When we booked our trip I revolved everything around the Crowd Calendar on the touring plans site. Tip: It has every day of the entire year and ranks each days level of crowdedness on a scale from 1-10. The four days I picked to visit the park all had crowd levels rated at a 1-2. Pretty much the least crowded you can get! The site also tells you which park is the best park to visit and which park is the worst to visit on any particular day. I knew we wanted to go to Magic Kingdom on the first day (because to me, Magic Kingdom IS Disney World!) so I made sure that the first day of our trip was a good day to visit Magic Kingdom.
We woke up that morning and got all our stuff ready to go and ate some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We planned to eat a hardy breakfast each morning to help us not be starving at lunch (especially Zach…). I’ve been talking up Disney around our house FOREVER!!! But after Labor Day, Kye just got really antsy about going and even cried saying he wanted to go to Disney World. Maybe I pumped him up too much too soon? 😉 Every day he’d ask about Disney and I’d say we had to wait until Mickey Mouse opened it for us because right then it was closed. Finally Disney World was OPENED!!!! He was super crunk about it allllll the days leading up to is and we thought it’d be fun to video tape him the morning of and see how excited he was about going that day. You know how stuff like that goes, he was totally not reacting the way we wanted haha. But here’s a video anyways!
My plan was to get to the ferry on it’s first voyage at 8:30, the park opened at 9 that day and we got there in plenty of time. Mrs. Charlotte has a handicap thing for her car so we always had a great parking spot! The only glinch in all my planning happened on that first morning, it was a Magic Hour day where the park opens early for Disney property guests. Yikes. That meant that it was already opened for them when we got there and that it was more crowded. I should have checked the site the night before but it all still worked out okay! Kye was just SO excited to see the castle that it was hard for him to understand waiting that long. Since the park was opened, they didn’t let us board the ferry until 8:45. So we had to wait quite awhile (kinda discouraging for a kid who was told Disney World was opened for him huh?)!
Thank the LORD for the stroller fan…
and lots of snacks 🙂
finally boarding the ferry!
Tip: It’s best to take the ferry in the morning and the monorail in the afternoons, also when you board the ferry go ALL the way to the back so you’ll be the first ones off!
On our way to Magic Kingdom! The ferry itself was a ride for Kye 🙂
We bought our tickets in advance for the trip, it doesn’t save you any money but it does save TIME. We each bought four days with park hopper option and I’m SO glad we did!!! It was disappointing that the park was already opened because it meant we missed the opening show where all the characters come out and I always love that. We breezed through security very quickly though and were ready to get our Disney on 😉
PUMPED!!!!!!!
I’ve never been in the fall time and the park was very festive (Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party was going on in the evenings)!
Let the Memories BEGIN!!!
I had a few Disney goals: 1. meet Mickey 2. meet Buzz, Woody, and Lightning McQueen 3. see the Pixar parade 4. get a good family picture in front of the castle. Zach was so sweet and asked me in advance what was the most important thing to me on the trip. He wanted to make sure he was patient and supportive about those things. Zach is a mover and he likes to get where he’s going and get there quick. It’s a GREAT trait when navigating through traffic, but it’s not so great at a theme park where there is so much to see and experience while on the journey from ride to ride ya know?
His main goal for the trip was for me and Kye to have fun and he was very worried about me. Being pregnant and having to do a lot of walking in the heat was not something he was okay with. I didn’t want a wheelchair. I read up on a TON of Disney stuff and I remember one lady said she went to the park pregnant and handled it fine and thought women who got wheelchairs while pregnant were just out of shape. That bugged me and made me feel like being pushed around the park every day was me being lazy, a failure, and a burden on everyone else. Zach was hardcore about it though and I have to admit, it made me feel very protected by my man! It was sweet to see him so worried over me!
Right when we entered the park we had to take some time to rent the wheelchair and get pictures in front of the castle. I knew both things would set us back with the itinerary for the day but the Magic Hour thing already threw us off so we just rolled with it 😉
Tip: Stop at all the photo pass spots, the cast members will take pictures of you on the card, but you can also hand them your camera and they will take pictures with it for you too! We’ve done this on other trips and it typically goes really well. We got some AWESOME ones last Christmas! I don’t know if it was the heat or the fact that we had a toddler, but the people weren’t as friendly this time around and didn’t take half as good of pictures for us as they have in the past. Even the ones on my actual photo pass weren’t so great! It really tested Zach’s patience for sure, but he was a trooper for it all.
Here are all the first tries in front of the castle…
not crazy about the pumpkins in it and the lighting was so funky you can’t see the castle at all!
the next guy we tried was more about pictures of himself than of us…
If there was a way for me to get really photoshop savvy and somehow make Kye’s eyes look open this would be pretty good!
