Monthly Archives: January 2019

What to do with a Preschooler in Disney World

Last week, I blogged about my planning process for Disney World. The ultimate success of our trip was largely due to taking time to making good dining reservations, booking good fast passes, and making a fun itinerary for the 2 year old and 3 year old boys in our group. This week, I want to focus on all of the things we did in all four parks and Disney Springs.

Our trip was only four days, so we didn’t get to everything. But we did do a lot, and we had a lot of fun. We spent our arrival day at our hotel (Art of Animation) and then Disney Springs. Our second day was Animal Kingdom, hotel for nap time, and then Epcot. We did Magic Kingdom, hotel for nap time, and then Hollywood Studios on our third day. And our final day we spent the morning in Magic Kingdom before flying home.

Having fun at the Art of Animation Hotel!

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

Magic Kingdom

What we did:

*Dumbo Ride – This was Buddy’s favorite ride! We did it three times. There is an amazing play area where you can wait and then you have a pager when it’s your turn to get on the ride. Buddy never was interested in playing there because we could always get right on the ride. But it looked like a lot of fun.

*Barnstormer – This was Buddy’s first roller coaster. Buddy was kicking and crying when we put him on, and then he immediately loved it and wanted to go again.

*It’s a Small World – A classic! Buddy has recently gotten this set of Lego animals around the world, and it was fun for him to see all of the people in different areas of the world.

*Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – Buddy had a lot of fun shooting his laser at the different targets.

*The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – We used a Fast Pass on this one, but the line is really fun and a great place for kids to play. It was a great follow up to our brunch at Crystal Palace, which was the highlight of Buddy’s day.

*Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid – This is a favorite of mine, and Buddy liked it a lot too.

*Enchanted Tales with Belle – An interactive story of Beauty and the Beast (without the scary Gaston part.) Buddy was cast as Mrs. Potts, and then had stage fright, so I had to do it with him. At the end participants of the show get to take a picture with Belle.

*Meet Daring Disney Pals and Meet Dashing Disney Pals as Circus Stars at Pete’s Silly Show – The Daring ones are Donald and Goofy, and the Dashing ones are Minnie and Daisy. I had originally planned to see just Daisy and Minnie, since Minnie was the only Mickey Mouse Clubhouse character not at one of our character meals. But of course, Buddy wanted to see them all.

*Meet Mickey Mouse at Town Square Theater – In the week since we did this, now it includes Minnie too. Buddy had already seen Mickey twice at this point, but he wanted to see him one more time before he left.

*Brunch at Crystal Palace – We had a great meal with great characters. Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, and Tigger all visited our table for pictures and autographs. Buddy was literally bouncing up and down watching Tigger come to our table.

What we missed:

I was so disappointed when I realized Peter Pan’s Flight, Tomorrowland Speedway, and the railroad were all going to be closed for our trip. All would have been great rides for Buddy. Other things we didn’t have time to get to were the Prince Charming Regal Carousel, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, and the play area by Splash Mountain.

Animal Kingdom

What we did:

*Breakfast at Tusker House – This is my favorite restaurant in Disney World. The food is great and the characters are so fun. Because we had an 8:10 reservation, Buddy met Daisy, Mickey, Goofy, and Donald before the park even opened.

*Kilimanjaro Safaris – We did this immediately after breakfast before a line started. It is a 20 minute jeep ride through the African savannah. This was Buddy’s second favorite ride of our trip.

*Festival of the Lion King – Buddy talked about this show for days both before and after our trip, and it was another highlight for him. It’s part circus, part sing along, and part character fun. Buddy loved it all!

*Gorilla Falls Wilderness Trek – This is a little like a zoo, but Buddy loved it anyway. You get to see gorillas, hippos, and exotic birds, in addition to other African animals.

*Boneyard play area – Some members of our group did the Dinosaur ride and the rest of us played in the Boneyard. I was expecting an actual digging area for bones, but it’s more of a playground. (*Edit – apparently there is a place to dig and we missed it. You have to go up and cross a bridge to get to it. We will do this next time!*) Buddy had a ton of fun jumping on dinosaur footprints and listening to the dinosaur sounds that played. There was also a pair of small slides that both boys enjoyed.

What we missed:

We wanted to do the Na’vi River Journey in the new Pandora area, but we ran out of time. If we had used Fast Passes at Animal Kingdom, we would have gotten one for that ride. I also love Finding Nemo the Musical, and I’m sure Buddy would have liked it too. The Maharajah Jungle Trek is another fun animal viewing area. The Wildlife Express train and affection station petting zoo were closed for renovations when we were there, but I would have loved to do that with Buddy. I had hoped Buddy would have done Triceratops Spin, but he was too nervous. I’m sure he would have done it if we had done Dumbo before our time in Animal Kingdom. There are also many character to meet at Animal Kingdom, but we didn’t meet anyone besides the ones at Tusker House.

