The First Disney Park Visit: 10 Moms' Best Tips
By Kelly Bryant
Remember your first Disney Parks visit? Pretty soon it’ll be time to see the Magic Kingdom through the eyes of your little one — and create another generation of memories. Here, 10 moms offer their favorite tips and tricks for making the inaugural visit to the Disneyland Resort or the Walt Disney World Resort a successful one.
Choose a Slow Time of Year
“We live near Anaheim and visit Disneyland a lot. The park is always bustling, but if you can try to pick an off-peak time of year when lines aren’t their longest it really helps with a baby. The busiest times are usually summer, starting in late June and ending Labor Day, then the two weeks around Christmas and Spring Break. The emptiest I’ve seen the park is on Super Bowl Sunday!” - Jasmine S.
Bring Baby's Fav Food
“There are tons of food vendors at the parks and there are some fruit stands, but if you want to play it safe pack a small cooler bag with fruit, veggies, or string cheese so that you can pop them out when your child is hungry or getting fussy. This way you won’t have to spend time seeking out the vendor that has that one food your child loves.” - Jessie C.
Visit the Baby Care Center
“Disney has the best Baby Care Centers! They have relaxing, cushy diaper-changing areas, rocking chairs where you can sit with your baby to breastfeed, and even places to warm up milk, formula, or food. If anything, it’s a nice place to escape the heat with your small child.” - Cynthia B.
Take It Slow
“I had to keep reminding myself that this was no ordinary trip to Disney — there was a baby involved who operates on his own schedule. Don’t insist on making it to every single ride in the park — it’s not going to happen. Just let them have fun roaming around and exploring all of the fun things to see. My son didn’t want to stand in lines, so we mainly just did the rides that we could walk onto or those that only had a five-minute wait.” - Aimee L.
Use the FASTPASS® System
“FASTPASS® really helped us make it on more rides with little wait time, especially Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, which my son absolutely loved. He might have missed out on something that he thought was fun if we had to attempt to entertain him in a really long line.” - Libby A.
Do Your Research
“I did some reading ahead of time to find out which rides were toddler-friendly so that we could focus more of our time in those areas, like Fantasyland or Toontown. It was kind of nice to just zip right past that extra-long Space Mountain line — it was of no interest to us since the baby couldn’t ride it.” - Carolina P.
Factor in Naptime
“We found it was really helpful to encourage our daughter to take a nap in the middle of the day. Fortunately we were staying on Disney property so we just popped back to the hotel for a couple of hours but even if we weren’t, I think I would have looked for a way to create a nap anyway, either by pushing her around in the stroller outside of the park in a more low-key area or rocking her in the chair at one of the Baby Care Centers.”
- Meridith D.
Don't Sweat the Pictures
“No one wanted a picture of my daughter with Mickey Mouse more than my mother-in-law, so much so that she forced my poor, crying child to take a picture next to him even though she was terrified. She did love the Princesses, though, I think because they were less intimidating looking.”
- Brandy C.
Pack Extra Clothes
“I strongly recommend keeping an extra set of clothes on hand. Even if your child doesn’t have any accidents, there’s still the weather to contend with. During the summer months in Orlando they have sporadic rain throughout the day so if your child gets wet you’ll want to be able to change him into fresh clothes.” - Missy B.
Bring Pajamas
“At the end of the day we usually change our daughter into her pajamas at the park, that way if she falls asleep on the drive home it’s an easy transition to bed time. By the time we leave she’s usually so exhausted that she does end up tuckering out before we reach home.” - Allie N.
