Disney World Kid Tips - Food

1. Food in the parks is expensive.

2. You can carry a backpack or cooler into any Disney World park and no one cares. Disney employees look through your bags when you enter the parks, but they don't care about food.

3. If you got a little kid that will get tired walking around all day, bring or rent a stroller and you can put an insulated bag in it. Fill this bag with stuff like wipes drinks and snacks.

4. Buy small ziplock's before you go to Disneyworld and fill them with snacks when you go to the parks.

5. Bring all your own drinks. Cokes, juice boxes and bottled water. Freeze a few bottled waters and use them to keep everything else cool. By the end of the day, they will have melted and you can drink them as cool refreshing water. There are water fountains around the parks where you can refilll water bottles.

6. We carried PBJ and BLT sandwiches into Animal Kingdom for lunch.

7. One night I grilled chicken at the condo. Next day, box of triscuits with peperoni, block of cheese, and tub of chicken salad at MGM for lunch.

8. MGM - Buy food and carry it in to Fantasmic.

9. Magic Kingdom - Starlight cafe in futureworld is the place to get burgers, chicken sandwiches or chicken fingers, fries, and salads.

10. Epcot - You should eat dinner at least once at world showcase where booze is served.

Bonus Tip - I know you plan on going out to eat one night after you leave the parks.

Forget it.

Get the kids back to the room and feed them ASAP because this is what they will look like 10 minutes after you get back to the room.

Disney World Guide - Animal Kingdom

When you go to Disney World, use Animal Kingdom as a short-day where there are no naps and you eat dinner at a resteraunt or your hotel/condo and go to bed early.


Get to Animal Kingdom when it opens at 9:00. Go straight to the safari ride as it gets crowded and the animals are actually out and moving around early in the day when it isn't so hot.

You can easily see everything in a day and there are alot of character greeting opportunities.

Don't Miss:

Safari Ride,

Rapids Water Ride,

It's Tough to be a Bug 3D Show,

Everest Coaster.

You absolutely must Festival of the Lion King show or your trip is a failure.

Catch the afternoon parade at 3 or 4, then go home and call it a day. The park closes at 5:00.

Madeline in Magic Kingdom

Disney World Guide - Epcot

Epcot has 2 parts, the part with the Big Shiny Ball and World Showcase.

Most of the rides and stuff are in the part of Epcot with the ball.

The must sees here are a new Nemo ride(overrated) the new Soaring ride (get a fastpass as soon as you eneter the park), Honey I Shrunk the Audience (a 3-D show), Mission to Mars, and Test Track.

The Shiny ball part of Epcot has very few Character greeting opportunities and few kiddie rides. There are quite a few interactive and learning type things for older kids and no afternoon parade.

Where Epcot really delivers is the World Showcase where there are pavillions for Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, U.S.A., and United Kingdom. Each pavillion has resteraunts, shops, and employees, from that country. Some countries have rides or movies.

China has a great acrobat show.

Everyone has heard the saying "EPCOT is actually an acronym for Every Parent Comes Out Tipsy." This is true because you can get beer and liquor at world showcase.

If you stay multiple days at Disney World, you should end at least one day at Epcot. Eat at the Country of your choice (Germany totally Rocks), have a few drinks, and catch the night show at the World Showcase Lagoon, Illuminations.

Warning: Epcot is huge. We ended up having to get a double stroller when we returned to Epcot one afternoon for World Showcase. the stroller was big enough for Cyndy, Madeline, and sam to sit in to watch Illuminations.

Disney World Guide - MGM

If you got young boys, MGM has got some great stuff. Here is my 3 step plan to enjoy MGM

1. Enter the park as soon as the gates open at 9:00 and proceed to the ABC studios building. Pretty soon Lighting McQueen and Mater come driving out for photos. If you are at the front of the line you will get a photo at just about the time the Power Rangers appear. There were 5 of them and they all signed autographs and posed for photos. The Power Rangers had a car parked near by with giant speakers that blasted japa-instrumental-rock.

2. Do everything else in the park that looks good in no particular order.

Make sure you catch the afternoon parade at 3:00.

