We recently took a trip to Walt Disney World, and it was wonderful. I have been to Disney World several times in recent years with my adult friends. However, this was my first trip with Buddy, which meant putting a lot of extra thought into my planning. My family traveled with my best friend’s family, so we had a two year old and a three year old in our group. Not everything went according to plan, but most of it did. And amazingly, we had three and a half days of joy and laughter with no tears or meltdowns!

Ultimately, planning Disney for young children means doing everything possible to minimize waits and maximize fun. It takes some work to do it well, but in the end the effort is so worth it. (For me, planning is a large part of the fun!) Below is a summary of my planning timeline and links to other helpful resources.

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More than 6 Months Before: Choose the Right Date and Hotel

I’ve become pretty picky when it comes to Disney crowds. Disney is crowded all year long, but the crowds are worse when schools are on vacation. As a teacher, it’s easier for me to go during school breaks. However, it’s worth it to me to use a couple of personal days to have a less crowded and happier Disney experience. My off season Disney trips have been in late April, early November, and mid January. I’ve enjoyed all of these times. This WDW Prep Crowd Calendar can give you more specific guidance about what times are good to go and what events are available during your stay.

You also need to decide where you are going to stay during your trip. I have stayed on and off property, and there are merits to both. However, I prefer to stay on property because you never have to leave the Disney fun. It also takes less time to get into and out of the parks. The latter part was especially important to me when traveling with a little one. I knew we would want to go back to the hotel for nap time, and so I wanted to be as close as possible. Disney hotel guests can also book their Fast Passes earlier (60 days in advance compared to 30 days). If you don’t stay on property, many of the good Fast Passes will be gone.

We ended up staying at the Art of Animation Resort, and we loved it! We had a lot of fun exploring the hotel on our first day, and the theming is so fun. One of the reasons we chose this hotel is the family suites, which were great.

Download the My Disney Experience App

This app is so helpful when making reservations for dining and Fast Passes. It’s also great for looking at trends in wait times. The times won’t be the same every day, but if you check often, you’ll see patterns. Some rides always have a long wait time regardless of the time of day, and some never have a long wait time. Seeing patterns can help you decide which Fast Passes you need and which ones you can skip.

180 Days Before: Make Dining Reservations

You can make Advanced Dining Reservations 180 days before your first day of your trip if you are staying on Disney Property. If you are staying off property, you can schedule your reservations 180 days from that date. These reservations open up at 6 am EST, so for particularly hard to get reservations, you will want to get up early.

I highly recommend doing at least one early breakfast in the parks. You can get in up to an hour before the park opens, and then you can be one of the first on a ride. We got a 8:10 am reservation at Tusker House at Animal Kingdom. We finished up a little before 9, and we were able to walk onto Kilimanjaro Safari without a wait. Our group used our Fast Passes at Epcot that day, so we planned an early breakfast so we could do the safari ride without a long wait. Just make sure to check that there are no Early Magic Hours at the park on the morning of an early reservation. (Read this Touring Plans post about Early Magic Hours and when they are scheduled.)

I also highly recommend doing at least one character meal if you’re traveling with small children. (And honestly, we always do character meals even if we’re only traveling as adults because they’re so much fun!) During these meals, you will have several characters visit your table, and you can get autographs and take pictures. These meals were one of Buddy’s favorite parts of the trip! We did Tusker House at Animal Kingdom, Garden Grill at Epcot, and Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom. Touring Plans has a great list of the different character meal options here.

60 Days Before: Book Fast Passes

Fast passes are used to skip most of the line for a ride. Not all rides have them, but the popular ones do. Everyone gets three fast passes as part of their Disney ticket. If you are staying on Disney property, you can make your Fast Pass reservations 60 days in advance of your check in day. Everyone else can do theirs 30 days in advance. Fast Passes open up at 7 am EST, and again, it’s worth getting up early for good ones.

You can only book three passes in advance, and they all have to be used at the same park. After that, you can book one pass at a time for any park. Once you use up that pass, you can continue to book one pass at a time. Fast Passes at Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios are tiered, meaning you can only choose one of the most popular options. WDW Prep has a great summary of Fast Passes available and the priority levels here.

Our group chose to do the following fast passes:

Epcot: Seas with Nemo, Frozen Ever After, Spaceship Earth

Magic Kingdom (two days): Winnie the Pooh, Enchanted Tales with Belle, Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Buzz Lightyear, It’s a Small World, Space Mountain. While we did the rollercoasters, Buddy and my mother in law had fast passes for character visits. Peter Pan and Tomorrowland Speedway were on our initial list of Fast passes, but they were closed during our trip.

One Month Before: Make an Itinerary

If you have already booked your dining and Fast passes, they you already have a general idea of what parks you are visiting and what you want to do. But a month out is a good time to finalize what your day will look like. My friend and I ended up changing a couple of Fast Passes as we made our itinerary, so you don’t want to wait until too late to do this.

There are lots of sample itineraries online to give novices a place to start. Disney Tourist Blog has a great list of different itineraries for the parks. When I put together my itinerary, I spent a lot of time looking at the map. Once you decide where you want to start in the park, then look at the things close by that you also want to do. For us in Animal Kingdom, it meant starting in Africa and working our way across the park to Dinosaur USA. In Magic Kingdom, we spent almost all of our time in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland.

Three Weeks Before: Buy Special Items for Trip

I made a special trip to the dollar store before we left. I bought glow wands, and I even found Mickey ones! There are tons of other Disney related things you can get there for your trip. I bought small Mickey ziplocks for snacks and Mickey and Frozen stickers for the plane. Also, I got a Mickey coloring book and crayons for the plane and waiting at restaurants.

Since we were leaving for Disney a few weeks after Christmas, I made sure to buy stocking stuffers that would also work for our trip. I bought this book for pressed pennies, and a few toys that could be played with in line. (I bought a Tangle Jr., a fidget monster, and hot wheels cars.) I also bought a Mickey Mouse look and find book that we used while waiting.

Two Weeks Before: Make Hotel Requests and DIY Items

If you are staying on Disney property, you can check in ahead of time. When you check in, you can choose up to two room requests. I requested to be near transportation and main floor. I ended up calling because I also wanted my room to be near my friend’s room.

I also printed off cards for autographs, which will be put into a 4 x 6 photo album with printed pictures from our trip. The cards I used were from Hip 2 Save’s blog and Moms & Munchkins’s blog. I printed them on cardstock and cut them out. We brought them with a small clipboard and a click top Sharpie for autographs, and it worked well.

Additionally, I printed and laminated this stroller tag from 2paws Designs. There are thousands of strollers at Disney, and having a large tag with our name on it helped. (It also helped that we had a yellow stroller and no one else did!)

One Week Before: Pack

There are lots of great packing lists for Disney, including this one from Wit and Wander. I would recommend bringing lots of snacks, sunscreen, a portable phone charger, and an extra pair of sunglasses. (I broke or lost sunglasses on three of the four previous trips. I brought an extra pair for this trip, and of course I didn’t need them!)

Good luck with planning your Disney vacation! If you have any questions or additional suggestions, please share in the comments.