Epcot

What we did:

*Frozen Ever After Ride – This was the first Fast Pass we booked, because Buddy loves Frozen and this is a very popular ride. Buddy loved it until the end, when he got soaked and burst into tears. We were on the front of the boat and he was on the edge. If we had put him in the middle, he would have been dry and happy.

*Meet Anna and Elsa at Royal Sommerhus – I was prepared for a long line, but we were able to see Anna and Elsa fairly quickly. Buddy was really excited to meet both of them, but was pretty shy in the moment.

*The Seas with Nemo – Buddy loves Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, so he was pretty excited to go on this ride. It’s a relaxing ride in a shell while watching video clips of the movie, and it finishes in a real aquarium.

*Turtle Talk with Crush – Buddy was brave enough to sit in the front of the theater with the other kids. Kids asked questions to Crush, and the animated Crush was able to answer them in live time. It was kind of amazing, and fun for all of us.

*Gran Fiesta Tour – This is a boat ride with the Three Caballeros. Buddy loves Donald, so this ride was a lot of fun for him.

*Garden Grill – We had dinner here, and it was a lot of fun. The whole restaurant slowly revolves, and you can see different nature scenes. The meal is served family style, and we liked the food. The restaurant wasn’t busy when we were there, and we were able to see all of the characters (Chip, Dale, Pluto, and Mickey) twice. Chip even made it to our table three times, and he was really playful with Buddy! Buddy had so much time with all of the characters, and it was nice that we didn’t have to worry about missing them while at a buffet.

What we missed:

We actually had a Fast Pass to Spaceship Earth, but by the time we went to use it, Buddy was too tired. I would have liked to do Journey Into Imagination with Figment, and Living with the Land. The Epcot Character Spot would have been fun too.

Hollywood Studios

What we did:

*50s Prime Time Cafe – There are many fun dining options at Hollywood Studios, but Buddy decided that a tv at the table would be fun. Not all the tables are like that, however. (I forgot when I gave Buddy the option of 50s Prime Time and Sci Fi Diner. Thankfully that worked out.)

*Frozen Sing Along – This was a lot of fun for Buddy because he loves Frozen. There are live performances with Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff, along with the Royal Historians who tell the Frozen story. Then they play the songs with all the words on the screen for the few people who haven’t seen Frozen over and over with their kids. Snow comes down at the end, which was a nice touch of Disney magic.

*Celebrity Spotlight – One of the main reasons we decided to visit Hollywood Studios was to meet Olaf. Buddy had so much fun seeing him.

*Fantasmic – Buddy doesn’t like fireworks much, so I was excited to do Fantastmic, which doesn’t have many. The animation projections on water and characters on boats were really cool. I forgot it was a little scary. Mickey fights a large dragon and there was a lot of fire everywhere. Buddy toughed it out, but he wasn’t a fan of Fantasmic. A lot of kids love it though.

What we missed:

I really wanted to take Buddy on Toy Story Mania, but we used our Fast Passes at Magic Kingdom that day, and the line was long. If we would have had longer at Hollywood Studios, I would have done it though. Other fun options for preschoolers at Hollywood Studios are the Disney Junior Dance party, Muppet Vision 3D, and Minnie and Mickey Starring in Red Carpet Dreams.

Disney Springs

What we did:

*T-Rex Cafe – This is a restaurant where large animatronic dinosaurs make noise and move a little. I was a little nervous that the boys would be scared, but they both loved it!

*Marketplace Train Express – This is a tiny kid train, and somehow was the only train working during our Disney trip. It was a must for my train loving boy. He had so much fun going on this, and we were able to go twice in a row! It cost $5 for the two boys to ride and one parent rode for free with each boy. (There can only be two parents at a time on the ride though.) When my friend’s son was crying because he had to get off the train, the guy in charge let him ride again for free. And then he let Buddy go with him. It was the best $5 I’ve ever spent at Disney.

Train ride selfie! Buddy had so much fun!

*Once Upon a Toy – A very fun toy store, and Buddy wanted to buy everything! He had a gift card for souvenirs, and eventually decided to buy a monorail.

*Lego store – There are life sized Disney characters built out of Legos. There are also stations where you can play with Legos or Duplos. This was a fun way to kill time before going to dinner.

