With our next trip to Walt Disney World right around the corner, I thought I'd share with you guys a few ways we've been preparing our kids (3 and 22 months) for their upcoming trip.
Movie Nights
I saw a great idea on Pinterest to do movie nights prior to a Disney trip. I thought this was such a great idea. My husband and I in the past have tried to play significant movies prior to vacation so things will be more recognizable, but we've never made a big hoopla about it. This year we decided every Saturday night we'd have a picnic dinner on our living room floor (oftentimes making or buying food on theme with the movie we were watching) and we'd watch a movie. We started 14 weeks out and our list included the following movies (with the rides/attractions we'd hope it familiarize in parenthesis):
- Lion King (Festival of the Lion King live show, Animal Kingdom & Philharmagic, Magic Kingdom)
- Aladdin (Aladdin's Magic Carpet, MK & Philharmagic, MK)
- Beauty & the Beast (Be Our Guest restaurant and the new Belle addition to Fantasyland, Magic Kingdom & Beauty & the Beast live show, Hollywood Studios & Philharmagic, MK)
- Tinkerbelle (Meeting the fairies in Pixie Hollow, MK)
- Peter Pan (Peter Pan's Flight, MK & Philharmagic, MK)
- Mulan (Meeting Mulan and general China, Epcot... and my husband wanted Chinese food ;) )
- Finding Nemo (Finding Nemo live show, Animal Kingdom & Finding Nemo ride, Epcot)
- Little Mermaid (Little Mermaid ride, new Fantasyland expansion, MK & Little Mermaid show, HS & Philharmagic, MK)
- Winnie the Pooh (Winnie the Pooh ride, MK & Crystal Palace character dining breakfast)
- Toy Story (Toy Story Mania, HS & meeting the characters (HS & MK) & Pizza Planet, HS & Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, MK)
- Monsters Inc (Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, MK & meeting characters, HS)
- Sword & the Stone (Sword and the Stone outside the carousel in MK)
- Pocahontas (Fantasmic firework show, HS)
Our boys are young, so they didn't always make it through a full movie, but now they find all these characters more recognizable -- especially our 3 year old. And because they're boys, we've watched plenty of Toy Story and Monsters Inc, but Little Mermaid, Mulan and Pocahontas are not in our usual repertoire.
Ride Videos
On YouTube, "undercovertourist" posts fantastic quality videos of rides. Not long after our last trip we would rewatch some of our favorites (Peter Pan's Flight & Winnie the Pooh) every once in awhile, but now that we're getting closer to our trip, every few weeks when I'm at the computer, I pull up some rides and watch with the kids. Lately, our oldest, J, asked if we could please watch ride videos and sat at the table watching some time. This helps kids know what to expect and also shows them/reminds them how exciting rides are!
Photo Albums
circa 9/2012
(the book shown in this pic is one about Mickey Mouse & his bear exploring Magic Kingdom we read a lot too. It's no longer in print.)
After each of our trips, I've managed to somehow get a coupon for a free 8x8 Shutterfly book. So, I've used those to make books of our trip. The boys love looking through those books with all our family pictures and seeing themselves with Donald Duck, Jake, Goofy, on rides, in the pool... they get so excited and ask to go to Disney World right then. Sometimes I'll also pull up the old albums on Facebook and we'll srcoll through images on my phone. If you haven't been before, you could always find a friend on FB with an album of WDW pics and show them to
your kids. We have several family friends who go and when I look through their pics the boys always want to look with me.
Testing Freedom/Fostering
Independence and Obeying
I intend to right another post called "
Preparing Yourself for Taking Toddlers to WDW" later this week because even though it's magical and wonderful, it's also an undertaking! This tip I'd lump into both posts. Before your trip, let your toddlers practice independence. If they normally stay in strollers or shopping carts get them out and start working on good behavior like:
obeying your saying to come to you, staying close to Mom &/or Dad in public, not running away, not picking up toys off the shelves or being sure to put them back, sitting at tables without a highchair, etc. It's so good to do this because at WDW you can't take a stroller through lines with you or even into some areas. There's whole "lots" of parked strollers. In Fantasyland, for example, I know we'll be mostly parked and the boys will be walking. Practicing this pre-trip teaches them to obey and that we have limits and it also teaches me how to curb bad habbits ahead of time.
Countdown
I made a paper chain countdown for our family around 100 days out. They've loved pulling off chains and watching the chain shrink as our day to leave approaches.
These are just a few tips for getting your little ones ready to meet characters, ride rides, recognize things, and be good listeners before your trip. If you have any more, please share! And enjoy! WDW is so fun and great even for little ones. Even if they don't recognize everything or know who's who in rides, they're still going to have a blast being with you nonstop and being in such a generally fun place!
If you haven't read these posts and need more tips check out:
Preparing yourself to take toddlers to Disney World
Tips for taking toddlers to Disney World
Tips for taking babies to Disney World
Tips for introducing toddlers to characters
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