Toddlers and Infants and Grandparents -- oh my! Lessons Learned!

[asudol]

Willoughby1 - My thoughts exactly But thanks for reading along! If I can help with even one 'lesson learned' from our trip, it's worth sharing!

Loveysbydesign - Just have the right expectations... it's loud.. very loud. The kids go wild, the food is 'backyard BBQ' food.. If you can handle that, I cannot recommend it highly enough!

 

[asudol]

Ahhh yes. A nice evening away from the kids and grandparents! We even got ourselves all fancied up for a nice night out at a 'Signature' restaurant.

Our first impression when walking in was the sheer excitement of the meat behind the glass aging. We're kinda steak snobs, and this really did look like the real deal.

The staff were quite pleasant and very attentive. We ordered our apps to start, they brought some breads.. great start. DW had the "Prime NY Strip" and I had the Porterhouse, both cooked Medium Rare.

The Strip came with the world's best Au Gratin potaoes... Really... we thought we had it perfected, but they put ours to shame!! Too bad the steak was extra chewy... so much so that DW couldn't even eat it after her jaw started to ache

My porterhouse came with cold 'paprika fries' and a glob of unmelting garlic butter on top of the steak... No worries -- scraped off the unmelted butter and cut into the filet side while I wait for fresh fries. The filet had the texture you'd expect from a good strip, and the strip portion had the same inedible texture of DW's steak Apparently this cow had a bad day.

It's too bad, we were REALLY looking forward to this meal, but it didn't work out. The manager came over, apologized and simply said "we aren't here to point fingers or make excuses. You had a bad meal, and that's unacceptable to us, let me look after your bill". Wow... that's how it should be done. Kudos!! Needless to say, the waitstaff did a great job and still got their 20% tip, but we didn't use our 4 meal credits...

We took the Signature Banana Napoleon dessert in a to-go box.. our mistake.. this dessert DESERVES to be eaten fresh in the restaurant!! If nothing else, see if you can sneak in to Yachtsman just for that It was THAT good.

 

[v.t.]

I'm not sure why, but Animal Kingdom always seems hotter than the other parks! Maybe all the trees that keep out the breeze, or maybe there is Disney magic where they actually heat the air for the animals.. but WOW..

We spoke to a CM who knew quite a bit about the Animal Kingdom. The reason it is seems so hot there in the park is because there is very little A/C. Since air-conditioning is rare in Africa and Asia, they limited it at the park. Nemo and the gift shop by Dino Dig are the only two places that have air-conditioning. But I agree, it is so hot there we only stay half a day then head to the pool!

Enjoying the report, didn't know that you could get the kitchen sink on the DDP. BBQ looked like a lot of fun. We may have to try that next time.

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

I'm really enjoying your trip report. Your kids are so cute! I love hearing how your DD is reacting to things because we are taking our DD on her first trip in January, and she's only a little bit older than yours. Oh, and our DD is not that into princess either.

You've got some really great tips for families with small children, keep 'em comin'!

 

[Kaleigh]

I am reading also! I am taking my 20 month old daughter by myself, leaving tomorrow night, so some of these tips are great for me to be reading right now. (I know about slow readership too. I think only 1 person read my pre-trip report consistently)

 

[asudol]

Sorry for the delay between updates -- I've also been travelling for work (flying between Toronto and Washington DC frequently and it's been keeping me busy... hard to find time to post!)

vt - Great point.. I don't think we realize just how important those few minutes at a time in A/C are! We were melting... it was 90F the day we were there, which we thought was hot for end of September. Even with the misting fans we bought it was too much for the kids (and us..) better to go to the pool than to have completely miserable kids!

DIS_Indoctrination - Thanks! Your DD will have a great time of course! This is a great age for them.. everything was so REAL. My dad actually cried when he saw her with Mickey at the backyard BBQ.. in his words "when you asked us to come along, we had our expectations.. but I never thought it would be this amazing". There is something really special that you just can't get anywhere else... truly Disney magic. Oh.. as for princesses... the second last day she had a "Jasmine" moment and she now has an interest in the princess movies She's not fully into them yet, but very much a change after that!!

Kaleigh - I'll try to get some more posts done before I fly out tomorrow morning.. there was a definite turning point the next day and hopefully some useful info. You'll have a fantastic time if it's 1-on-1 with your DD... 20 months will be great I hope that I've been able to offer at least one small useful bit through my posts! Thanks for reading!!

