Now that Valentina is almost five, or pre-school age, I suppose we no longer qualify as having visited Disney with toddlers, but since we’ve now gone three years in a row, I figured I would do a follow up post to round out how our experience changed this year now that our daughter is older.
I will preface this post by saying although we have loved our Disney trips the past three years, we decided that next year we’ll take a break and go somewhere else.
Not because this year was less enjoyable, but I actually think visiting Disney with toddlers or even younger children can be easier than going with a pre-school age child. Now that Valentina is old enough to understand Disney, she had a lot of preconceived ideas of how she wanted to dress and how she wanted to spend her time.
And rightfully so. It is her trip as much as it is ours.
But her ideas don’t always make the most sense and if you’ve ever tried to reason with a pre-schooler, well, you know how that goes.
We did a few things the same and a few different this year. First, we stayed at the same resort as we did the past few years, here.
Planning a vacation with a toddler? Read my Tips for Traveling with a Toddler
DISNEY TRAVEL ADVISOR and ITINERARY
This year, we extended our trip an extra day so we could visit Epcot twice since we enjoyed it so much last year.
I worked with the same Disney planner to map out a schedule that included four park days, however, this is where I completely messed up. We planned the schedule so far in advance that by the time the trip arrived, I had forgotten.
Our planned schedule looked like this:
Day 1: Animal Kingdom
Day 2: Epcot
Day 3: Magic Kingdom (this day we had Bibbidy Bobbitdy Boutique and lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table so we had to do MK on this day)
Day 4: Epcot
But I totally spaced and was so used to doing Magic Kingdom on the first day that I went into turbo mode and that’s exactly what we did.
Our schedule ended up looking like this instead:
Day 1: Magic Kingdom
Day 2: Epcot
Day 3: Magic Kingdom
Day 4: Animal Kingdom
So we ended up having two days at Magic Kingdom because we had reservations. I was pretty mad at myself but if there’s one thing I’ve learned when visiting Disney, it’s that being flexible is key. The lesson I learned is to put the park days in your calendar!
ARRIVAL DAY: DISNEY SPRINGS
We always use our arrival day to settle in, use the hotel pool and then we go to dinner at Disney Springs. We ate at Paddlefish which we always enjoy then we did some shopping at World of Disney. Valentina has almost everything in the store, so we left with significantly less in our cart than we did in years past.
After dinner, we did some dancing at the outdoor concert.
DAY ONE: MAGIC KINGDOM
Now that we know the lay of the land and have mastered genie+, our first day is usually smooth sailing. We came to discover that Valentina was much more interested in meeting characters this trip than she was in riding the rides much to our dismay. Character meet-and-greets are cute, but they’re a lot of chasing and waiting. My only gripe is that Disney doesn’t do a great job of staggering them so many of the characters go on break at the same time making it hard to fit everyone she wanted to see into the day.
We arrived in time to catch the tail end of the opening ceremony. From there, we rode Prince Charming’s regal Carousel and did some princess meet-and-greets. After, we rode Dumbo the Flying Elephant, it’s a small world and Peter Pan’s Flight (Valentina had no interest in riding this so my husband and I both rode it separately).
We got some really average lobster rolls for lunch which we ended up discarding because we were concerned about the salmonella factor and headed back to the hotel pool then back to Disney Springs for dinner at Jalea and ice cream at Salt & Straw.
Day 1 Rides: Prince Charming’s Regal Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Princess Meet and Greets (Cinderella and Elena), Dumbo, it’s a small world and Peter Pan’d Flight.
DAY TWO: EPCOT
Epcot is always epic. This day happened to be Mother’s Day so we enjoyed some cocktails as we made our way around the world. The focus of this day for Valentina was character meet and greets plus the Journey of Water which is an interesting walk through exhibit.
We ate fish and chips in London while we waited for Winnie the Pooh to come back from his break.
After we did one full loop of Epcot, we made our way back to the hotel for dinner at Capa on site.
Day 2 Character Meet & Greets: Daisy Duck, Moana, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, Snow White (Valentina was sleeping for this one), Mulan, Donald Duck.
DAY THREE: MAGIC KINGDOM
This was the non-negotiable Magic Kingdom Day because we had reservations at Bippity Boppity Boutique and lunch reservations at Cinderella’s Royal Table. Because we had done these two things already, the “wow” factor just wasn’t there for me like it was the first time. I think the same for Valentina.
She chose Ariel for her princess transformation and then we headed straight to lunch to meet the princesses. The best thing I did for the past two years is buy an autograph book that Valentina uses to collect autographs of the characters and princesses. I make sure to get pictures of her meeting them and then I print the photos and put them in the autograph book so she has a keepsake from the trip.
After lunch we met Mirabel and then left for the day. We had dinner back at Disney Springs at a new restaurant called Summer House which I highly recommend.
Day 3 Meet and Greets: Ariel,Merida, Aurora, Cinderella (again), Jasmine and Mirabel
DAY FOUR: ANIMAL KINGDOM
Since we have done Hollywood Studios before, we wanted to try a new park this time. My husband and Valentina are both animal lovers so Animal Kingdom was an obvious choice.
Before we headed over, we did Toppolino’s Terrace for breakfast which is a cute character meet and greet. We ended up skipping the character breakfast at the Four Seasons this time in exchange for this one. My advice is to choose one per trip. Any more is overkill.
Before the rain, we squeezed in the Kilimanjaro Safari which was a really fun and educational experience. It felt like we were on a real game drive on safari. After, we went straight to Kali River Rapids where we got absolutely soaked, which didn’t matter because a storm came in right after.
We spent less time at Animal Kingdom than anticipated mostly because of the downpour. We ended up waiting it out under cover then leaving after.
For dinner, we ate at back at the hotel.
Day 4 Rides and Meet and Greets: Daisy Duck, Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Kilimanjaro Safari, Kali River Rapids
MOUSE EARS + STROLLER RENTAL
I use the same mouse ears from year to year which you can find here.
I love renting our stroller through Scooter Bug. The prices are reasonable and they pick up and drop off at your hotel.
GENIE+ AND MEMORY MAKER AT DISNEY
These add-ons are some of the most debated amongst Disney goers. Genie+ is a must-have to get through lines faster with less waiting.
I’m torn on Memory Maker. Last year, we loved it because we got some really sweet family photos and it takes the stress out of asking someone to take photos for you, but this year the price went up and none of the photos impressed me. In fact, we got some really bad photos for what we paid so I’m not sure if we’ll use it again if we go in the future but it’s likely because they have photographers in some of the key places you would want photos.
Overall, we loved our trip as we do every year, but I think it will be nice to take a break and go back when Valentina is elementary school-aged so we can have an entirely new experience!
Check out my other Disney with Toddlers posts:
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