Before I visited Walt Disney World, I think it's fair to say that I totally and utterly underestimated just how big it is! The sheer size of Walt Disney World is just not something I'd expected. Walt Disney World isn't just big.. it's absolutely huge - and that's not just in size, its in every way possible..
Walt Disney World has six incredible parks..
There are six parks at Walt Disney World. The four main parks are Magic Kingdom (where the big castle is - also known as Cinderella' Castle!), Hollywood Studios - where you'll find all the exciting movie related attractions, Epcot - is the most futuristic of all of the parks and Animal Kingdom - where you'll find exciting safari tours and lots of other fun animal related attractions. Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon are their two big very awesome water parks. Additionally to this, there's also Disney Springs - which is great for shopping and Disney's BoardWalk - which is great for nightlife. And then on top of this are all of Disney's many different hotels and resorts. Disney World is honestly like it's own town - it's just absolutely huge! There is SO much to see and to do - it's incredible!
One of the incredible daytime parades in Magic Kingdom
Getting around the parks..
Travelling between the parks is made easy by the complimentary Disney transportation system. Guests staying at Disney resorts can get to and from theme parks and water parks via Disney's own buses, monorails and even boats. We loved traveling on the buses, Ethan made a 'best friend' on one of our trips and Logan loved it every single time - he thought riding on the bus sitting on Grandma's lap was one of the best things ever! We got chatting to some really friendly guests on a few occasions too which was really nice! Personally, I'd advise when using the transport to leave time for waiting and traveling to which ever park you're visiting. Sometimes we would leave up to 45 minutes for traveling. A lot of the time it was shorter than that, but it's always good to give yourself enough time.Taking a pushchair/stroller?
To get our young boys around whilst we were in the parks we took our Cosatto Supa Dupa double pushchair - it was an absolute godsend for Disney World, especially with the boys the ages they are! Walt Disney World offer a stroller rental service, but personally I think that the Disney rental stroller is suited to children from toddler age and over rather than young babies. We also wanted to be able to have a pushchair with us at the airports.
I think that it's definitely worth having a pushchair or a stroller in Walt Disney World if you have young children. Ethan is nearly three and whilst he liked to walk a lot of the time, he did get tired after a while and having our Supa mean that we could just pop him in next to his brother and whenever they wanted to nap, we could lay which ever section we wanted flat. Our Supa has two really large adjustable hoods on and these were really great for protecting the boys from the gorgeous Florida sunshine during the day. We also found that the Supa was perfect for easily getting on and off of the buses with, as it's so easy to fold down and put back up. We were really really pleased that we took it - lots of people with young children take pushchairs or strollers with them and there are lots of stroller parks conveniantly located near to rides across the Disney parks where you can leave your pushchair/stroller whilst you all go and enjoy the rides together.
Disney's Art of Animation Resort
At Walt Disney World there are SO many fun looking resorts to choose from! Whilst we were there we stayed at the incredible Disney's Art of Animation resort, which was just absolutely perfect for our family! We stayed in the Cars section of the resort, which car-mad Ethan loved! There's so much attention to detail to be found throughout the entire resort - everywhere I looked, I felt like I was inside of a movie!
The Landscape of Flavors serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. We found the food there really good and we felt really well catered to as vegetarians! Though we didn't make it to them unfortunately, the pools at the Art of Animation Resort looked utterly amazing! One of the pools in the resort actually allows you to listen to Disney songs underwater! And at the Big Blue Pool Deck you can watch some of your favorite Disney films outside in the evening! There's a children's playground and a Pixel Play arcade at the resort too. I loved the decor in the reception area and at the shop too, again no attention to detail has been spared. As soon as we arrived at Disney World on our first night, I was absolutely knackered from travelling, but the minute I stepped out of our taxi - I felt like I'd entered a Disney movie. I saw children running around with bubble machines, playing and drawing on easels, I heard Disney music playing. My eyes couldn't keep up with looking at everything and taking in all of the amazing details that had gone in to creating the incredible resort.
Baby Care Centres...
- Private breastfeeding room with rocking chairs
- Changing room with tables and a unisex bathroom
- Feeding area with highchairs
- A kitchen with a microwave, an oven and a sink
- A main room with television, table, chairs and sofa
- On-site shop offering formula, baby food, juice, nappies, wipes, sunscreen, over-the-counter medications and clothing for purchase
FastPass+..
Disney's FastPass+ service lets you reserve access to select attractions,entertainment and even character meet and greets! Reserving a ride with a FastPass+ pass basically means that you get to skip the main queue ride. You get to pre-book 3 FastPass+ passes per person a day, in whichever park you like and you can start making your selections as early as 30 days before you arrive, or up to 60 days before check-in if you're staying at a Disney World Resort. After you've redeemed your initial 3 passes on the day you're there, you can then head over to a FastPass+ kiosk, where you will be able to make another FastPass+ selection! There is no charge for FastPass+ - it is totally complimentary and is totally awesome for making sure you get to visit the attractions/rides that you most want to see! Extra Magic Hours..
If you're staying at select Disney World resorts you get to enjoy a special benefit in that you get to enjoy extra time in the parks before they open and also after they close! Each day, select attractions are open longer at one of the 4 parks. You can easily find out which park is offering the Extra Magic Hours, by either visiting Disney Worlds park hours online or by having a look in the Times Guide that you can find in your Welcome Folder when you first check-in at your resort.Rider Switch..
This is amazing for those at Disney World with babies/young children like we were! Rider Switch allows one adult to wait outside of a ride if the ride isn't suitable for little ones (although so many of them are!), whilst the rest of the party go on the ride and enjoy it. When they return, the person who has waited outside with the little one/s can then go and enjoy the ride themselves entering the ride queue through the FastPass entrance and they can even bring one other person with them so that they don't have to ride alone! I think that this is a really awesome thing that Disney World do for families with young children!
I hope this post has been helpful! There's so many amazing things to know about Walt Disney World. I really feel like as a family who visited Disney World with a young child and a young baby, we were really well catered to. We found that wherever we went within Disney World, things like the points I've spoken about within this post, were in place to make visiting with a young family as easy as possible.
Next week, I'll be sharing a post about some of the exciting and fun things there are to do at Walt Disney World for the adults, to enable us to catch a little 'Me time'!
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