What did you take that you really didn't need? What did you take that you couldn't live without?
We've gotten pretty good at packing light so we didn't really bring anything we didn't need. For the baby I carried into the parks a change of clothes, extra pacifier, blanket, burp cloth, stroller rain cover (a GODSEND since it rained every day), the front pack (also used quite a bit), baby tylenol, gas drops, a little tube or orajel (he just started teething), a compact umbrella for me to use when wearing the front pack, a bottle and can of ready to feed formula (I nurse him but he gets so easily distracted I was worried he wouldn't nurse well for wanting to look around so I had that for backup and did use it a few times but we mostly nursed) and I made up diaper packs. What I do is to put a few wipes into a ziploc sandwich bag and then put that, a disposable change pad and a diaper into a quart size ziploc bag. That way when it is time to change baby's diaper we just had to bring that into the bathroom rather than the whole diaper bag. If the diaper was stinky I could put it into either the sandwich bag or the quart sized bag and toss it. If I didn't the wipes, I just brought that baggie back out and tucked it in the diaper bag and used it with the next round of diaper packs. Every time we returned to the hotel I reloaded the bag and made sure we always had 4 change packs in the bag. That worked out great! We used all of the stuff we carried around except the gas drops. I had a stroller bunting for him that we used on cold days. That was great because I didn't have to worry about his blanket falling off or getting tangled in the wheels.
One thing that was really convenient is that I used a diaper bag that could be attached to the stroller like a saddle bag. Sort of a knock of of
these (scroll down to see it in action). We put stuff like diapers and wipes (nothing of value though) into that bag to reduce what we had to carry around. I just put one change pack, the orajel and some hand sanitizer into the camera bag and we carried that with us into/on attractions and left the saddlebag on the stroller. It worked great! At security going into the parks we just made sure we rolled the stroller up to the security person on the side where the bag was attached and they checked it with it still attached.
My question is how much your 4 year old wanted to be in the stroller...and would you recommend renting or taking our own stroller??
This trip was the first where we didn't bring a stoller for the big boys. We went in with the game plan that we would have them walk and just
rent a stroller if we needed one. It became pretty obvious that we would need one if we wanted to get much done! We were constantly dragging one or the other of them and with yucky weather and shorter park hours we decided renting was a good idea so we rented a double for them. DH was completely opposed to this at first because it can get so expensive to rent for multiple days but he came around pretty quickly after he saw what a difference it made. Our kids are active at home and not lazy. They
COULD have walked but like I said we were dragging one or the other constantly so it was go at a snails pace with people fighting to get around us to go faster and have them saying "my feet hurt" over and over at the end of the day or stroller them. Everyone had a more enjoyable time with strollering them. My kids are big too. My 4 year old is 48" tall and weighs about 62 lbs. My 6 year old is around 53" tall and 67 lbs. They both fit in a double...
IF it were just my 4 year old and he was average 4 year old size, I would have brought a stroller for him. Buying an umbrella stroller is cheaper than renting for multiple days and it's easy to fold up and bring on the bus. The stroller we had for the baby was far from compact when folded but we brought it anyway because he is comfy in it and he can face towards us. He gets fussy if he isn't facing us so it wasn't worth having him not be as comfortable and be fussy just to have a smaller stroller. We stayed at the CR and the BC so not much bus time anyway. I have a Maclaren Volo that I love that I would have brought for him. It only weighs 7 lbs, has a decent size basket and folds up small with a strap for carrying it on your shoulder. It is what we have used for him in the past. You can get a used one on Ebay for around $50 or so. I'd look in to something like that for your 4 year old.
Were you able to take your baby any "rides" with you? I am thinking of things more like the trains or the Winnie the Pooh ride...not the Tower of Terror!
Baby rode anything without a height requirement.
Pooh was closed for refurb but he rode everything else in Fantasyland that we rode (we skipped Dumbo this trip but he rode everything else). Outside of Fantasy Land, he rode Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, TTA, Buzz and the train in the MK. At Epcot he rode the new Nemo ride (which he LOVED), the boat ride in the Land, Journey Into the Imagination, Spaceship Earth, and the ride in Norway. At MGM he rode the Backlot Tour and Great Movie Ride. At AK he rode the dinosaurs like Dumbo and the Safari. We joked that he is a future thrill ride fan because he LOVED Pirates and completely freaked out on It's a Small World which most babies LOVE. LOL We did baby swap for the other stuff. The baby swap tickets have an expiration date on them which was 2/28. We asked about that and the CM said it was fine to save for another day or later in the day so we did that if it was getting busy in that area and we wanted to move on. DH and I both got to ride everything we wanted to and the older kids loved that they got 2 trips through the big rides with using baby swap. We did great this trip. Our longest wait time was 6 minutes for anything.
Beyond that, no rude comments or looks. I actually had a nice conversation about nursing with another Mom in the play area at the end of Mission Space while we both waited for our families. 