 

[DisneyFanDC]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us! I never even considered Mickey's Backyard BBQ until I read your trip report, but now I think my daughter would love it!

 

[asudol]

DisneyFanDC - I've given away the secret Next time I go it'll be impossible to get an ADR!

 

[asudol]

The next day, our only unvisited park was DHS and we had a lunch reservation for Hollywood & Vine. DD watches Playhouse Disney religiously and the opportunity to meet some of the characters wasn't to be missed. We had heard some bad reviews of H&V here on the DISboards, but after our experience at MBYBBQ and our bad experience at Yachtsman to forget everything we heard here and give it a go anyway!

We started the day with a mad dash to TSM for fast passes, leaving DW, Grandma and the kids for a leisurely stroll towards the Pixar area. They stopped on the way to meet Chip & Dale for a photo op.. They, too had a surprise birthday card for the birthday girl!

Different characters this time, and the area's photopass people all signed it, which was a nice keepsake I should note that we did pre-purchase the photopass CD, so we tried to use the Photopass folks wherever possible. We were disappointed that there only seemed to be photographers at the 'key' photo op (ie. 30 of them on Main Street USA, or in front of Spaceship Earth or the giant hat..) or at character meets.. but otherwise, we couldn't find any elsewhere in the parks...

We explored a bit, waiting for the fast pass time.. I can tell you that the kids did not appreciate the great movie ride, and were too young to appreciate Muppets 3D. Grandpa and I left the kids and the women for a quick ride on the Tower of Terror... But really, there wasn't much there that the kids were excited about.

We did stop by and visit Lightning McQueen and Mater at Luigi's... DD is in love with the movie Cars... We've seen it at least 900 times... sometimes 4 times in a single day.... I think we're going to burn out the Bluray player

DHS is our favorite park from an aesthetics perspective. It's wonderful to walk through and enjoy, but there's really not a lot there if you have kids in tow...

Off to lunch...

Hollywood & Vine is an attempt at some gourmet eats, but on a buffet. Most of the items were... warm, nothing hot. The selection was actually very good, and other than the temperature, we enjoyed the food much better than Crystal Palace. The kids had lots to eat and the characters were excellent.

Lots of opportunities for the kids to jump up and dance/sing along with the Playhouse Disney tunes and themes. If you have older kids and don't know the PHD characters... skip this one... DW, DD and I were singing along with "Shakable You" from the Imagination Movers, doing the Hot Dog dance, etc..

Then there were the characters... Jojo (who I hear is being replaced by Oso), Leo and June from Little Einsteins, Handy Manny... DD has a love triangle going on between Mickey and Manny I think...

Energized and time for our fastpasses, we did finally do TSM and loved it (our first time!).. DS wasn't all that impressed... I mean, without the 3D glasses, it's not much of an attraction! DD actually liked it.. it was the first time we could keep the glasses on her.

By then, it was time for the grandparents to take off for their "night out" and we stayed with the kids and danced to the street party... All the Pixar toons were there and it was a lot of fun... DS tired of it fairly quickly, though, and we headed to the hotel. We had pre-planned to go to Raglan Road in Downtown Disney for dinner and rested a bit before traveling over.

Raglan Road was fun, although our ressie was for later than I had remembered and the poor kids were zonked. DW doesn't like loud places, to this wasn't for her. DD fell asleep, but DS actually did pretty well as long as he had food in front of him. The staff were great and paid a lot of attention to DS -- something he was losing to DD's Birthday pin

I had the fish and chips -- one of the best orders of fish I've had outside of the UK, so I was happy. DW had the burger and wasn't all that impressed.

Overall, mixed review - if you want fish and chips, Irish music and "Lord Of the Dance" style dancing, this is the place. Just be aware that at night the the live entertainment is loud... might not be the right choice for young kids.

Back to the hotel, we all crash and have one of the first decent sleeps yet!

 

[asudol]

Up to this point, we were slaves to our ADRs. Park decisions, which rides, etc were based on when we can get to our ADRs. We woke up the next morning and decided "Hey, we really haven't done anything. The kids are being dragged around, but aren't really getting on any rides.. this has to change."

We canceled all of our remaining ADRs, including one at Asherkus for the princess meal. They charged us a penalty for that one, but it would have meant either spending the day at Epcot, or spending half the day traveling rather than spending the day at one park.

