What rides should we take DD(5) on?

[Naisy68]

First of all, you should know that she is 41" tall and weighs approx. 38 lbs. She is very petite. When we went in 2004, she was 3 and we took her on Pirates and the Jungle Cruise as well as some of the kid-friendly rides like the magic carpet ride, Pooh and Peter Pan. We want to take her on Splash Mountain and Pirates again as well as the new "Soarin" at Epcot. We will avoid the "scarier" rides like the Dinosaur ride and Space Mountain.

She scares quite easily BUT we want to expose her to some of the rides she "thinks" she's afraid of. Like for instance, she doesn't want to go on POTC just because she thinks it's all about Davy Jones now because she saw it on the Disney Channel. However, I think she will be fine on it once she gets over the idea of being scared of it. She also thinks she's afraid of Splash Mountain but I think she'll really like it once we get on it and start moving. I'm more afraid of her size issues on that one actually.
My fear is that due to her fears, she won't let herself go on the rides. Does anyone have experience with this?
Needless to say, we would never take her on a ride when she is kicking and screaming not that a Disney cast member would let us do that in the first place. We want to know if someone knows a good way to talk her into some of these that she "thinks" she's afraid of. The ones my DH and I think are safe for her to go on.
As I was growing up, I was a lot like her and I really do feel for her but I missed out on a lot of stuff. I don't want her to go through that. I want her to be brave.
So, any advice or experience anyone has on this will be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Renee

 

[Lisa_Belle]

I wasn't sure if my DD5 would be scared of Fantasmic and some of the rides, so I got on Google Video and let her watch them on my computer. It seemed to help!

 

[Naisy68]

Are there videos for all of these rides on Google?

 

[pixiepower1971]

You can find quite a few ride videos online ...just search for them.

We have let our daughters go on any ride once they meet the height requirement. Never had any safety issues.

My girls aren't afraid of any ride but my Goddaughter is. I made a deal with her to get her to try different things. For every ride that she tries, with no whining or crying, she gets a pin for that ride. Worked really well! She developed quite a collection and it made the trip a much more pleasant experiance.

 

[ParrotBill]

Your daughter sounds just like my daughter. Mine is now 6, almost 7, but just 44" and 40 lbs. Smallest in her grade at school. She is also a bit of a scaredy cat.

At Kings Dominion earlier this year, I got her onto a couple of rides like a "scrambler" and something called the "triple spin" with similar motion, so I hope to leverage that for rides like Splash mtn and Big Thunder. I also know she will love them if we can talk her into it. We've been telling her that Splash Mountain shows a funny story about Brer Rabbit taking a journey and outsmarting Brer Fox and Brer Bear. And we've been telling her that Big Thunder Mountain is Mommy's second favorite ride at the Magic Kingdom.

She can do haunted Mansion and Pirates now, but that was after promising she could hide her head in mommy's arms, closing her eyes and covering her ears to block out anything scary.

I am also hoping to get her on Star Tours, Test Track and Mission:Space, new improved and tamer edition. I will explain that two of them are movies with our seats doing bouncy things to make it more fun.... using words that take the scariness out. I will tell her the movement is less than the rides she went on at King's dominion. But I won't force her.