Disney World with a Baby: A Travel Guide
/
Disney World, Orlando Florida
With a One Year Old
Have you been dreaming of visiting the ‘Most Magical Place on Earth’ with your little one? Perhaps, like myself, you haven’t been in a few years and have heard that planning a trip to Disney World is not as straight forward as it once was. You’re dying to go, but you’re unsure if you can handle the new Disney World with a baby. Well, you’re in luck, because I’ve researched it all so you don’t have to, and I’m happy to report taking your baby to Disney is not as intimidating as you may think.
Now, I know what some people say… “Don’t take your kids to Disney until they can remember it.” I get it. But, hear me out. That statement assumes a few things. Most importantly it assumes that you wouldn’t be travelling to Disney World for your own enjoyment. It also assumes that baby doesn’t get anything out of the trip, and that simply isn’t the case!
My advice is, if Disney World is a once in a lifetime trip for you and your family, then sure, wait until the kids are old enough to remember it forever. Otherwise… ABSOLUTELY take your baby to Disney World! There is nothing like watching their eyes light up meeting characters, seeing the bright colours, hearing those catchy Disney songs, and experiencing the excitement of their first rides. It’s a memory that will last a lifetime for YOU!
On top of that… Children under 3 are FREE! Free to enter the parks. Free to eat from your plate at character meals. They are often offered free meals of their own as well. Take advantage of this!
Now, let’s talk about making your trip to Disney World with a baby easier, so you can focus on soaking in that Disney magic.
Quick tips for visiting Disney World with a baby
Stay on Disney property and utilize Early Theme Park Entry
Purchase Disney Genie+
Order groceries for delivery to your resort
Pack essential items for baby in your park bag
Bring your stroller (or rent at Disney)
Use Baby Care Centers at the parks, but don’t rely solely on them
Learn how to use Rider Switch for rides with height requirements
Schedule rest days at your resort
Consider purchasing Disney’s photography service, Memory Maker
Manage your expectations
When to visit Disney World with a baby
Now, this is incredibly subjective. There are a lot of factors that go into picking the right time of year for your family to visit Disney World, whether travelling with a baby or not. Ultimately, you have to decide what is most important to you - weather, crowd numbers, pricing, school/work schedule, etc.
For us, the most important considerations are low crowds and warm weather. For that reason, I prefer mid-May when weather is warm, but not mid-summer heat, and hurricane season has not yet struck.
One of the best predictors of crowds at Disney can be found at Touring Plans. I highly recommend checking them out if crowd levels are important to you.
Why you should stay on Disney property with your baby
It’s no secret that Disney resorts are beautiful. But are they worth the extra cost when travelling with baby? In my opinion… YES!
There are two main reasons I prefer staying on Disney property with our one year old - transportation, and Early Theme Park Entry.
Travelling with an infant can be tricky. If staying off property you’ll likely be using a car rental service and dealing with carseats, parking and travelling long distances from parking lots into theme parks. Imagine doing this perhaps multiple times per day with a tired, overheated little one. There is something to be said for convenience. If your little one ends up needing a midday break, you will be thankful to easily return to your resort by monorail, skyliner, boat or bus. We found using Disney transportation was a game changer for our family.
We stayed at the Grand Floridian, a deluxe monorail resort. When our little one got tired midday at Magic Kingdom, you better believe we were thrilled to hop on the monorail and have her napping in the hotel room just 10 minutes later. We were also happy to return to the park quickly for our first Lightning Lane after her nap (see How Does Genie Plus Work at Disney World for more info). While non-deluxe Disney hotels are not located on the monorail, they have excellent transportation options that can have you back in your hotel within 30 minutes. That alone is worth the extra cost, if you can swing it!
Staying on property is more costly. If you’re wondering if there’s a way to make staying on property at moderate and deluxe resorts substantially more affordable, there sure is! Check out my guide to renting DVC points to save up to 50% on the posted price of your hotel room!
