Disney Jr show, Jr meet and greets,frozen sing along, mermaid, muppets DONE
Epcot and Ak I could spend all day and she might enjoy the wilderness club and kidcot stations.
The holiday story tellers are very entertaining for kids and teach them about holiday traditions from around the world.
There are not a lot of rides geared towards the young ones at these 2 parks so just fast pass the couple you want ... there is no need in my opinion to fast pass the shows because they each hold hundreds if not thousands of people and you should have no issues.
I think you will have an amazingly wonderful vacation and don't worry ... your little will have no idea if she missed something she is going to be seeing and doing so much !
A couple of things I might add would be if she has a favorite character maybe a character meal ... this also helps in the waiting in line if you can check a few autographs off your list
Your going to be there at an extra magical time and the castle is extra beautiful in the evening if you get a chance to leave and come back or can hold out one night to see it it is just breathe taking, usually Queen Elsa freezes it every evening but I forget what time
Also along with the holidays there is the Christmas tree trail at Disney Springs it even snows there !
Several of the resorts have gingerbread house displays and if memory serves me right they have at certain times where you can decorate your own to eat or save as an ornament.
Sorry this is so long but my final bit of advice is the biggest time waster is criss crossing the park ... it makes you tired and worn out and generally isn't woth it.

Thank you! The EMMs are dual purpose--get attractions in for her at her prime hours and avoid crowds for my people-hating husband. She does love whip rides, so she is super excited about aliens, although it sounds like we may spend most of our EMM time in line for the 3 characters. She is a huge TS fan. She does want to meet BB-8, but mostly the plan for HS after EMM is to hit shows and meet characters, mostly at her whim, but somewhat planning around the show times. I think we can be done by about 4:30 without a mid-day break. A lot of the kids shows seem to end earlier in the day, so I was unsure if we could make a mid-day off-site break work here, but I definitely want to consider it because I think she would like coming back to see JBJJ and I think she could swing it if she got a nap.

Magic Kingdom is trickier because both our days are party days. So, if we left and came back, we would still have to leave by 6 and it sounds like the crowds pick up around 4pm. It's also just SO BIG. My tentative thought, because I agree that criss-crossing the park is a recipe for disaster, is to do the expanded EMM (no 7DMT for her, but maybe the grown-ups can take turns while the other grown-up waits for princesses), hit up the Speedway and Buzz before breakfast and then spend the rest of the morning in Fantasyland doing whatever she wants whenever she wants. We have a 1pm lunch reservation at Crystal Palace because she is most excited about meeting Tigger. Then a relaxed afternoon, hopefully hitting liberty square, the rest of Tomorrowland, and Talking Mickey/Tink and using fastpasses. Day 2 at MK, she has a mermaid makeover she is super excited about, so I figure we do that, meet Ariel, and spend the rest of the morning casually taking in Frontierland and Adventureland before lunch while waiting for the parade. She is excited about the parade, otherwise I think we could be done and gone before noon. Not doing any coasters or mountain rides saves us a lot of time at MK.

AK is pretty much about the Safari, Lion King, Nemo, and Dinoland for her. Unless we can fastpass NRJ, I plan to skip Pandora altogether. I am not too worried about taking this day slow. This might be our best shot at a mid-day nap day.

Epcot is the one day we want to catch fireworks. We also have a mid-afternoon Akershus reservation to meet princesses. My thought is we sleep in this day and arrive around noon for a short day, but I am unsure. If I could move our Akershus reservation later toward dinner, I would also consider making this a mid-day nap day. I don't think she will want to do much in WS other than Norway and a few holiday storytellers. This is the park she knows the least about, so she only is really looking forward to Akershus and Nemo. It's also my husband's favorite park.

We also have an early arrival day and a late departure day that I am not planning on anything in the parks. Figured we would do Disney Springs tree trail and Lego Store and T-Rex on arrival day and check out the GF gingerbread house and do a character breakfast at Ravello on departure day.

 

[duck524]

Well...my kids are older now, but looking back....

1) Character meals - kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Ya gotta eat and lines for Princesses, etc are insane. Just spend the $ on character meals and be done with it. Must book 180 days in advance at the crack of dawn.

