strollers

[ReneeA]

I bought 2 cheap umbrella strollers ($9 apiece at Target!) just for our trip when DS was 3 and DD was 2. We used them everywhere we went that year. Then we brought them along the following year, but normally folded them up and parked them in an out of the way stroller coral so that they would be there *if* we needed them at some time during the day. My kids were more than capable of walking for hours at a time, but since we go in August and it's hotter than Hades it was nice for them to be able to sit and be wheeled out after a long day at the parks. Not to mention, DD was notorious for falling asleep on the bus on the way back to the room. It was handy to have the stroller to put her into when we were dropped off.

They will be 5 & 6 our next trip...and I am planning to go without strollers at that point.

 

[winterman]

I have no problem with 'older' kids being pushed around in strollers. WDW is a huge place with LOTS of walking. If riding in a stroller keeps some kids from becoming tired and cranky then I'm all for it. In fact my complaint would be the opposite-that some kids who should be in strollers are running wild.

And in a related topic. This is America. We drive on the right. Why is it that so many people no longer walk on the right? When approaching someone else just bear to the right. Its not difficult, it involves no extra effort and it makes life more pleasant.

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[yankeepenny]

i stepped accidently in front of a couple of strollers last year and each time mentioned or said pardon me.....
I was the one jumping in front of them.....
I am sorry if I did that to any of you.

 

[diazwoman]

I just have a couple questions...

I don't understand why the adults want to tire themselves out more pushing a kid who is perfectly capable of walking, yes there are a few,very few, who have a real medical need but not most.

I think most of these answers have already been posted. Children tire, its safer in the crowds, strollers can be useful for lugging around all the things you need when you have children..etc..

More importantly is why should you get to determine if I need to use a stroller or not? and you may substitute wheelchair, scooter whatever here..

Why do you (I use this in general) get to determine if my daughter is too "old" to dress up like a princess in a MAGICAL place that has a history of being marketed towards FAMILIES and KIDS

WDW is large, crowded, hot in the summer, full of kids, families, ethnically and culturally diverse,

why should you have so much control over my vacation? my life, my choices? Sheesh even my bladder capacity is up for scrutiny and my ethics. am I cutting in line or just returning????


I promise not to care if you walk or ride, if you dress like a princess or a peasant, if you speak english or pig latin. I will even hold your place in line while you run go pee if we have been standing together for 20 minutes. I will gladly take a pic of you and your family all dressed up like princesses and pirates even if your 50. I hope you and I, all of us have a magical trip. if you can't or won't reciprocate

maybe YOU (again generally speaking) need to decide to vacation elsewhere.

for the record I am getting ready for my first trip I have been so excited but lately I am reading some posts that sound nasty, intolerant and almost militant. And what is really scary is this is on a board where i assume everyone loves WDW and wishes to share the joy and magic with all. Also for the record my children are past the stroller stage, I have had my heels clipped before I may have clipped the heels of someone else unknowingly..I have had the same thing happen in the grocery store being run into by a shopping cart but I would never presume to try to limit shopping carts to only the feeble or those purchasing more than 10 items. I have let people join their group in lines, I have left and taken my child and myself to the bathroom and returned to join my family in line. I have also been known to let loose with a few foreign words.

 

[fitzperry]

I think most of these answers have already been posted. Children tire, its safer in the crowds, strollers can be useful for lugging around all the things you need when you have children..etc..

More importantly is why should you get to determine if I need to use a stroller or not? and you may substitute wheelchair, scooter whatever here..

Why do you (I use this in general) get to determine if my daughter is too "old" to dress up like a princess in a MAGICAL place that has a history of being marketed towards FAMILIES and KIDS

WDW is large, crowded, hot in the summer, full of kids, families, ethnically and culturally diverse,

why should you have so much control over my vacation? my life, my choices? Sheesh even my bladder capacity is up for scrutiny and my ethics. am I cutting in line or just returning????


