a couple of disney questions?

I will be staying at Orange Lake and my wife will be taking our 5 year old granddaughter to disney at least 3 times. I already have the tickets..\

Heard about the shortcut at Black lake road etc. therefore would it be easier to park at Animal Kingdom and then take the bus to Magic Kingdom or would it be best to go right to the parking lot at MK?

Can you pay for the parking and then leave and come back in the same day..Is the parking pass good at all parks or if you park at Animal must you stay at Animal?

Is it best to get a 'fast pass' at each ride etc and then come back at the assigned time or should you wait in line depending on the length of line?

Any advice in taking a 5 year old to Disney would be appreciated.
thanks
doug

douga said:

I will be staying at Orange Lake and my wife will be taking our 5 year old granddaughter to disney at least 3 times. I already have the tickets..\

Heard about the shortcut at Black lake road etc. therefore would it be easier to park at Animal Kingdom and then take the bus to Magic Kingdom or would it be best to go right to the parking lot at MK?

Can you pay for the parking and then leave and come back in the same day..Is the parking pass good at all parks or if you park at Animal must you stay at Animal?

Is it best to get a 'fast pass' at each ride etc and then come back at the assigned time or should you wait in line depending on the length of line?

Any advice in taking a 5 year old to Disney would be appreciated.
thanks
doug

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Your parking pass is good all day at any Disney parking lot, so you can leave and come back to a different park without paying extra.

I would strongly encourage the use of the fast pass. I think you can only have one active fast pass at one time (per ticket). You can enter the fast pass line at any time after the time of your fast pass, so if you are busy in a different part of the park when your fast pass time comes up, don't worry about it. Just go there when you are done and you can still use the fast pass line.

Have fun!

Five year olds can tire easily--and then it isn't fun for anyone including the strangers standing next to you in line. Plan for an afternoon break or nap if your child still needs one--or if you still need one.

Find a place you can sit down quietly to enjoy lunch or dinner. Eating on the run is for teenagers. Plan on only one treat, and save your money for a decent meal. Children as well as adults handle stress better when adequately fed and not pumped full of junk "food."

Just know you may not see or do everything and that is perfectly okay. We made the mistake a couple of times of trying to see all and do all when on vacation. ("We may never be here again, you ARE going to have fun even if it kills you!") Plan quiet rides such as Small World for times when you think you may need a little time to decompress. It's hard to relax on Space Mountain.

As far as fast passes, it depends on the lines and how willing you are to stand in them. Generally if a line is longer than 20-30 minutes, I'd get a fast pass. There are rules to how many fast passes you can get in a certain amount of time, however. Read up on the rules before you go.

Your child may not be tall enough to ride some of the rides so you may want to take turns with other adults in your group if you really want to ride them. My toddler loved the carousel at Disneyland. Fortunately for us, my mom came with and was perfectly happy to accompany her over and over and over and over again while the rest of us went on the other rides. (my mother is going to heaven for that one) Anyway, just be aware and considerate of your 5 year old's tolerance for thrill rides. Some can be quite scary (or nauseating) and then the fun day might be spoiled. In our case, once dd was tall enough for Space Mountain, we couldn't get her off that one! Thankfully DH is willing to accompany her over and over and over and over . . . .

Disneyland/world is a great place to go with little ones as you can enjoy the wonderment through their eyes. I especially enjoyed the character breakfasts we planned. You have to reserve these in advance but they are held throughout the DW parks and resorts. Do they still have the HoopDeDoo Review at Frontierland? That was fun, too.

The other shows are also a nice way to get off your feet for awhile. We saw Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (and my personal favorite is at California Adventure--Aladdin).

Have fun.

Stroller

Although a five year old doesn't usually use a stroller, when we took our 5 and 7 year old grandkids we used strollers and afterward agreed it was a good idea. We had the cheap umbrella type. One broke and we bought another one at Publix outside of OLCC for about $15.00.

It would probably depend on child, but our 5 year old didn't like many rides, but enjoyed Disney and the characters. (Now the 7 year old rode and loved everything she could!)

Nancy

I found some very good ride advice for something with a child the age of your granddaughter. Read the first post here for the strategy.

Sharon

For our first visit to WDW, I bought "The Unoffical Guide to Walt Disney World" and read it cover to cover. I tore out the tour schedules in the back, put them in my purse and followed them to the letter. My husband thought I was crazy, but they worked like a charm. There are also terrific tips in the book about making priority seating arrangements for dinner, etc. I can't imagine having seen all we did without this guide--it would have just been too overwhelming. BTW, we stayed at Orange Lake too and found access to all the parking lots very convenient.

