Disney 102 easy questions

[katrinabennett]

For the fast pass.
Scenario. Family of 2 adults and one child. 9 fast passes all together. Can you let the child ride 4 rides and the parents share the other 5 fast passes? because otherwise, one family member will ride alone on the 3 fast passes which is not necessary since the whole point is for the kid. And a meet and greet would only be her too.

And please explain this ride switch thing. One parent rides with kid, then the second parent rides with kid without having to wait? That sounds great for us too.

And since I already started a thread.
Art of animation looks like such an adorable resort. However, a monorail resort looks so much more convenient. Thoughts?

We want to do 4-5 days. I am thinking Mk for 2 days, Epcot for one day and Hs for one day. Can we skip animal kingdom? I plan to go to the Tampa zoo where it's a quarter cost and you can feed the giraffes with a very short line.
If you do 5 days at the park, do you stay at the hotel for more days and take a break day in between? Or can you do 5 days straight without losing any family members? She will be 5.

[spankswife]

The child can't go in alone to a ride or meet and greet so an adult would need one too. You might be able to mix up the FP but the child would have to wear the other magic band of the parent not riding for the 4th. I probably wouldn't bother.

Rider swap is only if there's a child too small to ride. So if you want to ride space mountain one of you can go and then the other can go without waiting. Or if you had an infant too, for example, then you and your DH could each ride once with your 5yo.

The biggest answer here is budget. Monorail hotels are mich more expensive. AoA is really cute and I think the buses are fine. Because we are gone all day, we stick to value resorts. This is going to be personal preference.

I like AK. If your child doesn't like "adventure" rides, you can probably skip it though. Or do it in a half day.

[curbsideprophet]

A five year old can not ride by themselves. What rides are you looking at? There are some rides where you could all ride together.

As pp said, rider swap is only if she is not tall enough to ride.

We enjoyed AK. We only spent half a day at HS.

We stayed at BLT and being able to walk to MK was great.

[hymen]

The rider swap is really just a paper fast pass. So you go up to line (fast pass or regular) with non-riding child (they need as proof), they give rider(s) a lanyard, then later in line they give you paper fast pass. It's good for up to 3 riders and good until the end of the calendar month, so you can use it whenever you want. There is still a fast pass line but no waiting in long regular lines.

[hymen]

I think if you have a child that is tall enough but doesn't want to ride, you can still rider swap. For example, a 5 year-old who might be 45" but doesn't want to go on space mountain . . . You can still ask for a rider swap for them. They don't measure the kids.

[hymen]

Jul 5, 2016 20:44:00 GMT -5 katrinabennett said:

For the fast pass.
Scenario. Family of 2 adults and one child. 9 fast passes all together. Can you let the child ride 4 rides and the parents share the other 5 fast passes? because otherwise, one family member will ride alone on the 3 fast passes which is not necessary since the whole point is for the kid. And a meet and greet would only be her too.

And please explain this ride switch thing. One parent rides with kid, then the second parent rides with kid without having to wait? That sounds great for us too.

You can't get fast passes just for a child. They scan magic bands for fast passes at the very beginning of line so if child goes on ride, adult needs to do. Same with character greeting. You would need to stand in line with her, hence you all need a fast pass for character greets. Also, it's 3 fast passes per magic band, so you can't swap them around.

[lala]

Just speaking to the latter half of your post - I think 5 days w/o a break is fine, especially for one 5 year old. We usually go a week or more and just take our time, taking breaks every afternoon but not usually an entire day off.

Animal kingdom is nothing like a zoo in my opinion. Right now, I prefer AK to HS, but there are a few good things at the studios, too. I think 2 days at Mk, 1 each at 2 or 3 others is a good plan.

We've not stayed at AoA but everyone raves about the theming. Monorail resorts are great, too. I think there are lots of factors - the biggest being how much money you want to spend and how you think you'll use the resort.

[spankswife]

I agree AK is way better than a zoo. Honestly it's A minimal amount to add one day to your multi-day ticket. It is probably less than zoo admission for your family.

[nsl]

My 5 year old could not have handled 5 straight park days. Frankly, three straight days was pushing it, and he was overstimulated and irritable during the third day (as were we when dealing with his behavior) because it was all too much. You know your kid and what she can take, but for my money two park days followed by a pool day followed by two more park days makes for a happier 5 day WDW stay.

[katrinabennett]

Jul 6, 2016 7:58:26 GMT -5 spankswife said:

I agree AK is way better than a zoo. Honestly it's A minimal amount to add one day to your multi-day ticket. It is probably less than zoo admission for your family.

But we have family in Tampa.
Maybe they can come to AK with us for a day. It isn't the money (only) it's mostly the days. Our whole trip can be 7-10 days and some of it has to be with family/ beach etc. I'm just trying to see how we can make it all work.
Maybe 2 days on - pool day - 2 more park days.
Then relax with family.
We will go back another time.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[ribollita]

Jul 6, 2016 8:08:30 GMT -5 nsl said:

My 5 year old could not have handled 5 straight park days. Frankly, three straight days was pushing it, and he was overstimulated and irritable during the third day (as were we when dealing with his behavior) because it was all too much. You know your kid and what she can take, but for my money two park days followed by a pool day followed by two more park days makes for a happier 5 day WDW stay.

I think it depends on your touring style and the kid. My 3.5yo at the time went 10 days in a row, even on days I had planned to rest, but we only went for partial days most days or took breaks.

[curbsideprophet]

I agree that how you plan to tour is a factor. Rope drop to close without breaks in July for five days straight is probably too much for most people.

If you are going in a cooler month and plan to take breaks I think you could do five days in a row.

[lala]

Right, when we do 5, 6, 7 days in a row it's been in the fall, we go at rope drop but we don't tour like machines. We take daily rest/pool breaks, etc. I don't want to do a whole day rope drop to closing as an adult!

[hymen]

When we were there last week we did 6.5 park days in a row with a 5 year-old and 2 year-old. However, most days we slept in until 8 or so and didn't get to parks until 10-11. We also either left later in afternoon for rest time if we planned to come back for fireworks or whatever, or if not we left parks for good around 7 or so. It was also stinking hot too, which made us all a little more miserable than normal.

[ilikedonuts]

My kids are disney beasts. lol

we have never had a rest day (we do 7-8 day trips) and we do rope drop every morning and lots of late nights. the one time i tried to have a rest day, they whined until we went to MK.

we have 11 park days for our trip this fall. i planned one day (halloween) where we don't go to the parks, but DD1 requested I book specific non park things to do that day.

BUT we all would not last in the summer. I think our touring plans would be drastically different in the summer weather!

[katrinabennett]

Jul 6, 2016 10:34:15 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

I agree that how you plan to tour is a factor. Rope drop to close without breaks in July for five days straight is probably too much for most people.

If you are going in a cooler month and plan to take breaks I think you could do five days in a row.

We are going to do last week of February.
Might even be too cool for the pool