Disney hotels and select “Good Neighbour” hotels also enjoy the perk of Early Theme Park Entry. This means you have access to the parks 30 minutes prior to official opening each day. Those 30 minutes are VALUABLE. They allow you to take photos with far less crowds, and, if you arrive with a plan, ride multiple rides before wait times creep up to scandalous levels. This is KEY with a baby, as little ones don’t have the patience to wait in long lines.
At Magic Kingdom, we were able to ride Dumbo twice, Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh before the general public entered the park. We walked directly onto Dumbo and The Little Mermaid, and waited less than 10 minutes for Winnie the Pooh. This strategy in combination with Disney Genie+ (Disney’s new skip-the-line system) allowed us to ride every ride we wanted in the park.
Should you purchase Disney Genie+?
No question. You should. You may feel you are being nickel-and-dimed, but we felt it was worth it (again, if you can swing it). For ~$20 per person per day (surge pricing at time of writing $15-$35), you can prebook ride times and skip lines all over the park, and as I mentioned above, with a baby with little patience or understanding this is HUGE.
If your looking for the details of using Disney Genie+, check out this post. In short, understand two things; You can book your first ride at 7am, and another every 2 hours after park opening following that. You can also choose to book rides late in the day and “stack” them for a wait-free afternoon and evening. It’s wonderful.
Ordering grocery delivery to your hotel
Packing for a trip with a baby requires bringing along a few extra items. It makes a world of difference not having to pack large supplies of diapers, wipes, and everyday baby care items.
We ordered the above directly to our resort as well as water, sunscreen, breakfast items and daily snacks like fruit, cheese and granola bars.
We used Garden Grocer, and found this service was incredibly easy for Canadians, like ourselves, to use. I believe many other travellers use Amazon Fresh and Walmart, though you may have to set up American accounts.
With Garden Grocer you create your order, then select your resort and preferred timeframe for drop off at checkout. You receive an email when your order has arrived with Bell Services at your resort. You may pick it up yourself or have the order delivered directly to your room by Bell Services for an additional charge.
What should you pack for baby in your park bag?
This depends mostly on ages and stages. However, for our one year old who is breastfed and on solids, we packed and actually used the following:
Diapers, wipes, bum cream, sunscreen, a hat, a stroller fan, a nursing cover (mostly used to cover our stroller for shade), a full coverage bib for sit-down meals, a spare outfit, and lots of water.
How to use a stroller in Disney World
You are welcome to bring your own stroller, as we did, to Disney parks, as long as it meets certain size requirements. If you prefer to leave your stroller at home, another great option is stroller rental. One very popular rental company is Kingdom Strollers.
Our stroller held our park bag, a cooler with snacks, souvenirs and a stroller rain cover which I highly recommend as rain storms happen frequently in Orlando.
Pro-tip: Prepare for Disney park security in advance by removing all bags from the stroller and carrying them on your person. Consolidate souvenirs and loose items in a bag of their own that can be carried through as well. A cast member will pull your stroller (and baby) to the side of the metal detectors for a visual check while you walk through. Remove your camera and place it in the stroller as it will set the metal detectors off every single time.
Caring for baby within the parks
How can you make caring for baby easier while in the parks? It’s no secret that babies need frequent diaper changes, feeding and breaks from the heat. Perhaps you’re nursing, like I was.
Good news! Each Disney World park has a Baby Care Center, and these facilities are seriously well designed. There are large, cushy change tables, comfy nursing rooms, and supplies for purchase from diapers, wipes and medicines to a change of clothes. Cast members are available in each Baby Care Center to help you find your way around. Baby Care Centers are marked on all park maps. Should you struggle to find one, they are usually located next to First Aid.
The general location in each park is as follows:
Magic Kingdom - At the end of Main Street beside Crystal Palace
Epcot - Just before you reach Mexico in the Odyssey pavilion
Hollywood Studios - Near the entrance at Guest Relations
Animal Kingdom - On Discovery Island near the bridge to Africa
We popped in every time we passed one. However, I did feel I was relying on them too much. In the larger parks (especially Epcot), getting to the Baby Care Center when you need it may be no easy task. When we needed a change while hanging out in France we could not have been further away. Be aware that companion restrooms are scattered throughout the parks and have baby change tables to use in a pinch.
