SDD a bad idea for first ride for five year old?

[mustinjourney]

if you do ride SDD -- have an adult get in first. the first turn and drop is banked to the left and can be quite intimidating if you look down and to your left.

 

[North of Mouse]

Ugh, I'm struggling with this. We are spending a Monday-Friday in Disney World in late February. In all of the FP craziness yesterday for MFSR, I ended up dropping my Friday SDD in exchange for that. Then, this morning, I managed to grab another SDD for first thing on Monday morning! That's not how I wanted things to work out at all.

My five year old really thinks he wants to ride SDD, but his ride reference is a toddler coaster at a carnival, and for height, a ferris wheel, which he loved. At the same time, he's scared of the second floor railings at our mall, so his fears are very unpredictable. I definitely didn't want SDD to be his first ride, but I also didn't want to bypass the opportunity to get a FP.

I absolutely won't force him to go on it if he decides he doesn't want to, but I'm worried he will want to, and it will scare him and ruin our entire week. But SDD and MFSR (and RoTR, wish me luck) are what he's most excited about for the entire trip. I should be thrilled to have FPs for both, but I'm definitely worried.

It depends on the kid, but what's your experiences with SDD?

There is no way I'd let my 5 yr old ride SDD for his first 'big boy' ride!
He has no way to really comprehend what to expect (as you admit) so letting it be his decision is wrong on many counts. Hope you reconsider and let him 'grow' into these type rides on his own.

 

[mkla2015]

If he's excited and wants to go then I say let him do it. Slinky dog is pretty mild and much smoother than barnstormer.

It really just depends on the kid though... my daughter was 4 (almost 5) on our first trip to WDW and her first ride was Big Thunder. She was fine until the end when she saw her cousin (same age) crying then that was it- she started crying too. She was a little hesitant to get on other rides that day but by the next day she was fine and ready to try anything.

 

[Patrick Gavin]

Mine was 3. Barely tall enough. Loved every minute of it. Probably my best "pixie dust" story:

I nabbed a fastpass one week before our trip,SDD was only open about a month. It was for 7:20 PM. We got there early to explore the park amd wanted to get him a first rollercoaster ride pin. The CM was super excited, amd asked us what time we were riding. When I told her it was for that night, she gave us a free fastpassto do it right then! We were so excited!
The story gets better, we told the CM at the ride it was his first coaster, he measured him and told him to have fun and come back after to let us know how we did. My son loved it, when we went back to the CM we told him it was a blast, gave my son a high five and asked: "Wanna go on it again?" So we did! Wait time was 3 hours. We rode it twice in 10 mins and then again that night. We cant wait to go back in September!

 

[Asnell]

I have a coaster-loving boy who, at age 4 1/2 spent an EMH evening with me, running back and forth between SM, BTMRR and Splash. This is the boy who at 3 was sneaking tiptoes so he could be measured as tall enough to ride the kid coasters at our local theme park. He's always been a coaster lover. But at age 19, he still hates the Matterhorn and EE because of the Yeti/Abominable snowman factor and has never, not ever even once, agreed to ride Haunted Mansion. Go figure.

Bottom line is, know your kid and most importantly, let him know he gets to decide.

 

[columbusdizfan]

I, personally, wouldn’t do it. There is very little as frustrating as a kid who refuses to ride anything except the very tamest rides at Disney World. She loved all the rides at Disney when she was 3. But then when she was five, she must have beenin the wrong plcace on SDMT and has refused to ride anything else with a hill since.

 

[CanadianEmily]

Mine was 3. Barely tall enough. Loved every minute of it. Probably my best "pixie dust" story:

I nabbed a fastpass one week before our trip,SDD was only open about a month. It was for 7:20 PM. We got there early to explore the park amd wanted to get him a first rollercoaster ride pin. The CM was super excited, amd asked us what time we were riding. When I told her it was for that night, she gave us a free fastpassto do it right then! We were so excited!
The story gets better, we told the CM at the ride it was his first coaster, he measured him and told him to have fun and come back after to let us know how we did. My son loved it, when we went back to the CM we told him it was a blast, gave my son a high five and asked: "Wanna go on it again?" So we did! Wait time was 3 hours. We rode it twice in 10 mins and then again that night. We cant wait to go back in September!

That's amazing! Three times in one day with no wait!