I promise not to care if you walk or ride, if you dress like a princess or a peasant, if you speak english or pig latin. I will even hold your place in line while you run go pee if we have been standing together for 20 minutes. I will gladly take a pic of you and your family all dressed up like princesses and pirates even if your 50. I hope you and I, all of us have a magical trip. if you can't or won't reciprocate

maybe YOU (again generally speaking) need to decide to vacation elsewhere.

for the record I am getting ready for my first trip I have been so excited but lately I am reading some posts that sound nasty, intolerant and almost militant. And what is really scary is this is on a board where i assume everyone loves WDW and wishes to share the joy and magic with all. Also for the record my children are past the stroller stage, I have had my heels clipped before I may have clipped the heels of someone else unknowingly..I have had the same thing happen in the grocery store being run into by a shopping cart but I would never presume to try to limit shopping carts to only the feeble or those purchasing more than 10 items. I have let people join their group in lines, I have left and taken my child and myself to the bathroom and returned to join my family in line. I have also been known to let loose with a few foreign words.

Bravo!

 

[Hannathy]

More importantly is why should you get to determine if I need to use a stroller or not? and you may substitute wheelchair, scooter whatever here..

I don't it is a free country BUT I do have a right along with many others on this thread to express our opinion about the situation on a public message board. (and secretly wish I could limit them) The over use of strollers does bother my trip so I do have the right to express this. I do agree with some one else on this thread who said "why do the stroller users for old kids get so riled up when someone has a different opinion?

 

[diazwoman]

I don't it is a free country BUT I do have a right along with many others on this thread to express our opinion about the situation on a public message board. (and secretly wish I could limit them) The over use of strollers does bother my trip so I do have the right to express this. I do agree with some one else on this thread who said "why do the stroller users for old kids get so riled up when someone has a different opinion?

1) of course you have the right to express your opinion, perhaps you did not notice by my post I am most assuredly supportive of individuals rights as a matter of fact that was the point of my post. Also I meant to clearly express my sue of the word "you" was meant generally.

2) perhaps you missed the fact I inserted "my kids are well past the stroller usage"

3) However I have a problem with anyone, individual, state or country trying to enforce their bias, opinion, prejudices etc on me or mine.

4) for the most part unless its a safety,moral or ethical problem I LIVE and LET LIVE.

my vacation is too short to worry about the "small stuff" and "its all small stuff"

 

[Idroveallnight]

I don't it is a free country BUT I do have a right along with many others on this thread to express our opinion about the situation on a public message board. (and secretly wish I could limit them) The over use of strollers does bother my trip so I do have the right to express this. I do agree with some one else on this thread who said "why do the stroller users for old kids get so riled up when someone has a different opinion?

Of course you have the right to express your opinion. I think the problem is that your posts on this thread (and others) come across as very judgemental. I often feel that your insinuation is that you are the perfect parent, with all the right answers and anyone not doing it your way is an inferior parent raising lazy, rude children. Perhaps that is not your intention, but the written word has no tone, no body language, no expression and is left to the reader to figure out.

 

[aprile]

leave the kids at home

I always thought it'd be really neat if MK had an "adult only" hour or two once in a while. That's really where the strollers cause the most damage to others and also where diapers tend to be left in god awful places.

 

[Amy5000]

When did kids change and why or how? It must be a scientific fact and should be studied. How is it that kids 10, 20 or more years ago children by 5 were perfectly capable of WALKING all day? No one carried these kids and they did fine. And don't say Disney wasn't so big, EPCOT has been around a loooong time and kids weren't in strollers then, same thing with airports.

Why is it any different or less tiring to play in 3 soccer games or 3 baseball games a day for a tournament, or dance all day in a competition and these kids manage that OK.

Yes having an excess amount of strollers does bother everyone. They take up a lot of room, slow things down on the busses and trams, take up room on the transportation, clog pathways, etc. And the size of these things can we say SUV-what ever happened to the nice umbrella strollers? Oh I know they can't hold elementary size kids.

I don't understand why the adults want to tire themselves out more pushing a kid who is perfectly capable of walking, yes there are a few,very few, who have a real medical need but not most. I have taken 3 different kids to Disney over the last 20 yrs and none of them used a stroller after 3 and all did fine and I bet very few stay as long at a park as we do. Disney was much nicer without all the strollers clogging everything. I was at an airshow yesterday and we walked about 6-7 miles and you know what almost all the kids were walking! I saw very few strollers and only for toddlers, cause it is hard to push on the field, and I saw no meltdowns, no kids dropping from walking or whatever else is supposed to happen to them, and it was hot and there is no shade on an airfield. Wonder why they can walk there but not at Disney?