Proud of Mom and Mrs. Charlotte wearing their buttons…Kye would NOT keep his on!
The touring plans site (and book) is FILLED with different itineraries for each park. I had an entire packet typed up for each day of our trip with which rides to ride in what order. My plan for our first day was to get there when it opened, leave around noonish for nap, then come back to finish after nap and eat dinner at the park. I was HARDCORE checking the weather and it said that we’d be getting the thunderstorms around 3 so I decided that instead of going back for nap we’d just skip nap and try to get it all in before the storms hit us. All of the itinerary plans start with Dumbo. It’s the #1 kids ride and has the worst waiting times. So we headed there first.
Many of you know that Mrs. Charlotte has rheumatoid arthritis…she’s on lots of different medications and also has myasthenia gravis which makes her get tired very easily and means she shouldn’t be standing too much or be in the heat for too long. With those issues we were able to get a special card that allowed us to use the handicap lane while waiting in lines. I honestly think they should allow pregnant women to get them too. After visiting all the parks, a pregnant woman NEEDS to have the handicap access! There’s just no way that I could have stood in all those lines that whole time. I wonder if they would have given me one? The pass really did help! Tip if you or anyone in your family does have any type of medical condition I’d get a letter from the dr and bring it to guest services on your first day at the park. They will issue you the pass and it’s good for that person as well as ALL people in your party (up to 5 people only). If it’s something that you can see with the naked eye, you don’t even need the dr note but it’s always smart to have one!
Even with the pass, the line for Dumbo was probably the worst one we waited in the entire trip. And it was the first ride. And Kye had already had to wait SO many times prior (for the ferry, for the wheelchair rental, for the pictures). He was not happy about it. I felt bad b/c I have been building up Disney for SO long and wanted him to feel the magic of everything, not the boredom! He actually threw a tiny fit while in line which made me NERVOUS for how the whole experience was going to go. He didn’t understand why we had to wait and ended up laying on the ground for a few minutes. We all just ignored him and he snapped out of it, I don’t know what we would have done though if the line had been longer than it was!
sad boy having to wait
I didn’t mind waiting, I was so excited!
Mom’s face is hilarious! She looks thrilled for some Dumbo 😉
Kye’s FIRST Disney ride EVER!
yay!
ready to ride
I do NOT like heights, at all. I would be fine with never riding Dumbo again. I actually debated on who should ride…but in the end I really wanted to experience Kye’s first ride with him, not from the sidelines. I did NOT enjoy it very much though! Kye thought it was cool but seriously, it was over so fast that the wait was totally not worth it. Tip: This is just a personal opinion, but unless your kid is hardcore about riding Dumbo, I’d skip it. Unless the timing works out better and there’s a shorter wait next time we go, I don’t know if we’ll even bother with riding it. The Magic Carpets of Aladdin is pretty much the same thing with less of a wait time.
action shot
After Dumbo my itinerary plan was to go from land to land. It’s a more relaxed itinerary but since we went on a low crowd day and had the quick access pass, I wasn’t overly concerned with us getting everything in. The plan had us start with Dumbo then just do everything we wanted to do in Fantasyland before moving on to the next land. Kye saw the carrousel right away after Dumbo and insisted on riding it next. We were all pretty hot (it was in the 90s everyday!) but our whole focus was about Kye being happy and having fun so we did that next. It’s a SUPER pretty carrousel and Kye loves riding the “horseys” so he enjoyed it, even though he wanted to use his seat belt thing as a rope to hold instead of a belt and the not-so-friendly cast member kept getting onto us that he had to wear it!
One of our favorites is Phillarmagic. Kye’s never seen anything 3D before and I was interested to see if he’d like it or if he’d be scared or hate wearing the glasses. Mom and Mrs. Charlotte haven’t been to any of the parks in years so it was fun to get to experience so many things for the first time with them too!
one of our Disney traditions – getting a pic of us in the 3D glasses 😉
Kye’s glasses pic!
Phillarmagic was awesome. Up until that point I felt rushed and overwhelmed. I felt like the day wasn’t going to be as magical as I’d envisioned and I was actually worried that none of us would have any fun. Waiting out in the hot sun isn’t really that great of a time (We NEVER have been when it’s as hot as it was! Zach and I ALWAYS go in the winter months!) and Kye didn’t love either ride. I’m SO glad we did Phillarmagic when we did. We all got to cool off, relax, and it’s the moment when things “clicked” with Kye. He understood that we had to wait for things but that we’d eventually get to ride/see them and that once we did it was worth the wait. He was in AWE at the show and I literally got tears in my eyes watching him. We’ve been watching The Little Mermaid lately (it’s my FAVORITE) and sing all the songs together. When Ariel’s scene came on and she sang my personal favorite Disney song Kye was so happy and it just melted my heart. I knew at that moment that it was going to be an amazing experience for us all. And from then on, everything went SO perfectly!!!
