Mom & Dad's first visit @ 70

[Cadiewampus]

I'm taking my parents for their first visit ever in December. I've been with my teenage daughter several times and I feel pretty good about navigating all the parks and the resorts, even in the Christmastime chaos (we're DVC, but there is always so much more to learn!). I wondered if you all would have any suggested must-dos or sleeper hits I could take my mom to. This is particularly for her 70th birthday and neither she nor my dad have ever been to Disney World.

We will attend MVMCP night as a family (I've never done this before, but I have done Jollywood Nights).
We are getting them 4 day base tickets - one park per day, so as not to overwhelm the senses with too much at once.

I bought us matching Star Wars flannel pajamas (mom is a big Star Wars fan and even saw the original at the drive-in movie theatre). Mom seems particularly excited about meeting the original characters, like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. She also seems quite keen on meeting Mary Poppins. She is not a huge princess fan, but loves movies, and will likely enjoy riding SDMT. She keeps talking about "it's a small world" because she remembers seeing so much about it when she was a kid, so I'm thinking starting our MK day there and buying LLSP for SDMT.

What do you all think? Thanks for your suggestions and hard-won wisdom!

Edit to include your suggestions and the must dos I already have:

Meals / non-park days
-Top character meal option - Topolino's (my daughter thinks the art costumes are cool, and does not want monorail dust flying around while she's eating so no Chef Mickey's for this trip) - non-park day with Crescent Lake Christmas at the resorts, then monorail resorts or rest time depending on how much time we are taking at each.

HS
We'll have one meal option for Minnie's Seasonal Dine, but have Red Carpet Dreams as a backup if mom and dad like the menu for 50s Prime Time Diner better.

Sci-Fi Diner it is for one meal on HS day!

Star Tours
Rise of the Resistance
Millennium Falcon
Oga's Cantina (maybe)
Slinky Dog
Edna Mode Experience

Fantasmic (never experienced this one, but I hear good things so we've been waiting to experience it with mom as it sounds like something she would enjoy)

AK
Merry Menagerie
Festival of the Lion King (will be a new shared experience for everyone)
Dinosaur
Pandora (maybe)

MK
it's a small world
Country Bear Musical Jamboree
Tiana's Bayou Adventure
Philharmagic (we've been saving it to experience for the first time with my parents)

Epcot
Garden Grill breakfast
Candlelight Processional
All the Christmas experiences around the world that we can handle
Spaceship Earth
Living with the Land (after dark so there are lights)
Turtle Talk with Crush & the aquarium animals

I am 65 so just a few years behind mom. I turn into a big ole kid at Disney and your plans look good to me. We will be there first week in December with our son and our daughter in law having a big time.

 

[pjacobi]

When is the last time your parents have walked 5 miles in a day? Can you convince them to start "training" for WDW? This will result in a better time at WDW and improve their health.


-Paul

 

[ShannyMcB]

Topolinos for the win! Seriously it’s beautiful there and if you get the last breakfast seating it’s lunch time and that meal will carry your for awhile, plus makes for a nice mid-day break.
Have you looked into Fantasmic Dining packages? They are offered at a couple different spots and then you don’t have to wait in line for a long time before the show.

 

[sentimental13]

When is the last time your parents have walked 5 miles in a day? Can you convince them to start "training" for WDW? This will result in a better time at WDW and improve their health.


-Paul

I am trying to get mom to do this! Dad walks every day, but mom is hesitant and I cannot figure out an incentive beyond preparing to enjoy time with her granddaughter.

 

[sentimental13]

Topolinos for the win! Seriously it’s beautiful there and if you get the last breakfast seating it’s lunch time and that meal will carry your for awhile, plus makes for a nice mid-day break.
Have you looked into Fantasmic Dining packages? They are offered at a couple different spots and then you don’t have to wait in line for a long time before the show.

I have not looked into those yet. What’s your preferred restaurant with the package?

 

[KPeterso]

Some of my Mom's favorites. She is 86 and has been many times. Would consider a wheelchair or ECV rental. Or at least a rollator so someone can sit on it in lines as needed. We often do a ride or 2 and then a show for a little quieter activity. We also always have a ECV or wheelchair for her. These are some of her favorites. Sometimes she is hit or miss on rides even when they like them. Pirates is an example - needs to be in the right mood. She was pretty much always game until recently, but that is more due to her declining health now.