So back to Magic Kingdom!! This is really where the kids want to be anyway, and our focus changed entirely to "it's for the kids, do what THEY want to do.." What a great plan!

We decided to go it on our own for half the day and meet with the grandparents later on so they could do what they wanted, and we can focus on the kids.
Peter Pan, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, the Carousel, TTA, Astro Orbitors, (ok, so we did to the carousel of progress and DD actually liked it... DS ran around, the thing was empty so why not?). We had lunch at Casey's (I'm not sure why people rave about this.. it's a basic hotdog, their fryer was busted, so no fries... just a bad day I guess?)

It was this morning that we FINALLY met the elusive Donald!! He was hidden away in Frontierland, but at least we got him!!

We also bumped into Mary Poppins and Bert! Apparently Bert's not around much, so this was a great occasion... (We saw Mary other days alone, so I guess this it at least partially true)

Tip for parents using Photopass...
In Castle Couture (in Fantasyland by the castle) they sell the princess outfits, etc.. and there's a photo studio in the store. ANYONE can go get pictures done and the photopass guys were really good. You can buy prints there, or just have it all included on your photopass... Since we were getting the CD anyway, this was a free photo shoot just for DD!

After seeing how she reacted with the photographer, we decided to show her the princess outfits and see if she'd actually wear one. She liked the Jasmine outfit, so we forked out the $80 and headed back into the studio for some more pics!!

This was the turning point for princesses... she wore that outfit all day and the next day...

Watch the quality of the outfits...
The Jasmine outfit started losing all of the 'sparkles' that appear like they may have just been glued on... When we were leaving, we stopped at the World of Disney store at Downtown Disney and asked if this was normal.. they said "no - if you bring it to us, we'll replace it". It was in the car, and they replaced it with a brand new one on the spot.. very good!

All in all, this turned out to be an amazing day in the park.. better than the rest of the week -- and truly it was because we dropped our own motives and just focused 100% on the kids... it was an entirely different experience.

That night (our last night in the hotel ) we had originally booked Boatwright's for dinner, but having canceled the ADR, we opted to try again for the Kitchen Sink at Beaches & Cream. However... what we DIDN'T think about is that the Food & Wine Festival had just started, and there is NO parking at any Epcot resort without being a guest or having an ADR!!! As Beaches & Cream doesn't take reservations, we had no way to get there other than by BUS, or parking at Epcot and taking a ferry... Yikes!!!

Disappointed, we head back to the hotel and figure we'll "try" Boatwright's anyway... No ADR, No Problem! We were seated within about 10 minutes and we all had a great meal.. (Until DS threw up, but we think it was just too much sun and excitement, nothing to do with the food!!) I had the prime rib and it was fantastic. Best piece of beef in the park, at least during our trip!!

Dinner finished, back to the room to pack

 

[rak5701]

The next day, our only unvisited park was DHS and we had a lunch reservation for Hollywood & Vine. DD watches Playhouse Disney religiously and the opportunity to meet some of the characters wasn't to be missed. We had heard some bad reviews of H&V here on the DISboards, but after our experience at MBYBBQ and our bad experience at Yachtsman to forget everything we heard here and give it a go anyway!

We started the day with a mad dash to TSM for fast passes, leaving DW, Grandma and the kids for a leisurely stroll towards the Pixar area. They stopped on the way to meet Chip & Dale for a photo op.. They, too had a surprise birthday card for the birthday girl!

Different characters this time, and the area's photopass people all signed it, which was a nice keepsake I should note that we did pre-purchase the photopass CD, so we tried to use the Photopass folks wherever possible. We were disappointed that there only seemed to be photographers at the 'key' photo op (ie. 30 of them on Main Street USA, or in front of Spaceship Earth or the giant hat..) or at character meets.. but otherwise, we couldn't find any elsewhere in the parks...

We explored a bit, waiting for the fast pass time.. I can tell you that the kids did not appreciate the great movie ride, and were too young to appreciate Muppets 3D. Grandpa and I left the kids and the women for a quick ride on the Tower of Terror... But really, there wasn't much there that the kids were excited about.

We did stop by and visit Lightning McQueen and Mater at Luigi's... DD is in love with the movie Cars... We've seen it at least 900 times... sometimes 4 times in a single day.... I think we're going to burn out the Bluray player

DHS is our favorite park from an aesthetics perspective. It's wonderful to walk through and enjoy, but there's really not a lot there if you have kids in tow...

