Disney & Universal Tips (With a baby & without)

Before we went to Florida, I had been looking for tips on how to make your theme park visits with a baby as easy and enjoyable as possible.  So I thought that it might be helpful to share what I had learnt.


1.  Strollers - I bought a fancy umbrella stroller for the trip.  This was partially because it's significantly smaller than our regular stroller and we had limited room in the vehicles.  The stroller had a small area underneath it to carry things which I found very helpful.  I liked having the smaller stroller in the parks for maneuvering around, but it didn't recline all the way back, so I found that Parker wouldn't really fall asleep in it.  I had to put him in our Ergo carrier when he was getting tired and then he would fall right asleep. 

I would definitely recommend bringing your own stroller ahead of renting one from Disney or Universal as they are hard and don't recline at all.  

You can't bring strollers in the line ups so that's where the carrier comes in handy so that you don't have to hold your baby the entire time you are waiting.  The strollers are left in stroller parking.  Our stroller was always there when we returned to it, I just never left anything valuable in it.

2. Feed when you can and where you can - At Universal we had really long waits.  I fed Parker his breakfast in line and I nursed him in line.  I just put him sideways in the Ergo so that it provided a bit of support and put on the nursing cover and we were good to go.  

At Disney, I found nursing Parker during shows worked well.  Well it worked when he was hungry enough to not be distracted by the show!  I nursed him in the Country Bear Jamboree (he was very distracted by the bears!), in the Carousel of Progress and in the Enchanted Tiki Hut.  While waiting during a rider switch is also a great time to feed, whether it be nursing or real food.  See below for more rider switch details!

3. Take time for meals - When I wasn't feeding Parker in line, we did take time for real meals and sat down at a table.  This gave me time to feed Parker properly.  I did bring some baby food to feed him, but also shared whatever meals we got.  A perk of having a baby is that you can order kids meals and save some money!

4. Bring a bag or cover for stroller - Luckily it didn't rain, but if it did I had brought a stroller rain cover.  I figured Parker would be very unhappy if he got soaking wet.  (Most line ups are indoors or covered so that would help.)  At the very least, bring a garbage bag so that you can cover your stroller while it's in stroller parking if you think it's going to rain.

5. Fastpass - At Disney you get 3 fastpasses that you book ahead of time.  We booked ours all as early in the day as we could.  So we booked the first one for 8:55 and got to Disney at 8.  First thing we did was rush to the back of the park and go on the roller coasters that we didn't have fastpass for.  There was no wait for them at this point.  Then at 8:55 we could go on Space Mountain.  We used our next two fastpasses before noon.  

Once you have used all of your fastpasses you can book them one at a time.  So we continued to book fastpass for whatever was the earliest available ride.  Doing it this way we never waited in line for a ride.  It might seem silly to use a fastpass for It's a Small World, but do you really want to wait in line for an hour and a half for it? Definitely not!

6. Rider Switch - But how do you all go on the rides when you have a baby, you ask?  Easy peasy.  It's called Rider Switch/Swap.  At Universal, you all have to wait in line for the ride.  Once you are at the front, you just tell them that you want to do a rider switch and they send you to a little waiting room.  When the first group gets off the ride, you can get on it.  Since we had 7 adults, two of us would wait and then we didn't have to ride alone afterwards.

At Disney, there were only a few rides that Parker couldn't go on, and the only ride that we used Rider Switch for was Space Mountain, which we had Fastpass for.  When the first group went through I just got a rider switch pass which allows 3 people to use the Fastpass line at any point in the day.  I waited alone while they went on the ride.  (At Disney you don't wait in the line up, so if we hadn't of had Fastpass I could of found another ride for me and Parker to go on.)  Then when everyone was done, I went on Space Mountain and two other people got to ride a second time!

In hindsight, I didn't need a Fastpass for Space Mountain and could of used my first Fastpass on something else because of the Rider Switch.

7. Get to the park early - If you can get to the park early, it's a huge help.  As I said before, we rushed to the back of the park while everyone else was gawking over Main Street USA and we didn't wait in line for the rides.  We also beat the crowds and had no traffic coming in and we could see that the parking lot was getting really backed up once we got in.  So we saved the huge rush at the gates and on the monorail.  We weren't quite as lucky with Universal and we got there too late so everything was already very crowded.  We had bought all of our tickets ahead of time and had our fast passes set up.  This is key so that there is no extra waits when you get to the park.

8. Use the Baby Care Centres if available - Each park has one baby care centre.  We were never close to it at Universal so I didn't use it.  At Disney we were close the one time I had to feed Parker.  They have high chairs, a whole room of change tables and a nursing room.  They also sell baby items if there was anything that you forgot.

9. Enjoy - Don't forget to enjoy yourself and just take everything in!  We really didn't rush around the parks too much.  We stopped and watched parades, had leisurely lunches and enjoyed what the parks had to offer.  I would say that obviously Disney is much more geared towards children.  If you have a two year old, they would enjoy Disney much more.  Parker was just happy to have rides in his stroller so he was pretty content at Universal, but there were very few rides that small children could go on there.