MK

• Peoplemover
• Carousel of Progress (she remembers from the World's Fair)
• Jungle Cruise
• Haunted Mansion
• Dumbo
• Train
• Parades
• For Food - we are not fans of the food at MK restaurants
  • Steakhouse 71 at Contemporary

Epcot

• Soaring
• Living with the Land
• Figment
• Test Track (she always liked it so assume she would like the updated one)
• Grand Fiesta boat in Mexico
• Spaceship Earth
• For Food:
  • Teppan Edo
  • Akershus (for the princesses) lunch or dinner - we actually love the food
  • Le Cellier
  • Chefs De France

Hollywood Studios

• Rise of the Resistance
• Toy Story Midway Mania
• Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railyway
• Frozen Sing Along
• Beauty and the Beast show
• Indiana Jones show
• For Food:
  • 50s Prime Time Cafe

Animal Kingdom - this is actually her favorite park!

• Kilimanjaro Safaris
• Walking the gorilla falls and majarajah trek trails
• Wildlife Express train
• Festival of the Lion King
• Flight of Passage
• For Food:
  • Tusker House - lunch

Other things my mom enjoys, visiting characters. Pluto is our favorite and we often try to see him every day of our trips. Other Restaurants that we enjoy include Boma, Steakhouse 71 (as above), Beaches and Cream, and Rainforest Cafe.

 

[ShannyMcB]

I have not looked into those yet. What’s your preferred restaurant with the package?

It was mama melrose
We are trying Hollywood and vine. I have heard great things about the other spots that participate…all depends what kind of food you want. Sci-fi or Brown Debry might be nice for your crew. Plus then you don’t have to line up for fantasmic early and your meal doesn’t have to be dinner, we are doing a brunch seating ourselves.

 

[Summer2018]

I highly recommend a fireworks cruise following a dinner at Narcoossees.

Watching the fireworks while dining at California Grill is also a treat.

 

[sentimental13]

Some of my Mom's favorites. She is 86 and has been many times. Would consider a wheelchair or ECV rental. Or at least a rollator so someone can sit on it in lines as needed. We often do a ride or 2 and then a show for a little quieter activity. We also always have a ECV or wheelchair for her. These are some of her favorites. Sometimes she is hit or miss on rides even when they like them. Pirates is an example - needs to be in the right mood. She was pretty much always game until recently, but that is more due to her declining health now.

MK

• Peoplemover
• Carousel of Progress (she remembers from the World's Fair)
• Jungle Cruise
• Haunted Mansion
• Dumbo
• Train
• Parades
• For Food - we are not fans of the food at MK restaurants
  • Steakhouse 71 at Contemporary

Epcot

• Soaring
• Living with the Land
• Figment
• Test Track (she always liked it so assume she would like the updated one)
• Grand Fiesta boat in Mexico
• Spaceship Earth
• For Food:
  • Teppan Edo
  • Akershus (for the princesses) lunch or dinner - we actually love the food
  • Le Cellier
  • Chefs De France

Hollywood Studios

• Rise of the Resistance
• Toy Story Midway Mania
• Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railyway
• Frozen Sing Along
• Beauty and the Beast show
• Indiana Jones show
• For Food:
  • 50s Prime Time Cafe

Animal Kingdom - this is actually her favorite park!

• Kilimanjaro Safaris
• Walking the gorilla falls and majarajah trek trails
• Wildlife Express train
• Festival of the Lion King
• Flight of Passage
• For Food:
  • Tusker House - lunch

Other things my mom enjoys, visiting characters. Pluto is our favorite and we often try to see him every day of our trips. Other Restaurants that we enjoy include Boma, Steakhouse 71 (as above), Beaches and Cream, and Rainforest Cafe.

This is a great list! Thank you so much!

 

[bgirl29]

I'm taking my parents for their first visit ever in December. I've been with my teenage daughter several times and I feel pretty good about navigating all the parks and the resorts, even in the Christmastime chaos (we're DVC, but there is always so much more to learn!). I wondered if you all would have any suggested must-dos or sleeper hits I could take my mom to. This is particularly for her 70th birthday and neither she nor my dad have ever been to Disney World.

We will attend MVMCP night as a family (I've never done this before, but I have done Jollywood Nights).
We are getting them 4 day base tickets - one park per day, so as not to overwhelm the senses with too much at once.

I bought us matching Star Wars flannel pajamas (mom is a big Star Wars fan and even saw the original at the drive-in movie theatre). Mom seems particularly excited about meeting the original characters, like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. She also seems quite keen on meeting Mary Poppins. She is not a huge princess fan, but loves movies, and will likely enjoy riding SDMT. She keeps talking about "it's a small world" because she remembers seeing so much about it when she was a kid, so I'm thinking starting our MK day there and buying LLSP for SDMT.