2) Rope drop. Just do it. As another poster stated, rope drop and hit a couple of rides with no fastpasses so schedule your FP starting around 11.

3) Afternoon parades - If you're not going to go back to the room in the afternoon, some down time in the stroller eating a dole whip watching the parade is a nice re-charge. And a wave from Tinkerbell just might suffice if you don't get the meet and greet done.

4) Consider a stay (or split stay) at a monorail resort and Epcot area resort. BLT will give you the option of walking (pushing a stroller) to/from MK. BWV or BCV are walk to Epcot and HS (BWV being more in the middle). Plan your MK days during the monorail stay and your Epcot / HS days at the other. This saves tons of time on transportation, which IMO is the biggest time-suck of them all. You can rent points at DVC resorts for about the price of a stay in a moderate.

If you are talking about THIS December (2 months from now) you are probably out of luck on the DVC rental and possibly the character meals. Get those FPs! Disney takes planning really really really far in advance. Unfortunately.

I have never done EMM so others can chime in. I'd hope that that will enable you to accomplish a lot and you can take a relaxed pace after that.

All that being said, I took both my girls for the first time at 3 y.o. and it is the most magical time! I believe that set them up to be life-long Disney lovers. They are 16 and 20 and always wondering when the next trip is.

Have a great trip! We will be there this Dec and are looking forward to our first MVMCP!!

We are going in 2 months! We are staying off-site because it is a big family trip. I did get up early 7 days in a row for reservations, but only scored the lunches at CP and Akershus. I still have my eyes out though and alerts set! My fastpass days start in about a month, so I am just working on figuring out our rough plan of attack in order to maximize our fastpass usage. Thank you!

 

[siren0119]

Epcot is the one day we want to catch fireworks. We also have a mid-afternoon Akershus reservation to meet princesses. My thought is we sleep in this day and arrive around noon for a short day, but I am unsure. If I could move our Akershus reservation later toward dinner, I would also consider making this a mid-day nap day. I don't think she will want to do much in WS other than Norway and a few holiday storytellers. This is the park she knows the least about, so she only is really looking forward to Akershus and Nemo. It's also my husband's favorite park.

Just a fair warning - EPCOT is HUGE compared to the other parks. Magic Kingdom is 142 acres while Epcot is 300 - and things are fairly spread out. (AK is technically the largest, but a lot is undeveloped or houses the animal safari, which you view from a vehicle rather than walk). I love the park but hate that so much time is spent just walking between stuff. Definitely get a stroller for her that day, and allow for plenty of time to walk between FutureWorld for Nemo and the WS. She might enjoy the Three Caballeros ride in Mexico too - it's really cool to go inside the pyramid and indoor marketplace, plus it's a nice quiet ride with Donald Duck cartoons

 

[Jasperann]

I would follow a fairly strict plan for rope drop and the hour or so after, because it is worth it to do that, you will get so much done. But then maybe throw the TP plans out. Go at your own pace and decide what direction you want to go. Fantasyland will be awesome at that age. Then pick and choose. When my kids were that age, we were done by mid afternoon. They were tired and needed a break. And that was it. Back to the hotel for swimming, resting, other things.

This is what we do. The first 3 hours are strict follow the plan (what ever that may be) and the rest of the day is relaxed and go with the flow. When they are younger never underestimate how much play time on the play ground type things re-energizes them. We spent an hour in Dumbo's que because our kids just wanted to play on the play structure while we enjoyed the air. It was not in the plan at all, but is something that the kids remember so much now. Sometimes it is the unplanned things that make a vacation. So besides those first few 'critical' hours we are pretty laid back and we never feel like we didn't have fun.

 

[Animal]

"Any tips on how to make sure you maintain a relaxed approach while at the parks?"

Yes. Don't post a thread on TPAS entitled...

How much can you realistically get done in a relaxed style day?

I kid...

 

[duck524]

"Any tips on how to make sure you maintain a relaxed approach while at the parks?"

Yes. Don't post a thread on TPAS entitled...

How much can you realistically get done in a relaxed style day?

I kid...