Oh, I see. There is only one way to do things....the way you did it when you had your kids. You find all the strollers annoying, but I strangely find all the other people annoying. Don't they understand it takes longer to get on rides when they are rudely waiting in line, taking up my space and breathing my air. Really, the problem isn't all the strollers...it's all the people!!

 

[Deb & Bill]

I wonder if it's not so much lazy kids as selfish parents who don't want to waste any bit of their time at WDW by letting their kids relax a bit at the resort so that they can walk. I read so much about requiring a stroller so if the kid has a meltdown.... If the kid has a meltdown, go back to the resort for a rest or a swim. Teach your children to walk more by taking more breaks for them and yourself. Forget about the commando mode.

And the people who think they don't have to fold up their stroller on the Disney transportation or that they can wait to remove the kid and all the stuff until the moment they get to the bus doorway... And those giant SUV-strollers that you can't walk past on the bus because they take up so much of the aisle space. Plus these people are usually the ones who get one step off the bus and start to open up the stroller and repack all their stuff into the stroller instead of moving away from the door to the bus and letting others exit the bus.

We were riding on the bus back to our resort in June. A family got on with one of those giant strollers. This was one of the newer buses with the wider aisles. Yet the dad took up two seats by putting the stroller on the seat. And he sat and his little kid sat and mom sat and no one offered a seat to the other mom holding a baby and struggling with her umbrella stroller except for me, a recent knee replacement patient. That family was totally clueless and rude. That was a stroller family that gives the other stroller families a bad name.

Oh, forgot the best. The kid kept getting up and walking to the other side of the bus. When another passenger saw the empty seat, she started to sit down and the dad told her "that's my son's seat." Like he couldn't hold the kid on his lap???

 

[wen8jr]

What I think is disturbing is how someone can express an opinion and all of a sudden they dislike all kids and are unkind to those with disablities. And that they should not be allowed have an opinion about the park being crowded with strollers but stroller users can lash out and basically call other people child haters. That is just a load of crap. Lets get real and be fair.

The truth is that the population is higher than it was back 20 years ago. More people, more kids, more strollers. More visitors from other countries. And an even bigger truth is that more parents take their kids to places like Disney to do everything they can for their kids. More people can now afford to, our economy is better. 20/25 years ago things were a little different. I do more for my DS 12 than I ever done when I was a child and my parents were by no means stingy. All of my friends my age do many more vacations and outings with their children than their own families did while they were growing up. It is a known fact that parents today try to compensate (sometimes over compensate) and have more family time by taking bigger vacations. Disney is the biggest destination for family vacations.

Oh and I can't leave out the fact that more people equals ruder people. It all boils down to rude people whether they push a stroller or not.

These boards make me feel that Disney is a melting pot that I should avoid. Or are people blowing it all out of porportion on here?

 

[Court475]

Ah - the great stroller debate. I find it almost fascinating how opinionated people are about this!

We are going to Disney in November with our 3 and 8 y.o. girls. We will most definitely have a stroller for the 3 y.o. And, I'm contemplating renting a double so that my 8 y.o. (petite, if that matters) can rest when need be. I hope that doesn't give anyone a heart attack. She never, ever, uses a stroller anywhere else. Unfortunately, we only have 3 days for the parks and while I am not one of those people who will rush around like I'm crazy, it won't be as leisurely as I would like. I think it would benefit both of us! 3 parks in 3 days is A LOT of walking. And for the record, I don't think a stroller at Disney will cause her to become obese.

 

[fitzperry]

I wonder if it's not so much lazy kids as selfish parents who don't want to waste any bit of their time at WDW by letting their kids relax a bit at the resort so that they can walk. I read so much about requiring a stroller so if the kid has a meltdown.... If the kid has a meltdown, go back to the resort for a rest or a swim. Teach your children to walk more by taking more breaks for them and yourself. Forget about the commando mode.

This is the kind of judgmental comment that gets the stroller users' knickers in a twist. You have no idea why a particular family is using a stroller for their child who you deem to old for it, and it's awfully presumptuous to tell us to "teach" our children to do it your way.

