WDW with a toddler - the surprise upgrade trip of dreams (Oct/Nov 2018)

[SaratogaSp2015]

Excited to follow along with your report! We're doing Animal Kingdom Lodge next September with our will be 2 year old after cancelling our trip last year due to pregnancy. Hoping to get lots of tips

[Milpston]

We are travelling just before you with DS 17 months and DD almost 4. We got the same lucky upgrade but I was too tight to pay for the extra flight seat
Thanks for the tip of the website with the kids packs. Ill be getting one for each of ours... and I'll be wrapping everything inside individually. Have a great trip!

[piglet100]

Originally Posted by Milpston

We are travelling just before you with DS 17 months and DD almost 4. We got the same lucky upgrade but I was too tight to pay for the extra flight seat
Thanks for the tip of the website with the kids packs. Ill be getting one for each of ours... and I'll be wrapping everything inside individually. Have a great trip!

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Ah I hope they work out well - I haven't ordered yet! Yes to wrapping everything!

Have a great time too!

[piglet100]

Originally Posted by SaratogaSp2015

Excited to follow along with your report! We're doing Animal Kingdom Lodge next September with our will be 2 year old after cancelling our trip last year due to pregnancy. Hoping to get lots of tips

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Ah how exciting! I bet AKL will be fantastic with a toddler, I think we might try and do Sanaa and go have a look round!

[piglet100]

When we went to DLP DS was still weaning and wasn't a massive foodie fan. I was so worried he wouldn't eat anything! We took anything yoghurty that Ella's Kitchen could provide just in case. That trip was actually fantastic for his weaning, we ate a lot at buffets and he could have a bit of all sorts of food and came on so much! I packed loads of pouches and snacks for that trip but he ended up eating well from our plates. We loved Plaza Gardens, Hunters Grill in SL and Agrabah Cafe for buffets.
So our strategy is to eat a lot at buffets using DDP! Especially as that way we don't have to buy him his own food.

I knew we wanted to do the character dining and have tried to plan our longest meals for when we will want an escape from the sun. I'm assuming we will be up crazy early at first so planning quick breakfast of cereal/fruit/yoghurt in the room (DS wakes up starving, no way he'll wait until we get to a park!) then some park time at EMH park, then an early lunch/brunch, then either more park or return to resort to sleep/swim, or resort hop. For the first few days I'm planning QS in the evening as I've no idea how we'll cope with the jet lag and don't want to waste ADRs we might cancel. Proximity to Epcot means we can enjoy the World Showcase QS options there easily too. Later in the trip I've booked some breakfast ADRs, and evening reservations.

Our TS list so far is - I make this 26 TS credits out of 28 to use.

• Cape may cafe - first morning
• Garden Grill breakfast
• Tusker house lunch
• Ohana breakfast
• Jungle skipper canteen lunch
• Trails end weekend brunch
• Beaches and cream early dinner
• Crystal palace early lunch
• Homecomin' early dinner
• Rainforest cafe lunch (might well cancel this, just an AK backup as DS might like it!)
• Trattoria al Forno dinner (we love pasta! Though wondering if we swap this for via Napoli?)
• Hollywood and Vine - slim pickings at HS! This is later in trip and might move depending on how we do!
• Boma dinner - wild card, might end up cancelling

My QS wish list includes:

• Bog lunch - booked
• Columbia harbour house (my fave but still mourning the lighthouse sandwich)
• Satuli canteen (looks amazing)
• Sunshine seasons
• Hurricane Hannah pool bar at the resort
• Morocco QS
• Earl of sandwich - classic!

Off property I think we’ll try and go to Cracker Barrel, and planning a trip to Celebration on Halloween so may well eat somewhere there. Not sure if we will venture offsite further!

It's also the Food & Wine festival so hopefully we'll use some snack credits there. I also watched a DFB video about all the cool snacks you can get in Epcot WS with a snack credit and reckon we'll be using some credits up on these!

Is there anywhere else you’d recommend for eating with little ones?

[piglet100]

I thought it was about time I updated on here as we have now hit double digits! woop!

Not much has happened Disney-wise as we have been busy with building work on the house, using up our time/money/patience. It also means we have no more space for stuff, so has seriously curtailed my holiday shopping which is probably a good thing, but I am now seeing the summer stuff start disappearing from shops and think we need to get a move on!

When we're done we'll have a spare room which i can fill with piles of packing, and I am also planning to turn a bit of newly created hallway into a place for all our Disney prints, photos etc to live as we have loads and they have never really had a home.

We had a holiday in the UK which was lovely in this heatwave and enjoyed some UK attractions for a change. Tested DS out on some rides and so far he's enjoying them, and keeps wanting to watch the videos/look at the photos on our phones.

Other than that we have sensibly bought travel insurance - hunted around and ended up with a good deal with cashback via Quidco with Insure for Travel. I had a sudden random panic that DS will get chicken pox the day before we go...

I was looking at the Food & Wine Marathon info to get an idea of what is going on while we're there (no plan to run a marathon though) and saw they do little mini marathon events for kids! So we have booked DS into the 100m toddler dash. It was only $20 so if it doesn't work out not a disaster, but he'll get a medal and a tshirt and there are characters there, so could be lots of fun and something a bit different.

It meant shuffling around our day a bit and moving our Trails End Brunch up to the early afternoon instead of the morning. The only problem is this leaves about 3 hours between brunch and dinner at Homecomin', I'm not sure we will be able to eat that much (but by week 2 who knows!) so I'm trying to move Homecomin' as I've heard such good things. It also means we need to get to the expo to pick up the race pack, but thinking one of us could do that while DS naps/swims or even at bedtime, if we don't want it to take up lots of our holiday time.