We buy a new UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO DISNEYWORLD (or to Disneyland) every time we go. The information is outstanding, and things change. The investment in the book is small compared to the way it always improves our trip.

We just returned from Orange Lake. We found that the on ramp for the new freeway#429 is just a few yards past the East Gate town center entrance to OLCC. Its a toll Road and will cost you $1.00 each way. It sure saved us a lot of time and traffic hassles on 192. Its less than a mile to the off ramp that takes you into the backside of Disney Property by Animal Kingdom. On the return trip, it is easy off and puts you right back to within a few yards of the East Gate Entrance to OLCC. It was worth the $2 not to fight the traffic on 192. I guess right now alot of people don't know its open so there was no one on it but us and one other car. I don't know where the road you asked about is located as we used this new freeway while there.

We were in the West Village in a huge newly remodeled 2 bedroom unit for 8/6. Everything in it had just been redone. We had to open the patio doors to air out the paint smell. I think we were the first people to be in it since it had been remodeled. We were on the ground floor and our patio opened onto one of the golf courses. We had 2 lounge chairs and a table with 4 chairs. We enjoyed our morning coffee there each day and every afternoon we were visited by 3 large cranes looking for food. We did not feed them but you could tell other people did. We don't golf but enjoyed watching the people playing on the course. We drove over and checked out the new river area but did not use the pools there as most of our time was in the parks. We did use the Pools behind the main West Village clubhouse one day and was amazed at how hot the water temp was. it was almost as hot as my bath water.

We had a burger & fries at the pool bar & grill and it was without a doubt the worst burger we have ever had. We ate at the pizza rest. one night and the pizza is pretty good there and reasonable. The only other rest. we tried was the one thats open for breakfast. You can eat from the buffet or order from the menu. It was reasonable priced but nothing special as far as the food is concerned. We enjoyed dinner at Mama Melrose's in MGM Studios. The food was actually very good at the castle when we had dinner there. We felt that the price was reasonable for everything you got. We also liked the character Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom. We tried the German Rest in Epcot for something different. Its a large all you can eat buffet. It was reasonable and the food was OK, but nothing special. We had reservations for LeCellier for Christmas Day at Epcot, but the weather had other plans. The entire area was under a tornado watch all day and it poured down rain so we just snuggled into the resort and stayed put for the day.

There is alot of activites to keep your little one entertained at OLCC. Be prepared that she will wear down very quickly in the parks. It is just so much to take in that it becomes overwhelming for a young child. We saw lots of people using strollers in the park for their little ones. We were there during Christmas and New Years and it was wall to wall people.

One thing she might really enjoy is breakfast with Cinderella at the castle. You will need to get reservations ahead of time. We did dinner and it was great. There was just me and Hubby and we really enjoyed it.

Have a grea trip.

Suzanne

When are you going?

Here are my suggestions for taking a 5 year old to WDW.

Don't be surprised if what your granddaughter enjoys most are simple pleasures such as splashing in the pool at OLCC or at Donald's boat in the Magic Kingdom.

If you want to eat a meals at a special restaurant or have a character breakfast, you should make advance reservations. I also recommend the Unofficial Guides for restaurant reviews.

Realize that the line to have your picture taken with Mickey Mouse is VERY long most of the time. See if you can ask a cast member for the approximate wait time and then decide whether or not the photo is more important than that amount of time.

Thanks for all the great advice. We will be in Orange Lake from the 27th of Jan until the 17th of Feb. Granddaughter flies in on the 29th and stays for nine days so my wife will be spending at least 3 days and maybe more at Disney during that time. We have a seven day no expiry park hopper.

A quick question..Does the new highway #429 take you to Magic Kingdon parking lot as well as to the Animal Kingdom parking lot??

I phoned reservations at OLCC (I know that there are many different opinions on the effectiveness of this) and after many different dial 1 for this and 2 for that and 3 for whatever, I finally got someone in reservations and she was very,very pleasant. I explained that I would like to have the same place for all three weeks and she said that she would do her best and I also said very politely that I knew that she couldn't do much for me in regards to where I stayed but that I have my 5 year old granddaughter staying with me and that It would be great if we could stay near the main clubhouse so that we would be close to everything. She asked me where I would lilke to stay and I told her in the Tennis Villas in the west Village and she said that she would make a note of that as well. She seemed very positive and at no time did she indicate that either of my requests would be unlikely or impossible. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I probably should have posted my original thread in the Florida section but didn't think of it at the time and I sure appreciate all the great advice from the people who responded..Anyone going to be there at OLCC during that time?

doug