KIds & trouble handling rides?

[nicolewi]

Okay, so now that I have my basic touring plans down, I'm moving on to another stage of planning. Now I'm worrying about how the kids will handle rides. My 8 year old is very interested in rides, but he also says he is afraid of heights, and he was clinging to me and not wanting to go near the edge of a walled balcony on a high building. Do you think he will do okay with Soarin and FOP? is there any kind of "test run" type ride? What if someone freaks out IN the ride, while it's going on?

My 6 year old actually seems to love rides more than any of us, but she has been really scared before by fake things that look real (like animatronic dinosaurs, Halloween decorations, etc). She is tall enough for FOP. Will the screen content be scary?

Lastly, three of my four got carsick as babies/toddlers but mostly grew out of it. Four year old very rarely will still get sick. Have your kids had motion sickness issues even if they are usually okay on car rides? We don't do teacup type rides in any case. 

I know a lot of this we will have to figure out as we go. We are planning to skip Everest, Dinosaur, Tower of Terror, Tough to Be a Bug, Haunted Mansion, etc. 

Our first day at AK is very calm.

Our second day at MK, we do Barnstormer in the morning--that should be a good test run. I have a Splash Mountain FP for the afternoon--I will see how they do up until that point, I guess. 

Day 3 we have Mission Space (green) still, and Test Track. Maybe Soarin'. 

Day 4 is Avatar FOP. After that, I think we'll have done enough that we will know what they can handle for the rest of the week.

Any anecdotes about things going really well/not well with kids for you to help me frame expectations?


 

[minionkevin]

YouTube videos of the rides. I just sent one of my friends a SDD video as she’s planning a (short) trip and debating AK vs HS - only have time for one - with her 3 yo who will probably just make the 38” cut off.
During our last trip my then 3yo hated any characters with a head. So princesses were fine, Mickey was not. Truly put a wrench in my plan for the Chef Mickey breakfast ADR I had. That was easy enough to cancel with 24h notice. Skipping any of the big characters was also fine. She still isn’t fine with those kind of characters (we have SP to sesame place and she wants no part of Elmo, Abby, etc.) so I am keeping it in mind for next time.
I still get car sick as an adult and I have never gotten sick on a Disney ride. I’ve never gotten sick on a roller coaster or other amusement park ride in any park (six flags, universal, local parks, etc) besides nervousness before the first time I ride. It’s just a different feeling for me. YMMV.

[bowies]

DS (4.5) professes to be scared by everything. He loved every ride he went on last year - he was tall enough for 7DMT but not the Mountains. Also enjoyed Haunted Mansion. It’s just a completely different experience from the real world. I almost think he will balk more at rides this year because he knows what to expect. He’s definitely going on Soarin. FOP is more immersive but not as scary because you don’t get lifted into the air. The height restriction is because of how you have to sit on the ride (basically like a motorcycle).

Neither kid wanted anything to do with characters on our first day but DS warmed up by the middle of the second. The Disney Junior characters at HS were a good entry point. DD is still terrified at 2.5 so we are keeping that in mind.

[abs]

You can You Tube ride videos. It may or may not give you a good idea of what to expect.

DD is 8 and has yet to make it through a roller coaster without crying and freaking out mid ride. Eh. Our first trip we had a bunch of FP's for roller coasters so we just changed them to non roller coasters once we realized she hates them. It's okay....she's not the first kid to cry on The Barnstormer and Test Track and she won't be the last. It's easy to make last minute changes if needed. She *wants* to like the roller coasters so every trip she tries a new one but every trip it has resulted in massive tears and shaking. We grab a snack, sit down for a second to re-group, and move on. Your kids won't like everything at Disney and that's okay.

On our first trip the characters also terrifed her (she was 4). She literally hid under the table when Jake came by at Hollywood and Vine, lol. By the end of the trip she was more comfortable with them and would give them high 5's. Now at 8 they are her favorite thing ever and she wants to meet every character she possibly can every trip. Things always change.

Honestly our first day when she was 4 was a disaster. DH and I were like oh crap we made a huge mistake. The automatic bathrooms scared her. All the people scared her. The Barnstormer made her cry. She was scared of Ursula on The Little Mermaid ride. The only ride she liked that day was The Teacups. Really thought she was just tired, had no idea what to expect, and was crazy overwhelmed at first. The other days went much better and we had a great trip. Now at 8 it is her favorite place on earth and she is currently saving her allowance to go back. She will probably never love roller coasters. Her favorite things are the characters, the dark rides, and EPCOT. If she did nothing all trip but meet Mickey, ride Figment, Living with the Land, and the People Mover she'd be very happy. We just go with it and break up so DH and I can do our favorites, too.

