Disney World is huge. It mightn’t look it on a map of the individual parks, but each park is quite a size to wander around, especially with little ones. Make sure that you read a good, up-to-date guide book before you leave home. Make notes of where you can easily locate bathroom facilities, if possible know where these are in each sector of the park, because you can guarantee that younger children are going to be so caught up in the magic and excitement that they’re not going to give you much advance warning! Refreshment areas are another good thing to memorize.
Use your guidebook to locate which of the rides and entertainment are inside and which are outdoors in each sector of the park. This will be invaluable if you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a brief but torrential downpour and need to find shelter without losing any precious sightseeing time.
If you are allowed to access the park early – check with the Disney website for the current status on this – take advantage of it. The best use of your time will be to use the extra hour to experience the rides that are popular and will have huge queues later in the day.
There are some shows and parades that happen at certain times of the day. Make sure you get a daily program as soon as you enter the park so that you don’t miss anything that you want to see. It pays to be in the area early so if you are planning to watch one of these scheduled events, plan to be in that part of the park doing other things in the hour or so before it starts so that you can then get a good viewing place before the other people start arriving just to see the event. It might even be a good time to buy some drinks and sit down to take a break from the attractions whilst assuring your little one of being able to see everything when it gets started.
Multi-day passes often allow you multi-park entry during any day, plus free transportation on the Disney transport system – this means you can take a break from the major parks during the busy times and cool off in one of the water parks for a while before returning later to the major park for the evening program. Not only will you avoid the queues, but your child will have a chance to power down a little and recharge their sensory batteries before going back for more excitement!
If you are traveling to the Disney park by car, the most important piece of advice I can give you is to write down where you park the car! This isn’t like the car park at Walmart! It might seem easy to remember your parking place number and area, but after a few hours of Disney park excitement with a little one who wants to be everywhere, and do everything, all at the same time, it’s easy to return to the car park and realize that you’re no longer sure what the space number was – and worse, the car isn’t where you thought it was! Before you leave the car, write down your exact parking place on a piece of paper and put this somewhere you’ll not lose it – in your pocket book, with your cell phone, in your shoe, anywhere you’ll be able to find it when you’re weary, carrying a bag full of goodies from the park, and a sleeping child!
My last bit of advice for parents taking small children into the Disney parks is to put a piece of paper in your child’s shoe that gives contact information in case your little one gets lost. Instruct your child that if they get separated from you they are to go immediately to a cast member and tell them they’ve lost mommy and daddy, and that mommy said the cast member should look inside their shoe. No-one wants to think of losing a child on a day out, but it’s a big park with a lot of people so it’s better to take an extra precaution just in case.
Have a great Disney day!
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