 

[MonkeyKnifeFight]

My 4 year old loved slinky dog and that is the ride he wanted to go on most leading up to the trip. He also enjoyed tower of terror, flight of passage, and all the other coasters at Disney besides rockin roller coaster(too short). I feel like most of the Disney rides aren’t too scary but it depends on the kid.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

It really depends on the kid. The only reason I would be concerned about it is because it is the first ride and he hasn’t done any other rides to build up to it.

If he wants to go on it, I don’t think it will traumatize him. It is big but really so smooth. I don’t think it is scarier than it looks - it is fun but not scary (IMO.) So hard to know how a child will react, though. It is a risk being the first ride, but follow his cues - if he wants to after seeing it, let him do it. But I definitely would not force him to if he doesn’t want to.

Not that this makes much difference because every kid is different, but my 3 year old just went on SDD and absolutely LOVED it. All smiles the whole time. My just turned 5 year old loves it too (but she’s my thrill seeker - she went on Tower of Terror twice this trip (and loved it!)

 

[Jacq7414]

We brought our daughter on it when she was 2 (almost 3) and she still talks about it. She had a blast and wanted to ride it again - but we couldn’t wait 180 minutes in line . I’d bring a 5 year old on it for sure

 

[CanadianEmily]

Our trip is complete, so I thought I'd come back and update everyone on what we did.

We got to HS very early to get a RotR boarding group. We got the very first one!! So, plans reset again, lol. We went to sign my son up for Jedi training at rope drop, then we had an early FP for Alien Swirling Saucers, so we did that first and he loved it. That's not exactly a judgement of how he'll handle bigger rides, but he really loves Star Wars, so we went over to RotR. He was totally fine with it! So we went on Slinky next -- loved it! We didn't do any coasters bigger than that, but we did SDMT and Millennium Falcon and Flight of Passage, and he did well with all of it.

What was he afraid of? Jungle Cruise, hahaha. He claims he saw a spider in a cave, so he said that's the only ride he won't do ever again. What wouldn't he go on? Soarin', because he didn't like the jumping whale when we watched it on YouTube. Even though he was okay with Flight of Passage... but I didn't push it. He didn't want to, so my husband and I took turns on that one.

Totally just depends on the kid and what they're into. My kid is much more afraid of animals and automated flushing toilets than Disney rides, lol.

We got to ride SDD a second time at night last night, and that was awesome. When we got off he said, "That was so amazing!" He was shouting from the top of the rollercoaster that he could see Galaxy's Edge. Great memories.

 

[Isabelle12345]

We also went this week with my 5 year old son
He HATED Slinky dog (but still went on it again with my DH for rider switch... didn’t change his mind about it though!)
He did however LOVE both 7DMT and Soarin, so I guess it depends on the kid!
I have to Admit that I myself am not a big roller coaster fan, and I thought SDD was way more intense than 7DMT (I think the slow part with animatronics in the middle helps tone it down a little)

 

[cassie58]

Our trip is complete, so I thought I'd come back and update everyone on what we did.

We got to HS very early to get a RotR boarding group. We got the very first one!! So, plans reset again, lol. We went to sign my son up for Jedi training at rope drop, then we had an early FP for Alien Swirling Saucers, so we did that first and he loved it. That's not exactly a judgement of how he'll handle bigger rides, but he really loves Star Wars, so we went over to RotR. He was totally fine with it! So we went on Slinky next -- loved it! We didn't do any coasters bigger than that, but we did SDMT and Millennium Falcon and Flight of Passage, and he did well with all of it.

What was he afraid of? Jungle Cruise, hahaha. He claims he saw a spider in a cave, so he said that's the only ride he won't do ever again. What wouldn't he go on? Soarin', because he didn't like the jumping whale when we watched it on YouTube. Even though he was okay with Flight of Passage... but I didn't push it. He didn't want to, so my husband and I took turns on that one.

Totally just depends on the kid and what they're into. My kid is much more afraid of animals and automated flushing toilets than Disney rides, lol.

We got to ride SDD a second time at night last night, and that was awesome. When we got off he said, "That was so amazing!" He was shouting from the top of the rollercoaster that he could see Galaxy's Edge. Great memories.

Thanks for posting follow-up! It's always nice to hear how it went afterwards!