Next we rode Peter Pan and it was neat, but it’s one of those rides that Zach and I always skip so we’re not really attached to it and Kye’s only seen the movie once so it didn’t leave an impression on him either. We actually decided to go ahead and just skip Winnie the Pooh. I’ve never been a Pooh fan, Zach thinks it’s mega gay, so therefore Kye’s never even seen anything about Pooh. Why bother riding it? I have ZERO regrets about skipping it and moving on to things we would enjoy!
After Peter Pan we took a snack and potty break. Tip: You are allowed to bring food and drink into the park! We brought TONS of snacks and even packed our lunches. It saves TONS of money as well as time having to find a concession stand and wait in line to buy stuff. Zach gets hungry often (as does Kye!) so it was handy having plenty to choose from with us.
Kye wanted to share Daddy’s oatmeal cream pie…we were at Disney so why not let him?
taking a BIG BITE!
Our last ride in Fantasyland was It’s A Small World. It’s classic Disney at it’s finest right??? To me, it’s one of the rides that makes me think of my childhood and it was fun to have Mom there with me to ride it together. For Zach, it brings back horrible memories from his visit to Magic Kingdom as a child where Casey made them ride it over and over again. He cannot stand the ride but we wanted Kye to have the chance to experience it.
not happy!
I was excited though!
It wasn’t Kye’s favorite ride or anything, but he really did love it. The entire time he kept saying “look Daddy look!” and pointing at each and every thing we passed. It was so precious to see him so excited and it was another nice, longer, cool ride to just relax together. We had a boat all to ourselves so we could all talk and just enjoy Kye! It was funny because Zach later said that his mom obviously had the same feelings he did about It’s a Small World – she made a phone call while on the ride haha.
pointing some more!
The running joke between Mom and Zach became about how badly she wanted to ride It’s a Small World again…we rode it once and that was a big enough sacrifice for Zach Parker 😉
It’s a Small World was the final ride at Fantasyland for us. We did not do the Mad Tea Party (who wants to vomit at Disney? No thanks) or Snow White’s Scary Adventures. I seriously have memories of childhood riding that ride and it scared me for life. I hate that ride and will not put my child on it (heck, I don’t even wanna ride it!).
The itinerary said to head over to Frontierland next. When people found out I was going to Disney while pregnant they often said they felt bad b/c I wouldn’t be able to ride several things. Tip The only rides at Magic Kingdom that you can’t ride when pregnant are: any of the mountains (Space, Splash and Thunder) as well as Tomorrowland Speedway. Kye isn’t tall enough for any of those rides anyway, and I would never ride any of them even if I wasn’t pregnant. So it all worked out fine for me! This trip was ALL about KYE and about doing things Kye could do and enjoy doing. I don’t think it’s fair to make a toddler wait in line for a ride he can’t ride. It’s hard enough having him wait in line for the rides he can ride ya know?!? We did the park hopper option for every day at the parks so whenever Kye was napping or even in bed for the night or when we just had down time, any one that wanted to go could back to the park and ride the “grown up” rides. Mom and Zach were all about that and it worked out fine! Everyone was happy!
Since we weren’t doing Splash or Thunder Mountain, the only things to do in Frontierland are Country Bear Jamboree and Tom Sawyer Island. Tom Sawyer Island is something I don’t think I’ve ever gone to? It’s a huge playground and we decided to not bother with it. IF we were to go and only had one day at the park and Zach really wanted to ride the mountains, then it’d be a good place to take the kids while Daddy rode those rides. I’m pretty sure Kye will want to be riding them all too so I’m sure I’ll eventually experience Tom Sawyer Island with the younger kids 🙂
We got to see the ending of a dance party thing in the streets of Frontierland on our way to Country Bear Jamboree. Kye LOVED it and was upset when it ended. Mom and I ended up asking a cast member to dance with us to keep Kye happy haha. He really enjoyed the Country Bear Jamboree show, as we all did. It’s so funny to me how vulgar it is! You just don’t notice it as a kid! Kye’s favorite was the big bear that comes down from the ceiling on a swing so I took a picture of her for him 😉
I’m not sure yet how many blog entries it’ll take to cover out entire trip…so far I’m thinking it’s going to be A LOT though! 😉 Probably our absolute favorite Disney moment is coming up next!
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We are planning a Disney trip over Thanksgiving 2013 since it will be our sons first extended break from kindergarten. I have two kids. By then, they will be 5.5 and 2. I am loving your tips. It will our third time to WDW, but our first time with kids. Can't wait to read more of your trip.