Some thoughts for younger kids who are a little timid

[CindyH]

After reading HydroGuy's experiences at DL/DCA and comparing it to ours made me realize that some of the younger kids (5 or under) might have a better experience if they avoided some rides - based on my younger son's reaction (he just turned 4 yrs), here are my thoughts on what you might want to avoid, and why:

POTC - Dark ride. Scary noises. Cannons blowing up water spouts can be frightening.
Blue Bayou - Dark inside. I had to work hard to convince Timmy to have lunch in there. It helped that our table was near the outside waiting area, and thus sunshine reflected onto our side of the room.
Jungle Cruise - Even though it's an outside, lots of light kind of ride, Timmy got scared of the animals. I kept telling him that they were pretend, but that didn't work very well.
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - Timmy and I rode the Casey train while the others went on this ride, and I'm glad we did. DH said that the ride ends up in a very hot and steamy version of H*ll, which I know would have scared Timmy.
Peter Pan - Not a frightening ride, in fact, Timmy enjoyed it, but it's a dark ride, and your ride car is suspended from a cable (vs. sitting on a track like most others).
Railroad (the big one, not Casey) - Timmy loves trains, so I thought this was a shoo-in. However, we did not know that they put in a feature called "Grand Canyon" and "Primitive Land" (or something like that) in the section between Tomorrowland and the Main Street Station. It's really just a long tunnel, which I think Timmy could have handled, but the dinosaurs scared him. If I had known about this, we would have ridden the train and gotten off at TL.
Roger Rabbit's ride - Similar to Mr. Toad, kinda loud and scary. Timmy's reaction: "I no like that ride!"
Aladdin show - Remember the lion/tiger that talks about the diamond in the rough? This was a little scary for Timmy, even though he's seen the movie several times. Probably would have been scarier if we sat in the orchestra section.

Suffice to say, I didn't even try to get Timmy on HM, Indy, Matterhorn, or anything else like that. Rides he did enjoy: Winnie the Pooh, the Monorail, Casey the train, Alice in Wonderland (a lot of this ride is outside), Francis the Ladybug (DCA) and IASW (I know it's dark ride, but it's actually fairly well lit inside, and the boat ride is very slow and non-scary).

My older son (who will turn 6 yrs next month) is much more adventurous - he went on Space Mountain, Matterhorn, POTC and Grizzly Run. Of those 4, the only one he really enjoyed (and wanted to do more than once) was POTC. He definitely did not want to do HM, so I figure we'll wait another year on that one.

Hope this helps. I know not all kids are timid about rides, and I figure our experience will be different next year when the kids are older.

 

[crazymomof 4]

I loved your trip report. It was ver informative. One of my son's had just turned 2 when we were there last December and he loved all of the rides. Especially POTC and the Matterhorn. However, he did freak out when we went into the elevator in the HM. But this year I will use the advice of another poster and tell him and the littlest who will be barely one that it is Mickey's HM. I don't know if it will work but I am willing to give it a try. Every child's reaction is different. I had a 2 year old crying because he couldn't go on SM last year and a 8 year old crying becuase he didn't want to. Go figure!

 

[denyd]

I'll second everything CindyH posted. My 3 1/2 DS had very similar reactions. Unlike Timmy, David didn't like Winnie the Pooh either. His favorites are Autopia, Small World & Casey Jr.

A tip that helped us out, for dark rides we gave him one of those flashlight swords so the ride wouldn't seem so dark.

What was interesting is that he'd try most of the rides once, but if it was a dark one like Buzz or Pooh, he won't ride them again. He also is quite frightened of the Sea Witch float in the new Parade (not that I blame him, she reminds me a lot of my ex-wife )

What he really liked best was the Boat & Treehouse in Toontown, the Exlporation Trail, Fireboat and garden hose area in DCA.

 

[CindyH]

He also is quite frightened of the Sea Witch float in the new Parade (not that I blame him, she reminds me a lot of my ex-wife )

That's too funny! BTW, I totally didn't get that float - to have a "bad guy" featured so prominently just didn't make sense to me.

Timmy also loved Autopia - that plus the Monorail are his favorite rides. He had the same reaction to Buzz that David did - he went on it once, and wasn't frightened of it, but didn't want to do the ride again.

