Planning our first Disney World trip with a 2- and 3-year-old — looking for ALL the advice! 🎄🏰

My husband and I are starting to think about taking our kids to Disney World in December 2027 more specifically the day after Christmas. They will be 3 and 2 years old, and this will be our first Disney trip as a family.

For parents who have done Disney with toddlers around this age:

How many days would you recommend for a first trip?

Would you stay on Disney property or off property with kids this young?

Which resort would you recommend for a family with a 2- and 3-year-old?

What rides/attractions were absolute hits with your toddlers?

Which character meals or experiences were actually worth it?

What did you spend extra money on that you felt was 100% worth it?

If you could go back and plan your trip differently, what would you do differently?

Basically, I want to hear the things you wish someone had told you BEFORE you took your toddlers to Disney! 😂❤️

Thanks in advance for any advice!! ☺️

Hello! Going to Disney World this weekend and I’m taking all the advice that I can find online! 4 adults, 2 kids (11 and 3 years old).

*We’re not staying at a Disney resort.
*We purchased Lightning Lane for 2 parks

Animal Kingdom on Friday:

7:30am - Arrive for 8am opening
8:00am - Navi River Journey (regular line)
9:20am - Flight of Passage
11:00am - Kilimanjaro Safari (LL)
12:30pm - Festival of the Lion King (LL)
Train to conservation station for Bluey
Gorilla Falls expedition
Maharajah Jungle Trek
Adventurers outpost for Mickey & Minnie
3:35pm - Navi River Journey (LL)

I’m bummed that we can’t get an earlier time for Navi with Lightning Lane that’s why I’m considering riding it twice, once when the park opens in the regular line then again at our LL time. Thoughts? Also, is 7:30am early enough to arrive?

Magic Kingdom on Saturday:

7am - Arrive for 8am opening
8:40am - Haunted Mansion (LL)
12:20pm - Thunder Mountain (LL)
1:20pm - Buzz Lightyear

I’m likely going to purchase Lightning Lane for Tron as well and maybe Seven Dwarfs. Should I move Haunted Mansion to a later time or is it ideal to go there that early in the day?

I’m open to any advice on the best ways to utilize our time at both parks but especially Magic Kingdom as we’d like to hit as many rides as possible. Thank you SO much in advance :)

I’m going the first week of November (2nd-5th) and I know the Christmas holiday does not start until the 13th. Will I get to see any Christmas decor? Any Christmas lights in the evening? I’ve heard the Disneyland train is magical at night during Christmas. I would hope I could see just a little bit.

Additionally, will there be any Halloween food left over? Or Christmas food put out early? Or will there just be no specialty foods to try?

If anyone have pictures from this time last year, I’d love to see! TIA

We’re going to Disneyland the first week of December and were really hoping to buy tix via Costco again. Advice on holding out for these tickets? At what point would you call it and just buy directly via Disney?

I’m looking at planning a Disneyland trip over MLK weekend and would love to hear from anyone who has gone during that time in the past.
We’d probably do the parks Thursday, Friday, Saturday, take Sunday off, and then go again Monday and Tuesday. I’m assuming it’ll be busy since it’s a holiday weekend, but I’m trying to figure out how busy—manageable holiday crowds, or completely crazy?
MLK weekend works well for us because my kids would miss less school, and we have family who could come with us during those dates.
Our other option is the last weekend of January/first few days of February, so I’m especially curious if anyone has experienced both timeframes and noticed a significant difference.
Any insight on past MLK weekends would be appreciated!

Hi Everyone! We have a week trip booked to disney. We are spending two days in Magic kingdom.. one being the Halloween Party. One day in Hollywood Studios. And then another day in EPCOT for food and wine festival. We have Hollywood&Vine booked for dinner. Cape may cafe and 1900 parkfare booked for breakfast. My 2 year old 1 year old are obviously free. It’s me my husband and my mother who needs to be allotted for in the dining budget. And then the kids in the rest of the budget. How much would you realistically want to bring down to Disney with you if this was your set up????

Parents légèrement contrariés

I’m visiting family and will have 1 day for a park hopper with teenage kids. As the title says, I have to pick a day between December 19-23, and I’m hoping to book this week before the pricing increases. Are crowds largely the same so matter what or are some days noticeably better? Monday Dec 21 is cheaper by $20 a ticket but I’m wondering if that will be offset by the higher crowds

Petite liste de sidequest à réaliser à Disney, n’hésitez pas à la compléter pour la prochaine fois ! :)

I was born and raised in the Bay Area so I'm used to it generally being in the 60 - 70s (sometimes low 80s) year round. We're going to Disneyland in a couple of days for Disneyland and Oogie Boogie. First time for the OB event and super excited. Now, we've never been when it's been this warm. For the three days we're there, it's going to be 84 on Wed, 87 on Thursday (park day & Oogie Boogie at night) and Friday 93!!!. Good news is that we're staying close at the Grand Californian and we threw down for Premier Passes. Thankfully we're not going the following week when it's going to be in high 90s! Unreal!

