The Waiting is the Hardest Part

[maranara]

We're going on my 7 year old DD's first Disney trip in January. Up until today, we've been planning in secret...but we told her today about the trip. As you might imagine, she is SO excited. BUT...our trip isn't until January! The rest of the night, all we heard was "tell me more about Disney World" or "tell me more about the characters" or "tell me more about the hotel". We're talking HOURS of this. She even asked me to not read her a bedtime story so I could tell her more about Disney World. So...how do you help your kids wait? We'll do a countdown of some sort as we get closer. But I don't think I can answer Disney World questions for the next 6 months straight!

 

[EvilQueen2018]

My trip isn't for another 2 years and 4 days. The wait is difficult for me so I'm sparing the kids and will tell them before I send them to pack and load up.

Since it's out of the bag, you can get her involved in craft projects for your park gear, studying menus, and checking out rides. She can help make a travel binder, autograph book, world showcase passport, research where the pressed penny stations are, etc.

Not being able to involve the kids in the plans is the big drawback to surprising them.

I am having my kids research the countries before we get to EPCOT and write down two facts they find interesting about each country and they can share their knowledge with everyone as we enter each country. We have 2 days before we start our park days once we get to Florida so I figure that will help kill some time, make everyone a touch smarter, and I think it would be fun for them to teach everyone else something new.

 

[Night Huntress]

My 10 year old was like that at first. Of course I told her when I first planned it and that was over a year ago..we don't arrive till this october! LOL! She was crazy at first constantly asking questions. After a bit she calmed down and helped me with the planning. I got her the guide book. She has helped plan restaurants for our ADR's, helped pick the hotel, etc. I try to involve her as much as possible. Once our ADR's were made it was kinda like "what now?" So I got her a wooden picture frame, disney stickers and she cut out pictures from her magazines and glued them all around the frame. Then put modge podge on it. So now she has a picture frame to put her favorite picture in or multiple ones when we get back from Disney. She does things around the house to earn money for spending there as well as saves any birthday and christmas money she gets. She also marks off the days on the calendar every evening. Currently she has been tasked with making "mousekeeping" envelopes and researching rides to pick 3 "must do" rides for each park. What we will do after this task is over I am not entirely sure. LOL.

 

[maranara]

Which guide book did you give your daughter? I'm really hopeful that she'll come down after this initial "all Disney questions, all the time" period. I just got home from the store and the first thing she said to me was "I'm having trouble deciding which movies I should watch on the plane." Sigh...

 

[Night Huntress]

Which guide book did you give your daughter? I'm really hopeful that she'll come down after this initial "all Disney questions, all the time" period. I just got home from the store and the first thing she said to me was "I'm having trouble deciding which movies I should watch on the plane." Sigh...

I got her the Birnbaum's 2016 Walt Disney World Official Guide Book. We started out getting books from the library but I wanted a current one and something she could write in if she wanted so I just got her one of her own. She has even started reading the Kingdom Keepers novels to satisfy her "disney urge" lol. They are purely fictional but they take place at Disney and battle the villians. Keeps her entertained. Not sure if your daughter is into books or not but these are good.

 

[tami82]

Eventually the excitement should wear down a little. I used to make a countdown on a calendar and of course on the big day I have a big smiley face. I would also give the kids certain chores to make money for the trip so they could buy what they want in the gift shops. Also get some of those m&m tubes and start saving quarters and pennies for the souvenir penny machines. They even sell books to put them in.
My kids are 12 and 14 now and I think I'm more excited then them as they won't talk about it. I hope they get more excited in the next few weeks.

 

[jvz82]

I'm more excited than the kids, lol. The excitement will come in waves! When we first started planning our December 2016 trip last winter, I was thinking about it all the time. Then I mostly stopped for many months. Then when it was time to book our dining reservation, I got all excited again and now I'm obsessed again lol.

One thing we decided to do was watch Disney movies to "prepare" for our trip. I had my oldest watch Pirates of the Caribbean with us one night. We also watched the Haunted Mansion. I want to find some of the animated movies that my kids haven't seen yet. I thought that would be a fun thing for us to do as a family.

We've also been looking through scrapbooks of previous trips, because most of my kids are too young to remember them. But they love seeing the pictures and talking about the rides.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Let her watch YouTube videos of the rides. Our kids love doing that to get psyched for an upcoming trip. I do too!

 

[Neotericisis]

Awww, wishing her the best in planning and anticipation. My DS is 7, DD 8. Not gonna lie, part of the reason we didn't tell them (trip is 9 days from today) is to keep my sanity. They will find out the night before.

Perhaps have her save pennies for the penny press, start a jar for Disney money, and watch Disney movie a week. Also, as another poster said, youtube! Happy waiting!

 

[jmccoy18]

1. We do a family movie night about every 2 weeks leading up to our trip. I picked 24 classic Disney movies and then I let DD1 pick the movie and I plan a dinner around the movie. You can check them out in my PTR that is linked in my siggy, if you want. They are lots of fun.
2. I also created a playlist on youtube of the rides for DD1 to watch when she wants and one of just Princess songs (she is Princess OBSESSED!)
3. We have a decorated coin jar that we add spare change to whenever we have it that goes to our Disney Fund.
4. My DDs are young, but if they were older I would give them some theme park books to read or maybe do a fun Disney fact every week and a countdown chain.

 

[maranara]

Well...a week later and my daughter is still asking Disney questions all day every day. We went to the library today and checked out a few guidebooks so hopefully that will take a little heat off of me...for at least a few hours. I was thinking of having her start to make a list of things she really wanted to do. Does anyone know of a printable for kids - something that has them list places they would like to eat, rides they want to ride, characters they want to meet, etc.? THANKS!

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

That is so exciting. We love all the planning. Now that our kids are older we tell them way in advance so they can help plan. I would print off maps for each of the parks. We had our kids make 3 lists. 1. Disney Must Do's 2. Disney we will try to do 3. Disney we don't have to do. We had them do this for each of the parks. Then when you have to make your fastpasses it will make it easier.

We also watch many Disney videos on YouTube of other peoples trips. We make our own Disney family music videos and we love to watch our but also love to watch other peoples trips.

We still have Disney movie night. Some of our kids friends know when we are doing it and come to watch with us.

Another thing we do is we try to coordinate outfits. Our kids are older so they can't dress up in costume but they can Disney Bound. Last time we were the characters of Peter Pan, Princesses, etc. She can go through her clothes to see what will work if she doesn't dress in costumes.

Enjoy the planning.