 

[halo19]

That's too funny! BTW, I totally didn't get that float - to have a "bad guy" featured so prominently just didn't make sense to me.

Don't forget that Captain Hook is another baddie who has been featured pretty prominently in past parades!

Though I agree, the Sea Witch has that Cruella bully element about her

 

[Amy&Dan]

This post reminds me of why we didn't do Disneyland when my son was younger! The characters would have terrified him and he wouldn't even ride a merry go round at the playground let alone rides! Now he's 10 and I can't get him off the thrill rides but when I see little kids two or three hugging the characters, riding the dark rides and enjoying the fireworks (my son has sensitive hearing so loud noises used to really terrify him) I wish we could have done that but I know it would have never worked. Funny story, we were at a Red Robin one night when he was two and the "Red Robin" himself suddenly appeared at our table. I had no time to warn him or anything. He let out a blood curdling yell, almost choked to death on his hot dog and we had to leave. He was literally sick he was so frightened. We couldn't eat there again until he was around 6 I think! I think if we had taken him to a character buffet at DL he would have had cardiac arrest!

To the OP, I commend you on not taking your son on things you knew would frighten him. At WDW last January a dad was taking his very young son on POC. That little boy cried thru the whole que, begged not to be taken on and was terrified and sobbing the whole time. It ruined my experience knowing how frightened that little kid was. I was halfway mad at the dad and then thought, well maybe they are here just the two of them and he really wanted to ride. Then at the end I see the dad joining mom and baby sister/brother outside and wanted to slap him! Why couldn't he have left his son with the mom and ridden the ride himself? All through the line, "please daddy don't make me go". My husband and I agreed that Dad should be treated to a really scary experience sometime in the near future.

 

[CalGal]

I think the point of this thread is that it's important to know and respect your own child's fears, and to understand what you are in for. Some of the Disney books I've read and CindyH's post give some good clues as to which attrations could be frightening for some children. My own experience, like crazymomof 4 stated, is that sometimes younger children can do better than some older children.

My DS was 20 months the first time he went to DL. He hadn't learned to be afraid yet. Like crazymomof 4's 2-year old, he loved all the rides at DL. My DS was also comfortable with all of the characters, even playing with Captain Hook at the Plaza Inn. I think it helped that we watched a lot of the Disney Sing-a-Long videos before the trip, and I had also make a point of taking him on some little rides at local parks. When we got to DL, I started with easy, outdoor rides, and monitored his reactions as we went along.

But, naturally, not all children are fearless. I went with a 7 year old who was very afraid of the dark rides. We didn't push him, but the younger kids with us wanted to do these rides. We used kid swap, and eventually encouraged the frightened child to try Alice, Pinocchio and Small World. Once acclimated, to the dark, he came to enjoy all the dark rides. He was afraid of the big coasters, but loved Gadget's so we did that over and over. Eventually, he was ready to try BTMRR, and then we couldn't get him off.

Disneymomof 4: Something that worked for me getting my DS to try a ride that spooked him on a previous trip: My DS was 4 1/2 the first time he did Splash, and wasn't thrilled with the big drop. He was hesitant to do it again when we returned 6 months later. I suggested that "Now that he's 5, it might not be so bad". My DS agreed to try it one more time and it soon became his favorite ride.

 

[TiggerCate]

The main ride we had a problem with our 5 year (now 8) old DD last time was the POTC because of the dips at the beginning!! She HATED it. (I wasn't fond of it when I was a kid either but sucked it up because I loved the rest of it.) I was scared to death of HM when I was a kid but my kids have had no problem with it. One of the kids also wasn't fond of Snow White's Scary Adventures when they were younger but can't remember which one it was!

 

[Amy&Dan]

FYI, I didn't mean by my post that all kids would be afraid at Disneyland! I just know that my son could not have handled it at a young age. He had some delayed motor planning issues as well as vision and hearing issues that made things, shall we say a bit difficult! My daughter on the other hand would have been fine at any age. I urger parents to do what my brother did with his twins before their first trip to Disneyland. Have them watch as many of the planning and Disney movie videos as possible and take them to a smaller local fair or park to see how they do. I have also seen many posts where parent tell how their kids did great on such and such during the last visit only to be too scared to ride on the next visit. I know my daughter rode Screamin on one of our early visits but then wouldn't ride it again for awhile. Now she's psyched to ride it again but its down for our September visit!