Magic Kingdom with toddler - day ticket with multilane or Christmas party?

[Rickidee99]

Question in the title but here are more details.

Super short trip - only 2 park days planned, with 1 being in MK, the other EPCOT.

I am really on the fence with this one,

1) go to MK during the day and use multilane - I hear crowds are lower on party days and we can walk on to many toddler rides.

2) take a late nap, go to MK for the Christmas party, and hope that toddler will be able to sleep in stroller.

Some additional info:
- toddler is a night owl - at home sometimes she refuses bed till 10:30pm. We will not be able to rope drop for sure.
- she gets overwhelmed if things are too hectic or loud,
- she loves Minnie and meeting her is on our #1 list.
- she loves music, so I think she will love the parade
- she has never napped in stroller before so it is a complete wild card how she will be.
- the following day we are looking at late start to Epcot either way.

I feel like day ticket is the safer option, but if she can handle it might have more fun for the Christmas party. We live abroad so coming to Disney is a special treat, we likely won’t be able to afford it for another few years.

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

 

[sponica]

Is she under 3? If so I would just do whatever you want to do because her ticket will be free.

 

[Rickidee99]

Is she under 3? If so I would just do whatever you want to do because her ticket will be free.

Yes - she just turned 2.

I’m leaning towards Christmas party because thats what I want to do.
Will just hope that she won’t be throwing tantrums from being too tired.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Why not start her sleeping in her stroller now? She’ll probably be used to it by December.

 

[liamthompson]

These are the things I would consider:

If your daughter has an over tired meltdown at 10:30pm and you need to leave, would you think the MVMCP tickets were worth it? Since you can enter the park starting at 4pm, that's still a good chunk of time to enjoy MK.

And if she DOES fall asleep in the stroller, how confident are you about transferring her back to bed once you return to your hotel? My 3yo would wake up and be hyped up again and wouldn't go to bed for hours but some kids are able to go right back to sleep so it really depends

I know you said rope dropping isn't a good option for your family but when would you plan to arrive? If your first few hours are at peak time (like 11am), then you may still be struggling with crowds.

If you do the day tickets for the lower MK crowds, you can do the monorail loop after you get kicked out of MK and enjoy the pretty Christmas decorations/foods at the hotels. There is plenty of "Christmas cheer" around Disney, without going to the Christmas party.

 

[marmentrout85]

Question in the title but here are more details.

Super short trip - only 2 park days planned, with 1 being in MK, the other EPCOT.

I am really on the fence with this one,

1) go to MK during the day and use multilane - I hear crowds are lower on party days and we can walk on to many toddler rides.

2) take a late nap, go to MK for the Christmas party, and hope that toddler will be able to sleep in stroller.

Some additional info:
- toddler is a night owl - at home sometimes she refuses bed till 10:30pm. We will not be able to rope drop for sure.
- she gets overwhelmed if things are too hectic or loud,
- she loves Minnie and meeting her is on our #1 list.
- she loves music, so I think she will love the parade
- she has never napped in stroller before so it is a complete wild card how she will be.
- the following day we are looking at late start to Epcot either way.

I feel like day ticket is the safer option, but if she can handle it might have more fun for the Christmas party. We live abroad so coming to Disney is a special treat, we likely won’t be able to afford it for another few years.

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

Great question! Our daughter will be turning 2 soon and we just took a trip in September and we decided way in advance we weren't going to do Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party because we didn't want the potential negative repercussions of upsetting her sleep schedule and having her be a little "off" the rest of the trip with more frequent meltdowns.

I personally think we would've been fine but we had a great time without it anyway while sticking to her ~8pm bedtime for the entire trip. Sometimes my wife and I think we're the only (crazy) ones making our baby stick to their normal sleep schedule while at WDW lol.

At the end of the day you know your child better than anyone else and it sounds like later in the evening won't bother her too much and in your case of visiting being a special treat I would just stick to what you truly want to do as long as you can brave a potential meltdown for awhile.

 

[ArielDreams]

It really depends on what you’re looking to get out of MK. I would personally do a normal park day and skip the party.

We did the Christmas party last year with my 5 year old. We got there right at 4 and waited for Jingle Cruise for ~1 hour. Ate dinner from 5-6. Once the party started, we did really well in Tomorrowland with attractions and the dance party. We tried to meet some characters in the other lands but the lines were ridiculous - you could easily spend the whole night waiting in character lines. We did the fireworks and the late parade. That was pretty much it! We definitely did not get to do everything the party offered (though it was still awesome) so if you want more than that, you may be disappointed. If my son was 2, I’d probably rather do a normal park day.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

Since you do not do RD (we rarely did either) then I would suggest to go for the party. Our family are all night owls We always threw the sleep schedule out the window for our WDW trips, LOL and never regretted it. Night owls do not want to spend most of the evening in a hotel room especially at WDW But we always made sure they got their sleep by not waking up early the next morning and it worked out great for us. My DDs had no issues falling asleep in their stroller at WDW and no issues falling back to sleep in the room, for us, having a stroller prevented melt downs. Skip the dance party's because they are loud and hectic, plus this will give you more time to do other stuff.