What do you all think? Thanks for your suggestions and hard-won wisdom!

Edit to include your suggestions and the must dos I already have:

Meals / non-park days
-Top character meal option - Topolino's (my daughter thinks the art costumes are cool, and does not want monorail dust flying around while she's eating so no Chef Mickey's for this trip) - non-park day with Crescent Lake Christmas at the resorts, then monorail resorts or rest time depending on how much time we are taking at each.

HS
We'll have one meal option for Minnie's Seasonal Dine, but have Red Carpet Dreams as a backup if mom and dad like the menu for 50s Prime Time Diner better.

Sci-Fi Diner it is for one meal on HS day!

Star Tours
Rise of the Resistance
Millennium Falcon
Oga's Cantina (maybe)
Slinky Dog
Edna Mode Experience

Fantasmic (never experienced this one, but I hear good things so we've been waiting to experience it with mom as it sounds like something she would enjoy)

AK
Merry Menagerie
Festival of the Lion King (will be a new shared experience for everyone)
Dinosaur
Pandora (maybe)

MK
it's a small world
Country Bear Musical Jamboree
Tiana's Bayou Adventure
Philharmagic (we've been saving it to experience for the first time with my parents)

Epcot
Garden Grill breakfast
Candlelight Processional
All the Christmas experiences around the world that we can handle
Spaceship Earth
Living with the Land (after dark so there are lights)
Turtle Talk with Crush & the aquarium animals

I would add Monsters Laugh Floor in MK and possibly the Frozen Sing a Long in Studios.

 

[sentimental13]

I figured I would give an update since we just returned. My people refused to get an ECV even though it would have made things easier on at least one day. They definitely rallied.

Fun fact we didn't know: dad loves roller coasters as much or more than he did when he was in his 40s and he has now ranked his top three as follows:
1) Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
2a) Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
2b) Expedition Everest
3) Tron (too short, or would have ranked higher)
(He didn't get to ride Space Mountain because he couldn't go to the Christmas party and we had not prioritized it on our full day at MK).

He also loved Kilimanjaro Safaris, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular,

Mom loved Fantasmic (everyone else was tired and skipped it, but I am so glad I stayed with her), the Christmas parade, the Starlight parade, Festival of the Lion King, and especially the Epcot fireworks (we watched from Rose & Crown). She also moderately enjoyed Jingle Cruise (I think it was better that we were on it with someone dressed as a Christmas tree during MVMCP), didn't like it's a small world as much as she thought she would, and actually enjoyed Space Mountain (but not Tron).

Bonus: when we rode Peoplemover, the lights were on at Space Mountain as the ride was temporarily closed and we got to see the whole ride system.

We ended up accomplishing a lot more than I expected overall, but missed out on some things I had high hopes for (like Remy's) because of temporary ride closures and subsequent higher wait times elsewhere. We ended up on Figment's ride but not Frozen, for instance.

I also wanted to share some of the pitfalls I fell into because of lack of knowledge or awareness, and some messages I hope I remember the next time I travel with family of any age:

If you schedule a fishing expedition, be prepared to need a very long nap after. Holy Moses, just being on the boat in the sun was exhausting for me! Red is definitely an amazing guide; he gets a 10/10. No sooner had my first line gone into the water than a fish was on it, a very large fish indeed. So that was good, but I was toast before MVMCP that night.

There is a temptation to keep going and doing one more thing, but it is not worth it if someone in your party has blisters. Even if Avatar is a walk on. That's really a LOT of walking. It's okay to go back and go to bed.

More rest, more naps and more breaks are good things.

 

[PoppyJ]

Just found your thread. I'm happy your parents enjoyed so much at Disney!

I'm hoping to have a similar experience. I have invited my parents to Disney World multiple times and they have said no. They are also 70. They finally agreed to come with us next year to watch our dog. We are also staying at the Fort Wilderness Cabins.

They refused to go to any parks, but I finally convinced them to go to Epcot to see the Flower and Garden Festival. I am also going to try to book the Starlight Safari. I hope they enjoy Disney as much a your parents did!

 

[sentimental13]

Just found your thread. I'm happy your parents enjoyed so much at Disney!

I'm hoping to have a similar experience. I have invited my parents to Disney World multiple times and they have said no. They are also 70. They finally agreed to come with us next year to watch our dog. We are also staying at the Fort Wilderness Cabins.