Off to lunch...

Hollywood & Vine is an attempt at some gourmet eats, but on a buffet. Most of the items were... warm, nothing hot. The selection was actually very good, and other than the temperature, we enjoyed the food much better than Crystal Palace. The kids had lots to eat and the characters were excellent.

Lots of opportunities for the kids to jump up and dance/sing along with the Playhouse Disney tunes and themes. If you have older kids and don't know the PHD characters... skip this one... DW, DD and I were singing along with "Shakable You" from the Imagination Movers, doing the Hot Dog dance, etc..

Then there were the characters... Jojo (who I hear is being replaced by Oso), Leo and June from Little Einsteins, Handy Manny... DD has a love triangle going on between Mickey and Manny I think...

Energized and time for our fastpasses, we did finally do TSM and loved it (our first time!).. DS wasn't all that impressed... I mean, without the 3D glasses, it's not much of an attraction! DD actually liked it.. it was the first time we could keep the glasses on her.

By then, it was time for the grandparents to take off for their "night out" and we stayed with the kids and danced to the street party... All the Pixar toons were there and it was a lot of fun... DS tired of it fairly quickly, though, and we headed to the hotel. We had pre-planned to go to Raglan Road in Downtown Disney for dinner and rested a bit before traveling over.

Raglan Road was fun, although our ressie was for later than I had remembered and the poor kids were zonked. DW doesn't like loud places, to this wasn't for her. DD fell asleep, but DS actually did pretty well as long as he had food in front of him. The staff were great and paid a lot of attention to DS -- something he was losing to DD's Birthday pin

I had the fish and chips -- one of the best orders of fish I've had outside of the UK, so I was happy. DW had the burger and wasn't all that impressed.

Overall, mixed review - if you want fish and chips, Irish music and "Lord Of the Dance" style dancing, this is the place. Just be aware that at night the the live entertainment is loud... might not be the right choice for young kids.

Back to the hotel, we all crash and have one of the first decent sleeps yet!

Where is Luigi's??? I can't find it on the map of DHS and we couldn't find it last time we were there. My son also loves this movie and would be thrilled to see Mater and Lightening!

 

[asudol]

The next day we had a "Good Bye" ressie at Chef Mickey's... It was originally made just in case we didn't have any good interaction with characters during the trip, this was our last chance...

The characters were pretty good, but this is one place that the DISboards have been consistent about.. and we should have listened. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EAT AT CHEF MICKEY'S. The food was awful. Really... Somehow they even screwed up the fresh Mickey waffles. The food was cold, no flavor, limited selection... I have nothing nice to say about this horrific experience and frankly it was a real let down for the last day.

On a positive note, Mickey DOES come around to tables again -- I hear they tried keeping him at the front for a while... At least THAT wasn't screwed up... but when that's the only good part of a meal, you have to wonder!!

Being bad again, we took the monorail to Magic Kingdom again. Had to spend a little more time in Toontown Fair since it's being torn down... DD rode the Barnstormer over and over and over and got a 'frequent flyer card' from the CM

DW and DD went into Goofy's Boat and got wet (change of clothes FTW!) while I waited with DS where it was dry... Witnessed a quick act of Disney Magic that most people would never see, and in fact many people walked right over without even noticing... One of the CM's had a broom and some water, and 'painted' a Donald head on the walk... out of nowhere, just started and a few of us stood around to see what he was doing... very cool

Since it was our last day, we did cheat and took a few minutes to ride the mountains... since it really wasn't very busy, we managed to get fastpass for Splash, rode BTMRR and then immediately onto Splash.. We rode Space Mountain earlier in the week.

While waiting for us, DW noticed something crawling on the walk and 'rescued' it so it wouldn't get stepped on...

Tiny tiny turtle DD was freaked out and thrilled at the same time. DS was sleeping, so he didn't witness it...

Finally, a stroll through Minnie's house where DD tried to fix her Jasmine outfit...

and we called it a great trip!

 

[asudol]

rak - Luigi's is near Mama Melrose's... It's not specifically listed on the map, but there's a Mickey glove pointing to it as a character greeting spot...

They are stationary now (maybe they were before) so pretty much any time from 9am until close you can go by... The eyes move and they rev their engines or Mater honks his horn etc.. for kids, it's awesome and they're as real as can be!

