Disney World with Toddlers Tips & Tricks

I have mentioned before that we used Mix and Match Travel Agency to plan our trip. Erika was the best! I highly recommend her. She really helped me with every little thing, I would have been clueless if not for her!!

In case you missed my recap of each day you can find them here! Days 1 & 2 Days 3 & 4 and Days 5 & 6

Here are some of the things that I found helpful and would do again when we go back!

* Pack each days outfit in a plastic bag. I put Jacks shirt, shorts, underpants and socks in a ziplock. It was so easy to pull out each bag in the morning and hand to him to get dressed. I didn't have to think about what he was going to wear or fight with him.

* Bring a backpack to take with you into the park. In my backpack I had a ziplock full of snacks, one with sunblock, bandaids, wipes, hand sanitizer. one with a spare change of clothes for Jack. Of course if you have a baby in diapers that's also something you need to include. I also had a water bottle for both of us that we would refill throughout the day.

* Bring a portable phone charger. We ended up using this most every day. I have this one and love it.

* We used amazon pantry and had it delivered to our resort the day we arrived. We ordered things like gold fish, granola bars, apples, crackers...snack items that we wanted to take into the park or be able to grab in our room.

* Erika rented a stroller for both Ellen and I and this was awesome. The stroller was at the hotel when we arrived and I didn't have to worry about messing up mine or something happening to it. I had cute little tags made by my friend that said our name so that they were easy to spot. There are a TON of strollers and they all look the same. Even with the tag there was a time or two I still had trouble finding it....one time because I forgot to put the break on and it rolled into the middle of this open area. We all had a good laugh about this!

* I was worried about Jack missing his nap, I know lots of people say they go back to their resort for naps, I was lucky in that he either napped in the stroller or didn't nap at all and was fine. If I had a child younger than Jack I definitely would make a point to go back to the resort for a nap.

Dining: 

We had a meal plan included in our trip. We were allowed 2 snack, 1 Quick Service and 1 Table service a day. We found this to be plenty of food and I think only one time did we have to buy a full meal that was not part of our dining plan.

The Table Service Meals we had:

Chef Mickey (Contemporary Resort) - A must do! Our kids loved this. We planned this for the first night for dinner which was such a great way to get them excited and seeing some characters. It is a buffet and has something for everyone, including my super picky health conscious sister! They always offered a kids section which had mac n cheese, chicken nuggets etc. There was a really good dessert table too!

Tusker House  (Animal Kingdom) - We had breakfast here. It was yummy! Lots of variety and again our kids loved seeing the characters!

Akershaus Royal Banquet (Epcot)- We had breakfast here and It was one of my favorite meals. They brought it to your table family style. There is also a small buffett with fruits, yogurt and a few other things. This is a princess meal and everyone loved seeing them but the little girls especially were excited.

O'Hana (Polynesian Resort)- We had dinner her and it was awesome!! It's a polynesian style meal, super yummy! I was worried that our kid would have nothing to eat but the waiter was so accommodating and brought them mac n cheese, fries, and chicken nuggets. The dinner is not a character meal but I believe breakfast and maybe lunch are.

T-Rex Cafe (Disney Springs)- This was my least favorite sit down we had. I thought the boys would love it but it turns out it was too loud and so much going on that everyone was overwhelmed and also super tired. The meal was fine but nothing spectacular. I don't think we would go here again. The atmosphere is cool if your kids are into dinosaurs but don't expect to have a quiet dinner by any means.

Quick Service:

Be Our Guest (Magic Kingdom) - This counts as a QS for breakfast only. It was very good and I would highly recommend going for breakfast, especially since it gets you in the park early!

Pecos Bills (Magic Kingdom)- We had lunch here, its mexican and I thought for a QS it was very good. I liked the toppings bar that is included with every meal. I also liked that they had a kids menu which included an uncrustable, which pretty much jack lived on all week

Pinocchio Village Haus (Magic Kingdom) - We had dinner here. It's italian and we all got pizza. It was on flat bread and I thought it was decent. Nothing spectacular but for a QS was good.

the rest of our meals we ate at our resort. They were all quick service or snacks and were very good!

Rides:

I admit I was a bit overwhelmed when trying to pick out our fast passes initially. I wanted to get the rides that everyone would like. The whole FP system is a bit annoying to me. I hate that you have to use all 3 of your FP before you can book anymore and you can only book one at a time from there on out, and you also can't book at multiple parks.

Here is a list of all the rides that we rode. Jack was just at 40'' thankfully so he was able to ride everything that we wanted to!

Magic Kingdom
*Pirates of the Caribbean
*Aladian's Magic Carpet
*Buzz Light Year (Jack's Favorite!)
*Barnstormer (Not worth the wait...it's literally 30 seconds and super jerky)
*Peter Pan's Flight
*It's a Small World
* Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (So fun!)
*Winnie The Poo
*Dumbo
*Speedway (not worth the way...not fun!)

Epcot: 
*Soarin (Our favorite!) 
* Frozen (Another favorite!) 
* Finding Nemo 

Animal Kingdom 
*Killimanjaro Safari
*Festival of the Lion King

Hollywood Studios
*Star Wars
* Muppets 3-D 
*Little Mermaid Live
*Disney Jr. Live 
* Toy Story Mania (a favorite)

You can see that we spent the majority of our time at the Magic Kingdom. It really fit the needs of everyone in our group and had the best rides in our opinion. 

I hope this was helpful for you. I know that it can be super overwhelming when planning your first trip. Now that I've been I feel like when we plan our next trip it will be a bit easier for me as I'l know what we want to do or what we don't want to do! Definitely use a planner, they are magic!! 

*Linking up with Beth