They refused to go to any parks, but I finally convinced them to go to Epcot to see the Flower and Garden Festival. I am also going to try to book the Starlight Safari. I hope they enjoy Disney as much a your parents did!

I highly recommend the golf cart! We enjoyed riding around on it looking at Christmas lights but it is also very practical to get to the food and the beach for fireworks.

We had brought all of our marshmallows and such for roasting and s’mores at the campfire but got so tired at the parks we never made it to the campfire. I have heard good things!

I hope they let themselves have fun. Epcot is a great choice. There are so many shows/films and easy rides that you can spend lots of time enjoying them. My mom was willing to ride everything once (and she didn’t even get motion sickness on anything, which was shocking).

My dad originally said yes because he was just going to watch the dog, but in the end we all went to the parks but took turns being with her and taking her out. The dog park was okay, but very far from the cabins. We did mostly loops around the cabins.

Mom enjoyed looking at the horses and calliope in the stables at the cabins as well. My daughter experienced a magical moment as they let her pet one of the horses when she was there.

I would also recommend the boat over to Wilderness Lodge to explore and Contemporary to take the monorail. Mom enjoyed monorail, and I wish I had taken her to get purple penguins at Citricos (the bar or lounge area is walk up and the purple penguins are non-alcoholic so they work for everyone). They aren’t open on Mondays, alas. She also said that the skyliner was more like a ride and absolutely worth it. It might be worth booking a dinner at Sebastian’s Bistro or Topolino’s. Dinner with fireworks at Topolino’s is definitely a good choice.

I took them to Disney Character Warehouse on the last day and mom finally picked out some souvenirs. She couldn’t stomach the park prices but was able to find something she liked at a price she was willing to pay there.

You also might look at Sanaa for a late lunch/early dinner. Seeing the animals while you eat is worth it, and then there are so many places to explore around the resort. Get the bread service! They even have allergy friendly options if anyone in your party is gluten free and/or vegan.

 

[disneyseniors]

Just brought my parents (also in their 70s) for the first time in 30 years. My mom really enjoyed turtle talk with crush because of all the enthusiastic little kids. I had marked that one as skippable for them because I thought it would be too "kiddie" but turns out, all the happy little kids made my mom happy too!

You probably recognize this but sharing anyway - go slower, more breaks, more chances to sit. My parents are in good shape but I forgot how slow their pace has gotten in the last few years and I learned quickly that I needed to recalibrate my expectations!

I definitely agree with going at a slower pace. I am in my 70's and still go to the parks at Universal. I just go a little slower than my daughter. Sometimes I last longer during the day than she does, lol.
Afternoon rests, whether at the pool or room, are nice to even things out. I find I go more and do more while at the parks than I thought I could. I would just let them dictate the pace.

 

[PoppyJ]

I highly recommend the golf cart! We enjoyed riding around on it looking at Christmas lights but it is also very practical to get to the food and the beach for fireworks.

We had brought all of our marshmallows and such for roasting and s’mores at the campfire but got so tired at the parks we never made it to the campfire. I have heard good things!

I hope they let themselves have fun. Epcot is a great choice. There are so many shows/films and easy rides that you can spend lots of time enjoying them. My mom was willing to ride everything once (and she didn’t even get motion sickness on anything, which was shocking).

My dad originally said yes because he was just going to watch the dog, but in the end we all went to the parks but took turns being with her and taking her out. The dog park was okay, but very far from the cabins. We did mostly loops around the cabins.

Mom enjoyed looking at the horses and calliope in the stables at the cabins as well. My daughter experienced a magical moment as they let her pet one of the horses when she was there.

I would also recommend the boat over to Wilderness Lodge to explore and Contemporary to take the monorail. Mom enjoyed monorail, and I wish I had taken her to get purple penguins at Citricos (the bar or lounge area is walk up and the purple penguins are non-alcoholic so they work for everyone). They aren’t open on Mondays, alas. She also said that the skyliner was more like a ride and absolutely worth it. It might be worth booking a dinner at Sebastian’s Bistro or Topolino’s. Dinner with fireworks at Topolino’s is definitely a good choice.

I took them to Disney Character Warehouse on the last day and mom finally picked out some souvenirs. She couldn’t stomach the park prices but was able to find something she liked at a price she was willing to pay there.

You also might look at Sanaa for a late lunch/early dinner. Seeing the animals while you eat is worth it, and then there are so many places to explore around the resort. Get the bread service! They even have allergy friendly options if anyone in your party is gluten free and/or vegan.

Thanks for these tips!!