When to use Rider Switch in Disney World
So, what rides are safe for babies? Surprisingly, a LOT. Essentially, if there is no height requirement, it is okay for baby to join you. At Magic Kingdom, this is the majority of rides, save for the coasters. At Hollywood Studios, there are significantly less, but plenty of shows for baby to enjoy.
But, what do you do if you and your partner both want to ride a ride with a height requirement? You use Rider Switch.
Speak to the cast member located outside of the queue for the ride and tell them you wish to set up Rider Switch. They will ask who would like to sit out with baby first, scan that person’s Magic Band, phone or ticket, and send the other into the queue. Having Rider Switch set up allows the second rider to skip the standby queue and go straight through the Lightning Lane when the first rider returns.
Whether or not you need to use Rider Switch in a particular situation depends on if the second rider is at risk of having to wait in the standby line. There are times when you will not have to do this. If you have Disney Genie+ and have booked a Lightning Lane, you may both be able to make it through the lane within your scheduled time. However, if you have a Lightning Lane and are arriving at the end of your return time, set up Rider Switch to ensure the second rider does not miss the window.
Schedule a rest day
This tip is also personal preference, but I would not recommend doing more than two park days in a row without a break… for your sanity and for baby.
What I do recommend is utilizing a rest day to do activities outside of the parks. For example, resort character dining experiences. We used our first rest day to visit Story Book Dining at Artist Point with Snow White, which is located at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge.
This is where you may have to get a bit creative using Disney transportation. Disney ensures all resorts have direct transportation to all parks, and some resorts are connected to each other by way of monorail or skyliner, but not all resorts are connected to each other. If you are trying to access a resort that is not easily accessible from your resort, travel to the closest park and hop transportation from there. For example, we used the monorail to travel from Grand Floridian to Magic Kingdom and then hopped a boat to Wilderness Lodge.
Should you purchase Memory Maker?
Memory Maker is a package Disney offers for its professional photography service. Photographers are scattered throughout the parks ready to take photos of your family, sometimes with magical touches. Ride photos are available on many of the more exciting rides, like coasters, and a few others including Haunted Mansion, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and Pirates of the Caribbean. You can purchase these photos individually (at about $17 each) or through a Memory Maker package. For $199 you can purchase ALL of your photos from your vacation, and for $69 you can purchase all of the photos from one day. There is a discount for purchasing in advance.
I do recommend this service as it makes getting photos of the whole family stress-free. However, other visitors are often willing to take a photo for you, so it is not essential to your vacation.
The most important thing to know is you do NOT have to purchase these in advance. You can go about your vacation collecting photos from Disney photographers and make this decision later.
Personally, I found photographers hard to find in a couple of parks, and because we were travelling with baby, we did not ride many coasters. There were days where we had very few photos. I felt the full vacation package would not have been worth it for us. I chose to purchase one day Memory Maker and used it on the day we had the most photos taken.
Manage your expectations
My final tip for visiting Disney World with a baby is to manage your expectations. A Disney vacation is a lot of fun for a baby, but can also be overstimulating. Be prepared to adjust your day based on their needs and you will avoid feeling let down. We did not make it past 8pm any evening of our vacation. It was simply too much for our little one staying up that far past her usual bedtime. That meant we were unable to see fireworks, but that was perfectly okay with us.
We allowed her to warm up slowly to characters, as people in costume (particularly the non-human characters) can be scary at first. Luckily the characters themselves are used to taking their time with babies.
Some babies will nap in strollers as you continue to stroll the parks, some will do better in a crib and may need a midday break at the hotel. Some will change their preference daily.
If you manage your expectations you will realize the perfect Disney World vacation is the one that works best for your family, so keep an open mind and the magic will still find you!
I hope this post inspires you to take a chance and visit Disney World with a baby. For more Disney hacks, check out Renting DVC Points at Disney World, The Complete Guide to Making Disney Dining Reservations, and How Genie Plus Works at Disney World!
May all your dreams come true!
Hill xo
If you found this post helpful to you, Pin it!
