Tips for Parks with 1 Year Old

[penguins1]

Hi All,

My wife, DD (she will be 15 months), and I are planning a trip for early October 2006. We are not sure where we are staying yet. Probably depends upon the kind of deals they have running. We will be staying for 5 nights and do at least 2 days of parks. The must do park for us is the Magic Kingdom.

First question: What will she be able to ride being so small at this point??

Second question: What other parks would be best to visit (I know we should just go to them all) and what attractions would she be able to go on??

I know she will be very young and not really appreciate this, but we are planning yearly trips and we need our Disney fix! It is just over a year since we have been there so we are itching to go.

Thanks for the help!

 

[jcriket]

When our dd was that little (now 17 yrs.). We were sitting in country bears, and an older couple were asking us why we would bring such a small child. He hinted that we were there for ourselves, more than her. well maybe so, but once the show started, that couple spent more time watching our dd dance, than the bears.
I would say any rides or shows with music, and bright sights would be good, and take lots of pictures with characters. They grow up fast.

 

[MMPC123]

Hi we just got back with our almost 2 yr old and she went on many of the rides with us. In Magic Kingdom, most of the rides in Fantasyland were fine for our dd. But she did not like the dark rides and would bury her face in my neck. We truely enjoyed Dumbo and It's a small world. Hated haunted mansion and pirates- just too dark for her.
In Epcot we baby swapped alot. Our older dd8 wanted to do soaring and mission space. Dd2 only went on spaceship earth and was again afraid of the dark but fell asleep. I think she would have liked the boat ride (sorry can't remember the name) in the land pavillion but again she was napping.
We all loved the safari in Animal Kingdom. She loved seeing all the animals but mostly any bird or fish! Fish is a new word for her and she shouted it any time we saw a pond of water. We loved the pocohantas show 'cause of the live animals but Lion King show was too loud and too much for her.
Mgm had mostly bigger rides, tower of Terror and the big roller coaster and dd2 napped while we swapped to go on with dd8. The playground was fun but not for mom! I found it very tiring to chase after her as everything was still too big for our tiny 2 yr old. DD8 loves to "help" little sis but is not as careful with her as I would like.

Overall, the little one just loved being out with all the other kids and so much to see everywhere. I found the parks to be very loud in general- much louder than I remember from 4 years ago.
Have fun with the planning- I can't believe that we are done and home already.

 

[Jenny]

Hi, I'm going w/ my 15 month old in a few weeks (11/2-7) - she'll be 16 months on our last day there....i'll report back to you after my experience. she went on so many rides w/ us as a 6 month old in jan. 05 along with her toddler sister, now 3. we went on "dark rides" such as snow white, pirates & haunted mansion at MK. we are not planning on pirates & HM due to time constraints this time around plus i think she'd be scared & we, the adults & toddler, don't need to go on it since we have recently been. who knows, maybe the toddler would be scared this time around anyway. kids change their perception of things.

we're planning on all of Fantasyland, jungle cruise, tiki room & TTA at MK. Safari, trails, petting area, ITTBB (no glasses) at AK. Spaceship Earth, Journey, HISA (no glasses), & Mexico at Epcot (skipping Norway this time unless toddler remembers & requests it). Shows at all the parks - esp. MGM - for us, we only do shows there & maybe the playground (although i thought it was quite challenging to keep up w/ a toddler there - EASY to lose sight of them). we did do the Movie ride but will pass this time - not really geared for small kids although they'll go for the ride.

 

[spot28]

I had a very colicky and difficult baby. Still not sleeping through the night, but we took him to Disney at 11 months (joined rest of the family from all over the country). I dreaded this trip thinking this was going to be so hard. It was the best day ever! He was just very content taking in everything, napped in his stroller, and just seemed to know this was a special place. He actually seemed to respond more to watching the older children in our group enjoy themselves on rides than the ride itself. Yeah, maybe this young you don't get as much feedback as when they are older... but you also don't get as much whining, crying, running off, etc... and hey, they get in free!

Enjoy yourselves and your baby. I bought DS his first Mickey ears in Fantasyland with his name embroidered that trip. It is so cute now, they are so tiny.

 

[mommaU4]

One bit of advice with the country bears show... We took my DS to see it when he had just turned 14 mo. and was finally walking. He was a late walker but was making up for lost time and when we went to see the show he LOVED it. Problem was he loved it so much that he wanted to walk up to the stage area to try to get to the bears! Of course we couldn't let him take off so we were holding him which made him mad and he started to scream. We had to slip out the side exit which we were luckily sitting close to. I guess with little ones it's just smart to try to be close to the exit during a show because you never know how they'll react!

 

[surfer_ed]

Just back yesterday with our DD (11 months). She loved It's a Samll World the best but we also had fun on Dumbo, Country Bears, Buzz and the best was the new Pooh Playground. Taylor was also really attracted to the icons at Pop and Spectromagic. We did the Baby swap a few times and a few other times DD was naping in her stroller as we did the Mountains.

I expected that she would be afraid of Mickey and friends. Lets face it unless you know the marketing, he is a gaint with big black ears. To my surprise she loved him.

I would agree with previous post that the dark rides we too scary. Even Winnie the Pooh's Honey Pots were a little scary for her. I would slo reccomend cotton in baby's ears and not getting too close to the castle for Wishes.

We decided to set low expections and to only go to MK. Thankfully we got our fix in the last few years and this trip was about the three of us spending time together. To answer the questions, was the trip for us or the baby, I would say it was for us and I don't think there is anything wrong with that and DD was central to us having an amazing time.Based on our work schedules we pretty much have to go away to spend time alone and it was worth it.

 

[penguins1]

Thanks for all of the good information. You guys are always so helpful!

Sounds like we will have lots to do. We had planned on skipping most of the dark stuff, not sure how she will react and we are not sure we want to know! We don't have the quietest baby in the world (she is not really happy as we speak!).

For those who have done the baby swap, how did that work out for you? And would you mind going into the details on how it works? Thanks.

We are trying to get her ready to meet Mickey. I am a Mickey nut and have so many Mickey stuffed animals. However, it really isn't the same as meeting one the size of the real Mickey. I really hope she likes him!

I really can't wait to see how she reacts to the whole experience. I think it will be so much fun to watch her take it all in.

Thanks again!