I honestly think you are overthinking it. Your kids won't all like the same rides. Something will most likely freak all of them out at some point and that's okay. Let them decide what they can/can't handle. You can and will make changes on the fly.

[TBM]

I am not really afraid of heights, but I dislike Soarin' because your legs dangle. I really think that I would be okay if I had something to rest my feet on. I also don't like the transitions that make it more roller coaster-y than the old version...and I like roller coasters. I liked it when it was more convincing as a hang glider. Kids (other than my scairdy grandsons) seem to be less bothered though, because "it's just a movie and we aren't going anywhere."

FOP doesn't bother me because you are firmly seated with your feet on the ground or something secure. Also, if the parts that seem high bother you, you can just look out at the horizon (it is really beautiful and there's so much to look at) or close your eyes...at least that's what I tell people who are hesitant and I think everyone has survived it and actually liked the ride.

[turtle1120]

I just went a couple of weeks ago with my 8 yo DD. She also says she's afraid of heights and won't even try certain rides. Soarin' and FOP were her two favorite rides!

[nicolewi]

I guess we'll just have to see how things go. I was trying to plan ahead on some to know when we would need to use rider switch.

[mainelyfoolish]

I think even if you prepare kids for what the ride will be like, they might change their mind about riding or not riding at the last minute. Unless it’s a ride they can’t ride because of height, I wouldn’t rule anything out.

My DD, who at nearly 10, would happily ride Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster and Space Mountain all day, was nervous on Haunted Mansion...and then six months later she asked to ride HM again and loved it.

Both my kids have loved Test Track since they were tall enough to ride. Half the fun for them is designing the car and competing to see which one beats the other in total points (be sure to scan your bands after you exit the ride by the giant screen and your score will display again if you missed it on the ride).

[elcjet]

I don't know that you'll be able to predict, even if they watch YouTube ahead of time. My little daredevil loved SDMT but flipped out on Soarin' and still refuses to ride it 2 years later. My son is petrified of drops but he's a big Soarin' fan. Littlest is also scared of the dark on Space Mountain but totally fine on most other dark rides, including Dinosaur. So it just really depends, but in the end they won't be too traumatized. To this day we still haven't done Rockin' Rollercoaster or TOT, but that's because the parentals are too scared.

I will say that on FOP, sitting to the side of the theater makes it feel less immersive, and you can reach over and hold hands if they get scared. We just told my daughter to look to the side if she was not enjoying it, but she was a trooper. Didn't love it because it squeezed her legs, but she also didn't have a freakout on it. (She was 5 last year)

[Deleted]

Definitely YouTube the rides. My daughter liked 7DMT at 4 but flipped out on Soarin. Soarin is a long ride and I just held her hand and kept saying it’s fake, you’re okay, close your eyes.

[revolution]

You tube the rides. DS was not about riding any of the new or bigger rides. Once we you tubed them he was excited. He was 6 when we went in October and he did almost all of the rides. He loved Soarin and FOP.

He did back out at the ride Splash mountain and he refuses ToT. Once he figured out the slight fear was worth it on the ride, he had a blast. He rode RnR, Space Mountain, and Expedition Everest and all big rides.

Both of my kids get very car sick. But have done well on rides.

PS - Barnstormer is not my favorite, or my kids. It is a kids ride and quick, but man that thing is jerky.

[sent]

DD was a major car seat puker to the point where we still travel at night when she sleeps to avoid any car trouble with her. But she has always done great with rides at Disney and at Sesame Place. She’s game for anything at least once. If something is scary, it’s more an issue with a ride being dark and the unknown, like the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom. That ride doesn’t move that fast, but I think she thought the dinosaurs were going to be real and I had to explain they weren’t. Same goes for the creepy displays inside the big ball at Epcot. I had to tell her they weren’t real but otherwise she was fine with the actual motion of the ride.

She loves the tea cups LOL.

[rainbowchip]

H and I get a little bit of motion sickness on spinning rides but I didn't want to not do teacups so we just held on to the disc in the middle so we didn't spin around much. It worked out really well and was still fun.

[fairfax]

If your kiddos get motion sick I would skip Mission: Space