I know you are joking, but I personally would be the opposite of relaxed if we walked into Disney without any plan other than "six adults from across the country follow the four year old around." I know I need to set up some rough parameters, so I can say to the other adults, "we will be in Fantasyland for x amount of time and will meet you in Liberty Square at y time." I was trying to figure out what was reasonable for those time frames. She isn't going to want to leave an area full of fun after she has only done 3 of the 10 things she can see. But if it takes 5 hours to do 5 things, I need to know that so I can be fair to our travel companions in giving time estimates and making meet-up plans.

 

[Lisa P.]

Magic Kingdom....
...a relaxed afternoon, hopefully hitting liberty square, the rest of Tomorrowland, and Talking Mickey/Tink and using fastpasses...

Is Talking Mickey still out there? I thought they went back to regular, mime Mickey? Just wondering...

 

[jaiminee krikit]

No matter how much or how little you do, she is going to love everything about it! DD was about that age her first visit, and it was beyond magical. I hadn't been in a good 10 years and another family member planned the entire trip. I didn't realize until I was planning our next trip that we missed out on so much that first trip! We did a couple character meals - Akershus was her absolute favorite. You can't go wrong with real life princesses! Chef Mickey's was an amazing character interaction, but the food was horrible. I do think that is a place every kid should go to once. I was lucky, DD was never afraid of big characters. A couple of my relatives were terrified of characters at that age, though, so I wouldn't book anything with big characters if she's uncomfortable around them.
That trip was very leisurely. My nephews wanted pool time every single afternoon so we would leave the parks early afternoon to go to the pool. Some nights we went back to a park, most we didn't. We didn't see any of the fireworks or nighttime parade that trip. We did see the electric water pageant a couple of times (we were at WL).
A couple bits of advice - don't hype up anything too much to her or anyone else. Closures happen, rides shut down, some people get so upset when something is going to be closed on their trip. It happens, prepare yourself for that possibility.
One of the best things we did that first trip was give DD a disposable camera to take pictures of whatever she wanted. When I developed the pictures, I loved seeing the trip through her eyes. When I gave her the camera, I told her to take pictures of whatever she wanted - I didn't guide her and I didn't tell her no to anything. The pictures were askew and some didn't turn out at all, but the photos that did were precious.

 

[Nancyg56]

You are right; four is such a fun age. I think that is what makes it tempting to try and do as much as we can, because I know she would love it all so much. I need to remember she will love it regardless of how much we do.

The thing is that at 4, she won't know what she missed, but will enjoy what she is doing. Our DGD was 4 on her first trip, and while we had a rough plan, we kind of followed her lead She was a character junkie, so we stood in haracter lines, enjoyed character meals, and just enjoyed her enjoying the attractions, the details, and her "friends."

I think that when you set yourself up tryign to encompass too much you miss the moment, and that is a shame.

I think you are right about the stroller. I wanted to avoid it if possible because she isn't a very active child and I make her walk at the zoo and local theme parks to encourage exercise, but I don't think she can handle walking Disney.

Oh dear, my DGD had more energy than I could imagine any child should have, btu we got her the stroller. It served two purposes, she relaxed when she got tired, and she was able to remove herself from the stimulation when she got overwhelmed.

The best advice I can give you is to plan several must do attractions in each park, set out in that direction, and enjoy the moments.

 

[kwdw]

How to keep it relaxed?

Exactly what you are planning - keep her on her normal schedule. Book some FP's, some ADR's, don't criss-cross the park, and go with the flow. Done. If its snack time, its snack time. If three bathroom breaks happen in 2 hours - yep - that happens. If the Dumbo playground turns into 30 minutes of play time - it happens. Don't educate her on ALL the rides - as others have said - she won't know what she is missing. And yes - if she loves characters - plan a couple character meals.

My niece loves characters - and we "trained her early" in terms she doesn't need to see Mickey in every park. Character meals are well-worth the price for us - no waiting in line. And by age four - she understood we would do something "tomorrow" or "later that day"- to help avoid whining. (And it wasn't a trick - we kept those tomorrow/later that day promises!)

Have a blast!

 

[nacho113]

Definitely don't feel like you need to get in every ride to have a magical vacation, the rides aren't exactly what makes it magical - it's the time you spend together enjoying each other.

 

[duck524]

Is Talking Mickey still out there? I thought they went back to regular, mime Mickey? Just wondering...

You are right; he is just a regular Mickey now.