I can't speak for everyone of course, but your hypothesis is certainly not the case for us. We don't go in "commando mode." Nevertheless, the only time my kids (now 4 and 8; 3 and 7 during our most recent trip to Disney) would sit in a hotel room and rest during the day is if they really did not get enough sleep the night before, and we do our best to avoid that situation because it makes the entire day unpleasant. We've taken afternoon breaks, thinking that it might help the kids to go later into the evening, but it doesn't. The kids don't rest; they play. So we skip a lot of evening activities regardless of whether we take a break or not. My 4yo hasn't napped since she was less than 18 months old. Our kids don't sit still--at home or at WDW or anywhere else for that matter. We do sometimes go for a swim, but they way they do that is hardly what I would call relaxing. Come to think of it, about the only time they "rest" is in the stroller (and for the record, WDW is the only place we've used one for either child in quite some time). It's not about avoiding meltdowns because our kids rarely have them. It's just what has worked best for us.

 

[theduck619]

Exactly Jen!

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

We have one of those SUV sized double strollers, the Mountain Buggy Urban Double to be exact. I invite anyone with a problem who sees me at the parks to come up and give me their opinion of how and why what I'm doing is wrong. The stroller is black on the outside with a pink interior, and typically contains two little girls. Funny thing is, I've taken our stroller to WDW on numerous occasions and have never received even a second glance by anyone with an issue. Couldn't be that the person pushing it is a 6'1" 210 lb. gym rat and it's so much easier to passive aggressively rip those of us who push their kids in a stroller online than it is to confront them face to face? Nawww...nobody's that cowardly...

IMO, those of you who have an actual problem with parents pushing their kids in strollers are in desperate need of a hug and a hobby...

 

[mansionterror]

I just have a couple questions...

When did kids change and why or how? It must be a scientific fact and should be studied. How is it that kids 10, 20 or more years ago children by 5 were perfectly capable of WALKING all day? No one carried these kids and they did fine. And don't say Disney wasn't so big, EPCOT has been around a loooong time and kids weren't in strollers then, same thing with airports.

I was born in 1978...my family went to Disney for the first time when I and my neice were 3 or 4 we both were in strollers. I am here to tell you that when my son gets tired he will sit down and refuse to walk and if there is not a stoller around my husband or I will be carrying him. It is just the way it is...kids get tired. If my son is tired I will not force him to walk. That being said we are very respectful with our stroller, we watch were we are going, try not to take it into stores and always park it out of the way.

 

[Deb & Bill]

This is the kind of judgmental comment that gets the stroller users' knickers in a twist. You have no idea why a particular family is using a stroller for their child who you deem to old for it, and it's awfully presumptuous to tell us to "teach" our children to do it your way. ....

I don't believe I said anything about a kid being too old for a stroller. I was just wondering if it was more for the parents so they could keep going and going - like the Energizer Bunny - rather than for the convenience of the kids. Does the meltdown happen because the child is tired? Hungry? It might be another reason, but for tired or hungry maybe they need to take a break.

You are lucky that your kids don't have meltdowns. You must be doing something right.

 

[jaurban]

And, quite honestly, we will rent a stroller for our DD4 in October, because when she gets tired and decides it is over, she will just stop - and there is no way I can carry her back out of the park. So, I would rather have the stroller with me in case that point comes when I don't expect it. We try to be cautious with it. (I also confess that in my distant youth - I was an avowed stroller hater, and of course, that has changed as I found out the benefits of pushing a child versus carrying one.)

 

[Hannathy]

I was born in 1978...my family went to Disney for the first time when I and my neice were 3 or 4 we both were in strollers. I am here to tell you that when my son gets tired he will sit down and refuse to walk and if there is not a stoller around my husband or I will be carrying him. It is just the way it is...kids get tired. If my son is tired I will not force him to walk. That being said we are very respectful with our stroller, we watch were we are going, try not to take it into stores and always park it out of the way.

And there is no problem with 3 and 4 yr olds in strollers now or then but I would bet you money that back in 1978 there were next to none if any 8 yr olds in strollers. I don't recall ever seeing any when I was there in '78.

Again if you are so sure of your actions why are so many people so worked up that there are other people who think it is silly to see 8 yr olds in strollers. Why does it bother you so much that others don't feel the same way?