*Watching Amphicars – It is a classic car that drives into the lake and turns into a boat. They were cool to watch go around the lake.

What we missed:

There is a carousel by the Marketplace train that would have been a lot of fun. The World of Disney Store at Disney Springs is enormous and has lots of unique souvenirs. There are also a ton of fun restaurants to visit or even just to grab dessert.

Our trip to Disney was so much fun, and we were all sad to go home. I can’t wait until I can go back! Please leave a comment if you are planning a trip of your own and have questions, or if you have other suggestions that I missed.

Planning a Magical Disney World Trip for a Preschooler

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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.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

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.

Buddy enjoying the playground at Art of Animation.

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.

Buddy had a ton of fun meeting all of the cars at our hotel.

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.

My family enjoying our dinner at 50s Prime Time Cafe in Hollywood Studios.

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.)

Tusker House breakfast and Mickey Mouse! It doesn’t get any better than this!

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.

Buddy’s having fun meeting Dale at the Garden Grill.

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.

Buddy’s favorite ride was the Dumbo ride! No fast passes were needed for this one though.

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.

Buddy is ready for a day in Magic Kingdom!

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.

Chip thought Buddy’s fidget monster was a nut and tried to eat it!

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.

Buddy was a little shy when he met Elsa. But he was so excited to meet her.

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.

Cleaning Coins Science Activity

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I love finding easy activities to do with Buddy that involve things I already have in my home. It makes me especially happy when I come across an activity that is also helpful or useful in some way. This cleaning pennies activity is a little bit of both.

We are going to Disney World later in the month, and I wanted to clean some pennies to use in the pressed penny machines. Buddy has loved doing these at zoos in the past, and I know there are a ton of different machines available at Disney World. I decided it would be fun to try some different methods to clean up the pennies and make them shiny and ready for pressing.

Here are our pennies and mini m&ms canister before we started.

I read somewhere that you can use vinegar and salt or ketchup to clean off pennies. Buddy and I decided to try both methods to see what was easiest and worked the best. We started with ketchup because that seemed like it would be the most fun for Buddy.

We put a bunch of old pennies in a bowl, and Buddy squirted a bunch of ketchup on top of it. I also filled up a separate bowl with water. Buddy and I each took a penny, rubbed it in ketchup, wiped it off with a paper towel, and then dropped it into the water.

Cleaning with ketchup is so much fun!
A view of our whole ketchup cleaning station.

I thought it was kinda gross and sticky, but Buddy thought it was a lot of fun! It did an ok job of cleaning the pennies, but neither of us were impressed with the results. The pennies were shinier than they had started, but there was still a lot of dirt on them.

Our pennies after the ketchup cleaning.

The next method we tried was using vinegar and salt. There are lots of sites with different information about this strategy, but they all suggest mixing 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1 teaspoon of salt. I doubled this recipe to have a little more liquid. One site suggested putting in 5 pennies at a time in the solution for 10 seconds, and then following with a rinse in water. So that was the second method we tried.

Cleaning our pennies five at a time in the vinegar.

Buddy enjoyed all of the counting with this method. We’d count out five coins, and then count the 10 seconds. Then we’d rub them around in the salt, and then move to a new bowl of water. It took awhile, but Buddy seemed to have fun with this process.

After the second round of cleaning, the pennies looked even better. But there was still a lot of dirt on them! Buddy examined them and decided we should try one more thing.

The pennies are looking better, but they’re not done yet.

I found a different website that recommended doing a longer soak in the vinegar, which made sense to me. It also said to put in a whole bunch of pennies, but to make sure that they weren’t overlapping on the bottom. We did the same vinegar solution, and this time we laid out all of the coins on the bottom. Then we set a timer for 5 minutes.

Buddy put a lot of care into laying the pennies out neatly.

After 5 minutes, we took them out one at a time. Then we brushed them off with a tooth brush and put them into fresh water. When all of them were done, I put them in a metal colander and rinsed them thoroughly under running water.

After the third round of cleaning, we had many that were Disney World worthy. And some that still weren’t. It was a little frustrating to both of us. Fortunately, we had some other new and shiny pennies that we could add to our newly cleaned penny collection, and that was more than enough for what we needed.

Our final set of cleaned coins. The top half are Disney worthy. The bottom half were still too dirty for our liking.

Once everything was dried off, we filled our mini m&m container with two quarters and a penny alternating all the way to the top. I used a gold sharpie to add a little extra sparkle to it. We’re both excited to have all of our pennies ready to go for Disney World!