I grew up going to Disneyland and prior to this year only went to WDW 2x as a youngster/teen. This year, I took two trips to WDW as a parent... the first time in March 04 with dh, and dd's 4 and 5. The 2nd trip was the whole family -- me, dh, dd5, dd4, ds2 3/4 and dd22months. My mom, sister and dad all joined us for various parts of the trip... nine of us in all. Thankfully, I've received lots of good insight from the disboards, and now want to add my 2 cents for things I learned that may or may not be of use to others.
1. JUST SAY NO! I will NEVER purchase my tickets or anything for that matter through disney.com again. I had trouble with a clothing order and I never received my park hoppers. Customer service folks promised I'd have no trouble getting them at will-call -- only 30 seconds... we do it every day. Yeah right... over an hour later at the will cal window and the magic had been sapped from the day and I still didn't have my tickets... but you can bet they had already showed up on my visa bill! Finally got our tickets but the kids were so tired and out of sorts from the hassle and the wait. I won't be doing that again! Also, I will buy my tix as soon as possible to allow for these kinds of mistakes again.
2. NO AUTOGRAPHS PLEASE. Our older kids did the autograph book think in March. It was fun but with going again so soon I didn't want to them to do this. I found that when we met with characters they got better interaction... there was no book to sign so the characters HAD to interact and "communicate" more with our kids. It made for better pics and memories. So if your kids have lots of signatures already from previous trips, maybe consider not doing that this time.
3. PS B.S. -- Always call and re-confirm your PS's if they're important to you... and bring your confirmation numbers with you. It saved us from being rejected at Chef Mickey's for a breakfast one morning when they didn't have our name down and should have.
4. MEET PETER PAN! He is one of the best characters I've ever come across! He is so into it -- makes good conversation with each and every guest. Drives his handler bananas, but he knows why he's there and it's a truly worthwhile meeting.
5. CROSS THE STREET! If you take the Lynx bus to SW... make sure to cross the street to catch the bus back to WDW... We didn't know that and missed the first bus and had to wait another 30 minutes for the next one.
6. DIVIDE AND CONQUER. If in a large group or a group where kids will be duly supervised -- don't be afraid to split up to do things. At first, I didn't want to miss a single minute of anyone's reactions to anything... first trip for the 2 and 1 year olds... quickly I realized that it saved time to send an adult (me, because I knew the layout of the parks the best) to fetch FP's and drinks and take kids to potty breaks if needed. Also, if people in your group want to do different things, by all means split up so nobody ends up feeling resentful or cheated (obviously can't leave the little ones to fend for themselves... but use this within reason).
7. DECISION MAKER. Appoint one person in your group to be the keeper of the "main map" and schedule (when FP's are due and such) -- let that person make the more minor choices to avoid the indecisviness that comes on from being hot, tired, overwhelmed, whatever... agree to follow the decisions made w/o complaint. If there are a few leader-types in your group... alternate the point guard duties.... just make it clear in a nice way who's in charge. Maybe give each one a different day to lead on.
8. GET READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP. I am the keeper of the camera in our family. I am never in any pictures. I bought all the kids and my dh a throw away camera and told them to use up all the film. I told dh he needed to take pictures with me in them -- or most of them.
9. MAKE YOUR OWN MAGIC. If you encounter a snafu in your trip or things aren't going quite as you'd hoped... stop thinking about yourself and your own trip and try to find a way to spread some magic to some strangers.... makes your day better instantly. We had a string of troubles our first day but ended up making some magic for a couple near us and I'll remember that as a special part of our trip.
10. PACE YOURSELF. Going through the parks, I would think I was going slow, only to realize I was losing parts of our group. My "slow pace" was even too fast for them. It's important to know what everyone means when they say they want to go "fast" or "slow" -- just how fast or slow do they mean? If you have dawdlers in your group, you will either need to convince them to dawdle less or accept it and incorporate it into your touring plans and enjoy the slower pace yourself to discover things you may have missed... either way... be cheerful and remember this is their vacation too.
11. ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD. If possible, try to get into the parks at some point when they're not going to be as crowded... early morning after a PS breakfast but before official opening... at night after the masses have left or an e-ride night. We'd planned on a breakfast at Crystal Palace one a.m. on regular opening but were discouraged by the huge line when we got there. We decided to skip it and just slowly meandered through the park for 15 minutes before opening. We saw a momma duck with her five little babies with their own security guard (Make Way For Ducklings!) -- they even tried to go up the ramp at the train station -- too funny! We saw Goliath, a huge rabbit... a CM horticulture lady told him that was his name and showed us where to look to find a bunch of his friends.... we got our picture taken on Main St. with nobody else around... and we just looked and absorbed all the quiet and detail on a sparkling sunny morning before the crowds came rushing through. It made for a much calmer, happier atmosphere for the rest of our day. We've also done this at night.... taking our time leaving the park... sitting down to watch the kiss goodnight over and over. And at Epcot... when Future World was closing and everyone was headed over to Illuminations (we hadn't planned on seeing it) we took our time walking through the front end of the park and ended up catching part of the show anyway.
