How ya doin' Joselle and welcome to planDisney!
When I was 3 years old my mom and my aunt packed me and my 2 cousins in the car and drove us to the Walt Disney World Resort. It was to be the beginning of a lifelong love of The Most Magical Place on Earth. And now, a few decades later, it gives me such joy to be able to help you do the same. Between you and me, I think you've chosen the perfect age to do it. I took my goddaughter for her first visit when she turned 5 so I've got lots of tips to make planning easy! I have to lead by making sure that in addition to purchasing your
Theme Park Tickets, you'll need to
make Theme Park Reservations for you and your children via the Disney Park Pass System.
1. Make yourself a
My Disney Experience account. You'll need one to consolidate all of your plans in one place for your little family. You'll be able to add your children using their names and ages. They'll be so excited to choose a character to represent them on the list. There's even a great
corresponding app with all kinds of interactive maps and information that you'll need before and during your visit.
2. You can use the Build Your Vacation tool on the Walt Disney World homepage to curate the perfect stay for your family. It walks you through each step of the planning process. You'll enter your travel dates, info about you and the children, and the
Disney Resorts Collection hotel you'd like. You can even leave this particular information set to All Resort Hotels to keep your options open and see what works best for you, your children, and your budget. You can choose your Theme Park Tickets and everything!
3. Once you've booked your vacation, you can
start booking Advanced Dining Reservations 60 days before you arrive.
4. Once you've actually arrived at The Most Magical Place on Earth, start your days early. Going to school already had my goddaughter prepared to wake up so we definitely made it to the theme parks for opening. Keep an eye on the Park Hours in your My Disney Experience app to see which parks have
Early Theme Park Entry for Disney Resorts Collection hotel Guests for you to take advantage of.
5. Take breaks. My goddaughter made it through her first trip without a single meltdown because I was insistent on pacing ourselves. Inside the parks, we took long snack breaks and moments for her to get out of the stroller to get her wiggles out. We carefully timed certain attractions like Mickey's Phillharmagic to spend some time in the air conditioning. And we ate at odd times so that when the parks were getting busy and everyone was scrambling for lunch, we were headed back to our resort for a nap. My goddaughter still asks me if I've scheduled time for her naps into the itinerary for our upcoming trip.
Pro-tip:
Disney Parks Blog is the best place to get up-to-date news on all things, Disney. I recommend starting there and also by watching all of the room and resort tour videos you can find on the internet to get you going.
Joselle, I hope I've been able to help you today. If you have any other questions,
just ask me! See ya real soon.
Happy planning!
Taylor