Telling a 4-year old Princess

[cmjones]

We are going to tell our 4-year old daughter on Valentine's Day that we are going to Disneyland in March--our first trip! I wanted to tell her enough in advance for her to get excited about it! She doesn't know much about Disneyland except that is where the princesses and fairies live! I know that I want to make a countdown chart, but does anyone have ideas for how to tell her we are going??
Forgot to mention, I've made her some autograph books, and bought some disney clothes(she does know all the characters!) and princess costumes, so will probably give her all of these at the same time.

 

[skiingfast]

We are going to tell our 4-year old daughter on Valentine's Day that we are going to Disneyland in March--our first trip! I wanted to tell her enough in advance for her to get excited about it! She doesn't know much about Disneyland except that is where the princesses and fairies live! I know that I want to make a countdown chart, but does anyone have ideas for how to tell her we are going??

I took DS for his 4th birthday, it was surprise all I said is we would ride a steam train. We watched movies in advance. Dumbo, Peter Pan Alice....ect.

Maybe you should buy her a special princess dress to wear, and let her know it's for Disneyland.

You can also point the castle out at the beginning of disney movies.

 

[DizNee Luver]

If you have time to get a free Disney planning DVD before your trip, this would be a great way to introduce her to Disneyland. Also there are a lot of wonderful books for travel to Disneyland with lots of pictures! My fav is the Birmbaum one.....I get one every year!!

Disney music, Disney movies, Disney storybooks.......the more she can see....the more excited she'll be!

You can also find videos on YouTube of rides, etc.

I'd start showing her all these different things & then ask if she'd like to go see it in person!! Tell her she can meet Mickey & Minnie, the princesses, Tinkerbell, etc. She'll be so excited!!!

Have fun planning!! I'd highly suggest adding a character meal to your trip. It's a great way to get one on one time with the characters in attendance without standing in long lines that sometimes end before you get up to the character.

We have a princess & took her shopping for her princess gown the evening we arrived in Anaheim.......just taking a kid into the World of Disney store is magical!!

 

[DavisDisneyTrip]

I second the idea of the disney planning dvd. It shows the parks and gives her an idea of what disneyland actually is. And we've also watched youtube videos of a few rides. But mostly character interactions. So they can see other kids meeting princesses/mickey mouse. It's worked out really well for us. Cause now our kids(they're 5 and 3) REALLY want to go to disney. They talk about what it would be like to go. They dont know we're trying to plan a trip. But we wanted them to be excited when we say....

"We're going to DISNEYLAND!!"

 

[01spirit750]

You can approach this two ways:

1. Complete surprise- no advance idea of what to expect -can be very overwhelming for a 4 year old
2. Fully prepared - View rides on youtube and discuss them.

I choose #2. I used youtube to show my daughter the various rides ahead of time.

Can you imagine being a 4 year old and looking at the matterhorn for the first time. Or how about entering a dark building (space mountain) and not knowing what to expect.

She knew exactly what to expect and we talked about what rides she did (and didn't) want to ride. She chose to ride every ride that she was tall enough for. We didn't have any melt downs in the loading areas of the rides (due to fright).

Actually the only problem we had was on the matterhorn when she was 2.5 years old. She didn't want to get off. She wanted to ride again and had a little melt down.

My wife and I used to go pre kids and would go fully commando (opening to midnight) full on and get 24-28 rides per day. Now with kids you have to go at their pace and we take breaks for naps, swimming and do an average 10 rides per day.