12. IT'S AN ADVENTURE VACATION. With little kids in tow, this is not going to be your R&R vacation. Even for the days you hang out at the pool and in the room, there will always be things to keep you on your toes... irregular sleep patterns, missing bathing suits, indecisiveness on what to do.... etc. when you have multiple little kids, they will all inevitably pick something different to do.... and just when you want to slow down, they'll get their sugar rush and want to go, Go, GO! It's the nature of parenting (Murphy's Law I guess!) -- and if you're like me, even relaxing at the pool is stressful -- trying to keep all four kiddos safe and together! From now on, I will save a full day on both ends of the trip to wind down, even if it's while I'm at home or if it means spending more money on a hotel room. It's essential to making it feel like it was a VACATION... for me anyway!
13. IT'S NOT THE LINES, IT'S THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY. In June here, it wasn't the lines that were troublesome. FP, EMH, e-ride and timing and luck made for a trip with no lines over 20 minutes (except that wait for the Lynx bus... our mistake!) --- so that doesn't worry me so much... but the humidity and heat got to a lot of the people in our group. Who in their right mind would spend tons of money to go somewhere and be soaked in the first 15 minutes by humidity and sweat, and stay there for hours surrounded by others soaked in their own sweat... and carry around little sticky, hot toddlers with matted hair and chocolate Mickey Bar stains on their clothes and call it fun? It's easy enough to tolerate considering all the other fun you're having, but when you think about it after the fact-- I don't want to subject my kids to those kinds of conditions... it just makes it tougher for them to cope and have a good time. I personally didn't mind the heat... didn't like the humidity too much though. Everyone has their own level of tolerance for the weather.
Well, that's some of the lessons I learned this year... please feel free to comment or add your own as I love hearing other people's perceptions and insights. We will not be taking the kids back until 2007 now... but we've got lots to keep us busy until then... and I would love to hear from all of you.
1. JUST SAY NO! I will NEVER purchase my tickets or anything for that matter through disney.com again. I had trouble with a clothing order and I never received my park hoppers. Customer service folks promised I'd have no trouble getting them at will-call -- only 30 seconds... we do it every day. Yeah right... over an hour later at the will cal window and the magic had been sapped from the day and I still didn't have my tickets... but you can bet they had already showed up on my visa bill! Finally got our tickets but the kids were so tired and out of sorts from the hassle and the wait. I won't be doing that again! Also, I will buy my tix as soon as possible to allow for these kinds of mistakes again.
2. NO AUTOGRAPHS PLEASE. Our older kids did the autograph book think in March. It was fun but with going again so soon I didn't want to them to do this. I found that when we met with characters they got better interaction... there was no book to sign so the characters HAD to interact and "communicate" more with our kids. It made for better pics and memories. So if your kids have lots of signatures already from previous trips, maybe consider not doing that this time.
3. PS B.S. -- Always call and re-confirm your PS's if they're important to you... and bring your confirmation numbers with you. It saved us from being rejected at Chef Mickey's for a breakfast one morning when they didn't have our name down and should have.
4. MEET PETER PAN! He is one of the best characters I've ever come across! He is so into it -- makes good conversation with each and every guest. Drives his handler bananas, but he knows why he's there and it's a truly worthwhile meeting.
5. CROSS THE STREET! If you take the Lynx bus to SW... make sure to cross the street to catch the bus back to WDW... We didn't know that and missed the first bus and had to wait another 30 minutes for the next one.
6. DIVIDE AND CONQUER. If in a large group or a group where kids will be duly supervised -- don't be afraid to split up to do things. At first, I didn't want to miss a single minute of anyone's reactions to anything... first trip for the 2 and 1 year olds... quickly I realized that it saved time to send an adult (me, because I knew the layout of the parks the best) to fetch FP's and drinks and take kids to potty breaks if needed. Also, if people in your group want to do different things, by all means split up so nobody ends up feeling resentful or cheated (obviously can't leave the little ones to fend for themselves... but use this within reason).