Get a fast-pass for Voyage of The Little Mermaid. Go to Playhouse Disney, the Great Movie Ride, Star Wars ride, Aerosmith Rocking Coaster, and Muppets 3-D.

Don`t miss the Car stunt show and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. Warning - there is staged fighting and small children might not understand "stunts". As we were walking out of this show, Sam sucker-punched me right in the face.

Animation Studio is good and at the end you get to meet The Incredibles and have a computer tell you what disney character you are most like.

3. Get into the Fantasmic stadium at least an hour before the show. Either bring dinner in with you that you bought outside (totally acceptable), or let Mom and kids get good seats while dad goes back out for dinner.

*****BEER IS SERVED INSIDE THE FANTASMIC STADIUM*****

There was one signature photo-op at MGM that parents were generraly more excited about than the kids...

Darth Vader! When we saw Vader, I had to be in the photo also.

When I got up there with Darth and the 2 Stormtroopers, I was taller than they were. You can see in the photo that I am bending my knees.

Right before Cyndy snapped the photo I said "Aren't you a Little Short For A Storm Trooper?" and the Stormtrooper who was on my left, behind me, wheeled around and got right in my face.

It's All about the Characters, Baby!

At Disneyworld, characters are like Rockstars.

Whenever characters appear in one of the parks, a line of families waiting for autographs and photos immediately forms. There is always a character handler who cuts off the line at a certain time and then whisks the characters away.

Character Supplies

You need an autograph book, pen and camera. If you don't already have them, you can purchase an autograph book and pen as soon as you enter a Disney Park. If you forget your camera, buy a disposible.

Some characters, like Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Incredible, have giant hands and can not sign autographs. Don't worry, they keep a stamp close by.

Where are the Characters?

In addition to random character appearences throughout the parks, Magic Kingdom has an area where you can always meet a few characters, including Mickey.

Epcot is the lamest park for Characters. Magic Kingdom has the most characters, but there are also quite a few at Animal Kingdom and MGM.

Character Meals

Many families book at least one "Character Meal" while at Disney World for even more characters. You get a good meal and then many characters come by your table.

The most popular character meal is Princess breakfast or dinner in Cinderella Castle. This books months in advance, so we did Princess dinner at the resteraunt in Norway in Epcot.

Norway had good entrees, and an all you can eat bar of cold salads, meats, cheeses and fish.

Character meals are expensive. For 4 of us it was well over $100. I had two draft beers at $6,75 a pop.

As we were leaving the table I still had a half a beer. I stood up and finished the beer, and as I did, I was drinking beer as expensively as you pump gas.

I imagined I could see the money being spent like at a gas pump, as the level of beer went down in the glass.

Disney Guide - Best New Stuff

We just got back from Disney World.

Last time we went was 4 1/2 years ago.

I am going to catch you up on all the newest stuff.

Magic Kingdom

1. Mickey's Philharmagic - This is a new 3-D movie and it is the best 3-D movie I have ever seen and easily the best at Disneyworld, beating "It's Hard To Be A Bug" at Animal Kingdom, "Muppet 3-D" at MGM, and "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" at Epcot.

EPCOT

1. Soarin - An awesome flight simulation ride. Soarin was the most crowded ride at all of DisneyWorld. The line was a 75 minute wait by noon. You must go directly to the Land pavilion and get a fastpass for Soarin as soon as you enter the park.

2. Mission to Mars - This space-flight simulation made so many people sick when it first opened that now they have an "intense" version and a "wuss" version. I rode the "intense" and it was fun, but you do feel a little queesy afterward.

Animal Kingdom

1. Expedition Everest - Great coaster with a Yeti. Don't want to give too much away.

MGM

1. Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show - This is big time fun. Huge stadium so don't get there more than 30 minutes before the show starts.

Evil Disney Photos

Going to Disney

We are going to Disney World tomorrow and won't be back till next Sunday.

Cyndy got a laptop from her work and I may be able to post from Kissammee, but I am much more worried about my Fantasy NBA teams than this blog.

When I come back I will post a Disney World Vacation Guide.