Resort, check.
Race Entries, check.
Basic outline of the week, check
Advance Dining Reservations, check.
FastPass+, check.
What else could possibly be left?
Prepping our non-tv watching kids for a trip to Disney, that’s what.
I had read a lot of tips on getting your kids ready for meeting characters, or just Disney in general. In our case, we hadn’t really exposed them to movies, characters, or anything that would add the famous Pixie Dust to make this a true Disney Vacation.
I won’t lie- I probably spent way too much time plotting and planning how to accomplish the task at hand.
Finally, I settled on starting with watching some YouTube videos. This would hopefully help introduce the kids to characters, and the idea of character meet & greets.
From there, we would move onto a movie or two.
There are a multitude of character Meet & Greet videos on YouTube. While we watched these, I would talk to the kids about what they were watching. We would talk about each character, starting with how nice they were, and making mention of their size, which is not something that is expected if you only see them on tv or in movies.
After a few videos, we moved on to tv/movies.
So far, the kids only really showed interest in a few programs. Doc McStuffins is a big hit. Daniel Tiger is another winner. The only other thing they would watch more than 2 minutes of was Cars. Lightning McQueen.
Next on the list was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I figured this was an easy way to get them interested in the most basic of Disney characters- Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, etc.. It worked. They really love Mickey & Minnie. The next attempt was Nemo. It’s a favorite of mine, so it only makes sense to start with that. Animated, animals, and Disney. Winning combo. The kids actually watched it!
Next up was Tangled- also a personal favorite! They didn’t make it through the whole thing (they have still not made it all the way through a movie, to be honest), but loved the songs. We also tried Frozen- another hit.
We tried a few others, but they didn’t seem nearly as interested.
The hope was that by spending some time encouraging them to grow a little attachment to these characters ahead of time, we would improve the chances that they would be excited, not scared, to see them in person in the parks.
With that underway, it was time to think about what to bring, how to bring it, and our flights. This would be the first flight with kids over two- no more lap kids.
There are differing opinions out there regarding kids and flying. I’ll let you come to your own conclusion. This time, we booked three seats next to each other, and one across the aisle. The flight to and from Orlando is not quite 3 hours, and we have a few direct flights to choose from. This trip, we went with the later flight, scheduled to arrive around 8pm.
With Nonie & Pops driving down, we were able to send some essentials down with them, leaving only the basic clothes, and things, to be packed and checked in a suitcase. That was helpful. We sent our double jogging stroller, inflatable beds (even though we had requested two pack and plays from the resort, we know better than to assume.) and some other larger items.
Finally. There was nothing left to do besides count down the days and get excited!