7. DECISION MAKER. Appoint one person in your group to be the keeper of the "main map" and schedule (when FP's are due and such) -- let that person make the more minor choices to avoid the indecisviness that comes on from being hot, tired, overwhelmed, whatever... agree to follow the decisions made w/o complaint. If there are a few leader-types in your group... alternate the point guard duties.... just make it clear in a nice way who's in charge. Maybe give each one a different day to lead on.
8. GET READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP. I am the keeper of the camera in our family. I am never in any pictures. I bought all the kids and my dh a throw away camera and told them to use up all the film. I told dh he needed to take pictures with me in them -- or most of them.
9. MAKE YOUR OWN MAGIC. If you encounter a snafu in your trip or things aren't going quite as you'd hoped... stop thinking about yourself and your own trip and try to find a way to spread some magic to some strangers.... makes your day better instantly. We had a string of troubles our first day but ended up making some magic for a couple near us and I'll remember that as a special part of our trip.
10. PACE YOURSELF. Going through the parks, I would think I was going slow, only to realize I was losing parts of our group. My "slow pace" was even too fast for them. It's important to know what everyone means when they say they want to go "fast" or "slow" -- just how fast or slow do they mean? If you have dawdlers in your group, you will either need to convince them to dawdle less or accept it and incorporate it into your touring plans and enjoy the slower pace yourself to discover things you may have missed... either way... be cheerful and remember this is their vacation too.
11. ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD. If possible, try to get into the parks at some point when they're not going to be as crowded... early morning after a PS breakfast but before official opening... at night after the masses have left or an e-ride night. We'd planned on a breakfast at Crystal Palace one a.m. on regular opening but were discouraged by the huge line when we got there. We decided to skip it and just slowly meandered through the park for 15 minutes before opening. We saw a momma duck with her five little babies with their own security guard (Make Way For Ducklings!) -- they even tried to go up the ramp at the train station -- too funny! We saw Goliath, a huge rabbit... a CM horticulture lady told him that was his name and showed us where to look to find a bunch of his friends.... we got our picture taken on Main St. with nobody else around... and we just looked and absorbed all the quiet and detail on a sparkling sunny morning before the crowds came rushing through. It made for a much calmer, happier atmosphere for the rest of our day. We've also done this at night.... taking our time leaving the park... sitting down to watch the kiss goodnight over and over. And at Epcot... when Future World was closing and everyone was headed over to Illuminations (we hadn't planned on seeing it) we took our time walking through the front end of the park and ended up catching part of the show anyway.
12. IT'S AN ADVENTURE VACATION. With little kids in tow, this is not going to be your R&R vacation. Even for the days you hang out at the pool and in the room, there will always be things to keep you on your toes... irregular sleep patterns, missing bathing suits, indecisiveness on what to do.... etc. when you have multiple little kids, they will all inevitably pick something different to do.... and just when you want to slow down, they'll get their sugar rush and want to go, Go, GO! It's the nature of parenting (Murphy's Law I guess!) -- and if you're like me, even relaxing at the pool is stressful -- trying to keep all four kiddos safe and together! From now on, I will save a full day on both ends of the trip to wind down, even if it's while I'm at home or if it means spending more money on a hotel room. It's essential to making it feel like it was a VACATION... for me anyway!
13. IT'S NOT THE LINES, IT'S THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY. In June here, it wasn't the lines that were troublesome. FP, EMH, e-ride and timing and luck made for a trip with no lines over 20 minutes (except that wait for the Lynx bus... our mistake!) --- so that doesn't worry me so much... but the humidity and heat got to a lot of the people in our group. Who in their right mind would spend tons of money to go somewhere and be soaked in the first 15 minutes by humidity and sweat, and stay there for hours surrounded by others soaked in their own sweat... and carry around little sticky, hot toddlers with matted hair and chocolate Mickey Bar stains on their clothes and call it fun? It's easy enough to tolerate considering all the other fun you're having, but when you think about it after the fact-- I don't want to subject my kids to those kinds of conditions... it just makes it tougher for them to cope and have a good time. I personally didn't mind the heat... didn't like the humidity too much though. Everyone has their own level of tolerance for the weather.
Well, that's some of the lessons I learned this year... please feel free to comment or add your own as I love hearing other people's perceptions and insights. We will not be taking the kids back until 2007 now... but we've got lots to keep us busy until then... and I would love to hear from all of you.
, so at lunch time, my mom and I went to Baker's Square to pick up lunch and I also picked up a strawberry cream pie for all of us to share!
, I just told my parents, "Let's get a cab!". It was 5 bucks well spent. (And then I let my mom fight with the shuttle company later 