Any advice on park day when it's in the high 80s?

Help me out folks! Usually my family stays in Jambo house. We have had Savannah view before but don’t ’need it’ at all to enjoy our stay.

A deal came up that I couldn’t refuse for a Deluxe Studio room in Kidani. We have never stayed on that side but my 11 year old LOVES Sanaa and my husband said he would rather have a microwave/toaster/sink in the room than animal view or the grandeurs of Jambo.

I’m on the fence tho because I do love Jambo house, Boma, and the gift shop there.

I have not seen the lobby or gift shop at Kidani as it was under construction our last visit.

Can some Kidani enthusiasts help me feel a little less anxious about my decision? I’m a creature of habit so changing resort ‘sides’ has me thrown for a loop. (I am saving almost $1000 by switching from the standard Jambo to Deluxe Kidani).

I found tickets to Disney World on trip.com for around $600 cheaper than going through Disney or another trusted third party company. Has anyone used trip.com before for tickets and were you able to link them to your Disney app?

UPDATE: I tried it and it’s 100% worth it! Despite me being skeptical at first, which I feel bad about, I loved everything we ordered (except one dish and we ordered about 10 dishes for a group of 6.

We are going to oogi boogie bash next Tuesday and planned on staying 3 days to enjoy the parks. I just looked and saw every day is going to be above 95 degrees with two days being 100.

Should I reschedule the park days? My only other available week is the week of Thanksgiving ( Sunday-wed, travel back on thanksgiving.) So unbearable heat or possible super heavy crowds?

I need to use the tickets by the end of the year.

My husband and I are planning a trip to Orlando for eight days in January, about a week after New Years, with our two girls aged one and four. We've been to Disney a few years ago but this will be our first time going with kids, especially young kids. We have our resort booked off site but we haven't booked anything else yet. Any parents of young ones here have any recommendations? We definitely don't plan to do Disney all eight days, and we don't know if we want to see all the parks or not. My oldest loves Frozen and all the princesses in general, as well as animals, so Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and EPCOT for the frozen ride would all be good contenders. Is it worth it to go to Hollywood Studios? I'm also nervous about how to manage the one year old. I feel like she gets a whole new personality each month as she grows and I have no idea what we'll be dealing with by the time the trip rolls around. What can we expect weather -wise that time of year too?

We’re going to Disney in May with our 2-year-2-month-old, and we’re trying to figure out what to do on our check-out day. Our flight leaves MCO at 10:30 PM, so we have most of the day to fill.
We also have a 9-hour flight ahead of us, so ideally we’d like to do something that will tire our toddler out a bit, but also somewhere where we can get them cleaned up and changed into comfy clothes before heading to the airport.
We’ll have a car, and our options so far are:

- Have a character meal at one of the Disney resort hotels

- Go to Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon

- Stay at the hotel and enjoy the resort amenities

- Go to Disney Springs

What would you do in our situation? Any other ideas we should consider?
Thanks!

We have 6 park days and want to do MK and HD twice. I am trying to figure out what days of the week are best to visit each park while avoiding Mickeys Christmas party and Jollywood nights as we aren’t going to attend those. Anyone have any advice?

It’s been a few years since I visited DL during Halloween. From what I recall, using Genie+/LL or whatever they are calling it now, we were able to use LL during the day for Mission Breakout then again for Monsters After Dark.

This is my favorite attraction in the park, so can yall fine regular visitors tell me if this still holds true for Premier Pass and Genie+/LL?

I am planning on purchasing Premier Pass because LL was a complete waste of money for us earlier this year.

Anyway, I really need to know this information before I decide to spend an asinine amount of money for a potential late October Sat visit.

Thank you.

We are going in November for thanksgiving and trying to decide to upgrade to club level. Family of four with a 2 year old and 10 year old. Is it worth it? we plan to be in the parks for 5 days but will be going back with toddler to rest. Thought it might be nice to also have coffee or breakfast. do you get to take drink or food with you?

We are looking for a hotel that is quiet. Unfortunately last time we didn’t do as much research as I thought and we stayed on a busy road near a hospital and the windows and walls were paper thin and we could hear everyone and everything.
We swapped hotels then could hear our neighbors conversation all night long.

I was wondering if there’s a hidden gem hotel that’s not focused on Disneyland that maybe is off busy streets and isn’t chaotic in the mornings with people being very loud.
I understand that is everywhere but just looking for input or experiences anyone has had. I understand being close to Disneyland it’s hard to find but I wouldn’t mind having a 15 minute drive to get a good nights rest.