We've decided against doing MNSSHP or MVMCP Realistically it is a *lot* of money for something DS may well sleep through, or just not cope with. I'm a bit sad as would love to do them but hard to justify another $200 for a few hours when we just wouldn't get our monies worth.

Speaking of another $200, today we bit the bullet and paid for our flight seats. We booked the week before they changed the pricing structure, but upgrading to Economy Delight would have been £480 so we 'just' paid the £30pp each way to book seats. Not sure if we have 'good' seats but they are nearish the front. We have opted against a car seat on the plane for now.

I have started my pre-holiday diet in a bid to fit back into the clothes I wore last time! (Note I don't think anyone needs to diet or buy into this 'summer body' nonsense, but I'll feel more comfortable taking pictures and enjoying myself if I feel a bit lighter - plus, I'll put it all back on on the DDP I'm sure!) We'll see how that goes!

That's all for now!

[caitlinsmummy]

Hi

I don't envy you travelling with a toddler ... I'm bricking it thinking of travelling with Noah

Wow so that's you and Milpston who both got free upgrades ... where did we go wrong?!

I think the second seat is a good idea, but like you say I doubt he will use it ... although it may be good for naps.

We decided the same for the parties being 5 of us we really just couldn't justify it at all.

I'm also 'attempting' to lose weight before we go, we could maybe support each other? Due to medication and medical condition I developed I've put on over 4 stone in the last year and it's made me so self conscious and unhappy. So far I have lost 5lb in 2 weeks so I'm really happy with that. We can do this!

I've subscribed so won't miss any updates now X

[Milpston]

Originally Posted by piglet100

I thought it was about time I updated on here as we have now hit double digits! woop!

Not much has happened Disney-wise as we have been busy with building work on the house, using up our time/money/patience. It also means we have no more space for stuff, so has seriously curtailed my holiday shopping which is probably a good thing, but I am now seeing the summer stuff start disappearing from shops and think we need to get a move on!

When we're done we'll have a spare room which i can fill with piles of packing, and I am also planning to turn a bit of newly created hallway into a place for all our Disney prints, photos etc to live as we have loads and they have never really had a home.

We had a holiday in the UK which was lovely in this heatwave and enjoyed some UK attractions for a change. Tested DS out on some rides and so far he's enjoying them, and keeps wanting to watch the videos/look at the photos on our phones.

Other than that we have sensibly bought travel insurance - hunted around and ended up with a good deal with cashback via Quidco with Insure for Travel. I had a sudden random panic that DS will get chicken pox the day before we go...

I was looking at the Food & Wine Marathon info to get an idea of what is going on while we're there (no plan to run a marathon though) and saw they do little mini marathon events for kids! So we have booked DS into the 100m toddler dash. It was only $20 so if it doesn't work out not a disaster, but he'll get a medal and a tshirt and there are characters there, so could be lots of fun and something a bit different.

It meant shuffling around our day a bit and moving our Trails End Brunch up to the early afternoon instead of the morning. The only problem is this leaves about 3 hours between brunch and dinner at Homecomin', I'm not sure we will be able to eat that much (but by week 2 who knows!) so I'm trying to move Homecomin' as I've heard such good things. It also means we need to get to the expo to pick up the race pack, but thinking one of us could do that while DS naps/swims or even at bedtime, if we don't want it to take up lots of our holiday time.

We've decided against doing MNSSHP or MVMCP Realistically it is a *lot* of money for something DS may well sleep through, or just not cope with. I'm a bit sad as would love to do them but hard to justify another $200 for a few hours when we just wouldn't get our monies worth.

Speaking of another $200, today we bit the bullet and paid for our flight seats. We booked the week before they changed the pricing structure, but upgrading to Economy Delight would have been £480 so we 'just' paid the £30pp each way to book seats. Not sure if we have 'good' seats but they are nearish the front. We have opted against a car seat on the plane for now.

I have started my pre-holiday diet in a bid to fit back into the clothes I wore last time! (Note I don't think anyone needs to diet or buy into this 'summer body' nonsense, but I'll feel more comfortable taking pictures and enjoying myself if I feel a bit lighter - plus, I'll put it all back on on the DDP I'm sure!) We'll see how that goes!

That's all for now!

See more...

loving the sound of the toddler dash. What date is that on and where can I find more details?

[piglet100]

Originally Posted by caitlinsmummy

Hi

I don't envy you travelling with a toddler ... I'm bricking it thinking of travelling with Noah

Wow so that's you and Milpston who both got free upgrades ... where did we go wrong?!

I think the second seat is a good idea, but like you say I doubt he will use it ... although it may be good for naps.

We decided the same for the parties being 5 of us we really just couldn't justify it at all.

I'm also 'attempting' to lose weight before we go, we could maybe support each other? Due to medication and medical condition I developed I've put on over 4 stone in the last year and it's made me so self conscious and unhappy. So far I have lost 5lb in 2 weeks so I'm really happy with that. We can do this!

I've subscribed so won't miss any updates now X

See more...

Well done on losing 5lb! All those photopass pics is definitely my motivation!

If he doesn't sit in the seat we'll at least have a very expensive storage space...

[piglet100]

Originally Posted by Milpston

loving the sound of the toddler dash. What date is that on and where can I find more details?

See more...

Here's the info! rundisney/wine-and-dine-half-marathon/
Scroll down to kids races