 

[asudol]

- Photopass is great... It's nice that they're everywhere characters are, and at the biggest 'photo ops'.. I would be nice to see them elsewhere in the park.. or to get pics such as 'down Main St USA AWAY from the castle...' especially when it's lit up at night... But still, we got a couple hundred pictures over 1 week... and the photo studio at Castle Couture was fun.

- Don't be a slave to ADRs. If you're there during peak times, maybe.. if you're there during Food & Wine... well.. I would never go during Food & Wine.. that was ridiculous just for the 2 days we were exposed to it!! Crazyness... The rest of the time, we got in to anywhere we tried. And we didn't see anyone getting turned away... Maybe for a key event like MBYBBQ etc.. but not for even the regular character meals.

- If you're going with young kids... focus on THEM.. If you need to do your own thing, go by yourself.

... more to come, flight is leaving!

 

[LaniesMom]

Just wanted to say HI; I just found your TR this morning and I love it!!

We took our DD last year (who was 15 months at the time) with my family (brother & parents) as we were celebrating a big year: DD turned 1, DDad turned 60 & DBro turned 30 last year. I know how difficult it can be to please everyone on a trip...your parents, like mine seem to "get it"--that it's about the kids. Your trip report is great; I wish I would have done one from last year just so I could have it documented. Oh well.
This year, courtesy of the 40% off PIN I received, my mom & I are going back with DD who is now 2. Like your DD, she's not into princesses--she LOVES the Little Einsteins, Donald; and Pete from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
Thanks for all the helpful tips--I never knew that Mickey's Backyard BBQ was so cool until I read your report. Where is it held? We're staying at the Poly this time, flying, so we'd be without a car... so I was wondering how we could get there; looks like it's a blast!

We found out last year, too that ADR's in "off peak" (ie. week before Thanksgiving) really don't matter much. I ended up getting sick on the trip (strep) and we canceled half the ADR's I wrung my hands over and just did walk ups depending on how I was feeling.
We even got a walk up to LeCellier! You'd think that was impossible from reading these boards--I think people need to relax a bit and let their trip evolve as it comes, especially if they are not going in the dead of summer when the parks are at capacity.

ITA about Animal Kingdom, and now I know why! Holy geez, that park is HOT! At least a 15 degree difference, IMO.

Thanks for the report, all your info has been fantastic. You've got a fan in this reader!

 

[heaven2dc]

Loved loved loved your TR!! Sad to see it end - what a great time you all had! Too bad about Chef Mickey's - guess it's all about the experience but good food would be nice!

 

[DIS_Indoctrination]

Great tip about the Couture Castle photo studio. Maybe we'll stop there if we can find DD a Princess dress before we leave for our trip.

 

[dreamsofdisney]

Just wanted to say hi ! Your children are adorable! I especially love the pic of your DD jumping and dancing at Hollywood & Vine. I'm still on the fence about whether to book that one...

We'll be taking DD in April for her first trip, and she'll turn 2 a couple of months before the trip. She's a big fan of Playhouse Disney, but only knows a few shows/characters. DS will be 18 and H&V was never a character meal he was interested in, so we've never been.

Thanks for all the tips and sharing your experiences with us!

 

[Kaleigh]

Thank you so much! Lots of great tips, especially about the Castle Couture thing, didn't know that anyone could get photopass pics there. Will definitely do that!

 

[asudol]

Thanks everyone It has been fun reliving the trip... I'm sure I've already forgotten lots, so I'm trying to capture it the best I can...

LaniesMom - I love the Poly We're torn between that and the AKL next time. Although the Savannah view would be nice, the convenience of the Poly is worth sooo much more.. We'll see Mickey's BBQ is at Fort Wilderness, so it shouldn't be a difficult trek from the Poly. Likely Monorail to TTC and then bus it... If you take water transport to FW, you need to take another bus anyway to get to the main lot, and then another bus to Pioneer Hall.. If you've done Hoop-De-Doo, it's right behind that building..

dreamsofdisney - We primarily went for Manny... if he wasn't there, we wouldn't have booked it. Although I have pics of myself with Leo which I personally find very cool... Leo and June are both there if she's a fan of the Little Einsteins -- and aside from the characters, the CMs that lead the dances and parades in the restaurant are really good at motivating the youngsters. The 18 year old would be better going off to Sci Fi diner solo We won't be booking this next time, but it was great to see her reaction with Manny... As for Pete... I don't think there's any place to meet Pete.. shame.. I'd love a pic with him!!