Florida - The Second Week

 Our first week in Florida was fantastic.  My entire family stayed in a house together.  But unfortunately my brother, sister and my brother's girlfriend had to go home.  They have jobs or something.  So they all flew home and we stayed with my parents for an additional 4 days.  Which was good, because to have 4 days of driving for a week in Florida is crazy.

We spent the next 4 days in Treasure Island on the Gulf of Mexico.  We thought we would have a beach vacation.  Well we only spent a couple of hours at the beach because it wasn't exactly beach weather, but we still had a great time.  

John's Pass

We walked to John's Pass which was just down the road.  It's like a little boardwalk shopping area.  From the boardwalk we could see a bunch of Dolphins, which was so neat!  I just love Dolphins and I had never seen them in the wild like that.  So we decided to go on a Dolphin Watching trip, hoping that we would see tons of them.  Well the boat drove around for an hour and a half and we saw nothing.  (Although we did get some interesting history about the area.)  As we were pulling back into the dock, there were dolphins everywhere.  Of course.  So luckily we did see dolphins, but it turns out that the boardwalk is as good of a place to view them as any.

We also went into the Tampa Electric Manatee Viewing Centre for a few hours where we saw manatees.  Manatees are not the most exciting of creatures.  They are called sea cows for a reason.  But once again, seeing a creature like this in their natural habitat was pretty neat.  Plus, it was free.  

We had some great meals in Treasure Island and John's Pass.  Nothing like authentic seafood restaurants when you are on vacation!

Daddy dug him a hole

Yes he's short

First time in the ocean

Then it was time to head back home.  People think that we are crazy for driving to Florida with a baby.  But it really wasn't that bad.  I packed him toys to keep him entertained and would feed him what I could in the car.  He slept a lot and we made sure to stop frequently enough to let him stretch and to feed him.  I grew up driving to Florida and Myrtle Beach and I think that's why the idea of it didn't seem crazy to me because I knew how many times my parents had done it with me.

It was a great trip and I can't wait for many more to come with my little family!

Florida - The First Week

On December 27, my entire family drove down to Florida.  It was a two day drive and it was not enjoyable.  We hit a fair amount of traffic and it took a lot longer than it should.  But finally, we arrived, and then it was awesome!

 We were staying in a house outside of Orlando.  It was great because we all had our own rooms, lots of space and our own pool and hot tub in the backyard.  We all had lots of fun in the pool, especially Parker!  We were lucky and got some pretty great weather while we were there.

We spent a day at Universal Studios and a day at the Magic Kingdom.  This is not the most economical way to do things as they are separate parks, so there's no money savings.  But I knew that I wanted to do the Magic Kingdom and I had to go to Harry Potter land if I was going to be in Florida!

First up was Universal.  It was amazing!  Walking into Hogsmeade was like stepping into the books.  First we walked up to Hogwarts and the ride that goes through the castle had a 180 min wait.  No way were we doing that.  So we rode the other rides in Harry Potter land and did the Olivanders wand shop experience.  By the time we left Harry Potter land the line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was longer than the staff had ever seen it.  (If it was 180 minutes before, it had to be 5 hours long by this point, that's insane!)  

The line ups at Universal were pretty bad.  In the whole day we only went  on 5 rides plus the Hogwarts express.  But they are quality rides and usually last at least 4 minutes.  Only my brother, his girlfriend and I payed for the park hopper pass so we got to go over to Diagon Alley, where we drank butter beer (so good!), bought wands (yes we are nerds), and went on the Gringott's ride (which was awesome!).  I have never felt like more of a geek than I did when I was in Harry Potter Land.  But I don't regret a single geeky line that was spoken.

Finally when we got back to the other Park the line up for the Hogwarts ride was "only" an hour and a half long.  The rest of the family had gotten VIP for it because someone saw them with Parker.  Lucky ducks.  Lucky for us they agreed to wait in line and go on it again. 

Later in the week, we went to the Magic Kingdom.  This is definitely a more kid friendly park!  But it's also enjoyable for adults because there is just a magic to Disney that you don't feel anywhere else.  Because we used our fastpasses smartly, we hardly waited in any lines at Disney.  (I am going to write a post with tips for anyone who is interested!)  Parker could also go on pretty much all of the rides, which made life a lot easier.

My biggest complaint about the trip was Orlando traffic.  Any time we had to drive through Orlando it was awful!  We decided to go to Downtown Disney (aka Disney Springs) for dinner one night and it made a 20 minute drive about an hour long.  Luckily dinner was delicious and we had the most expensive but most delicious sundaes afterwards and it made it worth it.

Ok that seems long enough for one post!  If you have made it this far, congratulations!  Next I will talk about the second week of our trip.

Overwhelmed

I have so much to blog about, but the idea of sorting through all of my Christmas pictures plus two weeks from Florida is too much for me right now!  Plus today is day 1 of trying to wean Parker since I have to work on Wednesday so he's crying in the background because he won't drink from his sippy cup.  Nothing like leaving it til the last minute...

Anyways, eventually I will get to everything.  We had an amazing Christmas and on December 27 my whole family drove down to Florida where we spent 2 weeks in the sun, the pool, hanging out in Harry Potter Land and with Disney princesses.  So I have a lot to share!

And yes Parker is sleeping in our Disney family picture.... A baby's gotta nap!