First Time Planner and I dont know what to doo. Esp with a 5 year old. About This Page:

[Crazyformick!]

Well Here are the plans we already have. Were doing 7 nights 8 days at Disney Animal Kingdom lodge Savanah View. A few friends of ours said to do the Deluxe Dining which we did. But i dont now if we should do Water Parks and park Hopper? We are going Sept. 28th-Oct.4th over her Birthday. Any request and activites would be great. Also is Cirque Du Solei good for a 5 year old? and How is the daycare too? Thanks for any help you can give.
Hope your day is magical.
Justin

[HiddenMickey]

I would not get the ticket upgrade with a five year old. The pools At AKL will be great for your family. For a first trip, the parks, resort, and Downtown Disney will keep you busy. There are several places at WDW that you can place your daughter in the evenings so that you can enjoy a meal and/or parks and shopping without her. We used the Neverland Club at the Polynesian once and the kids loved it. Check out more info in you Passporter Guide and at the Disney website.

[Crazyformick!]

Stefanie and I were looking at cirque but we didnt know if it was a good idea or not because of alexis being 5:/

[nanpchef]

Cirque is great for adults and maybe teens. I know my 4 and 6 yr old DGD's wouldn't be able to sit through it. After the first 10-15 minutes, they would want to be on to something else. For that matter, I don't know that my 10 yr old DGD would be interested in it for the whole show, either. That might be a good night for child care if the grown-ups would like to see it. DH and I have seen it twice. It is definitely worth seeing.

[2princessmom]

I would say the cirque is fun but it would depend on your 5 yr old. My girls would not be able to sit still for the entire show. It is very entertaining but for a first trip I would do this as an adult night out.

The kids club are great. I did it once and my girls loved it and would love to go back. You might also check into the Mad Tea Party. My girls absolutely loved the backwards party and thought it was fantastic. It gives you a couple of hours to do what you want.

Also, the Deluxe Dining Plan is a lot of food and takes time away from the parks. We do the basic Dining Plan and that is tons of food as well. But we only have to have a sit down once a day and that gives us more time in the parks. We also found that we couldn't use all the perks and others items to make it worth the money.

You will love AKL!!!! It is my favorite resort and can't wait for the day when I can go back.

[chezp]

I know that Cirque du Soleil have an age limit of five years and upwards for La Nouba. You do need to know that it doesn't have an intermission, so you need to sit there for 90 minutes plus.

[Nova]

Having been to the parks with our Grandkids unless your 5 year old likes lots of sit down meals you may be wasting money on the deluxe plan. It is a lot of eating and as someone else said it takes away from a lot of park time for a first time visitor. Our last trip with 4 Grandkids I wish we had only done the counter service plan as the regular sit down not even deluxe was a waste. Have a wonderful trip it is great with kids along.

[ecmiller]

Our DD was 5 when we went in 2004. We got the Water Parks option and went to Typhoon Lagoon. DD had a great time. They had a nice children's area where we spent most of our time the day we were there. We rented a stroller for her the day we went to EPCOT. We had talked about it before we went and told her that it was the only time we would ask her to be in a stroller, but there was so much walking there and even though she could do it, it would be slow. So when we said she would get to see more things if she used a stroller, she was ok with it and it worked out well. Because it was August, we got up early most days and went to the park that opened early, then back to the room mid day for a rest then back out again in the evening. That also worked well for us.

[magic mickey]

In my opinion, I would not do the water park option, esp. for your first visit. Your resort has a great pool. If you decided to go to a water park, you could always buy one day passes. As others have said, I would rethink the Deluxe dining plan. That is a lot of food and a lot of time spent eating and you will have less time to do things in the park. I would go with the basic dining plan. When my DD was 5, we left her at the Neverland Club in the Poly. She had a great time. Do you have park hoppers? This option is great with kids, because you can go back to the room for a rest or swim in the middle of the day and then head out to another park in the afternoon. We always use park hoppers even with our teens. Have a great time and remember to have fun and be willing to be flexible with your plans.

[DisneyDreamer05]

We recently went on our first family trip in Dec. Our kids are 5 & 4 I think it's the perfect age for their first trip it was so much fun we booked our return trip for August while we were there. You'll have a great time.

I also would suggest down grading the dining plan to just the basic. We were on the basic plan and found that 1 CS, 1 TS & 1 Snack was more than enough food for our trip which surprised me because I was worried about it before we left. The tips on the deluxe plan will add up quickly and you will be doing a lot of sit down longer meals that will take away from your time in the park and your DD might be too tired to even eat some nights, happened to us more than once.

I highly recommend doing the character dining. We had a great time at all of the ones we did and magical experiences at 2 in particular. The biggest advantage I see with them is that you get some 1 on 1 time with the characters but don't have to wait in the long long lines in the parks to do it. Our kids wanted nothing to do with the characters in the parks, besides PUSH the garbage can, but LOVED the characters at our dinners. I think it was the fact that they can see them from a distance going from table to table at first and then get excited as they get closer to your table, also they see all the other kids getting to interact with them so it eases any nerves they might have.

We added the park hopper to our tickets and are doing it again for our next trip. Our big reason for doing the park hopper is that DD has special needs and we just we're sure how she would take to a park on any given day. We wanted to ability to start at one park and if it was too crowded or just too overwhelming leave and possibly try a different park later in the day.

We also didn't want to be limited in where we could dine, which might be an issue if you stay on the deluxe plan.

Like you we also wanted one "adult night out" without the kids and used the Neverland Club at the Polynesian for the kids. We picked it for the theme and the fact that it's the biggest club and the kids loved it. They were fine with our kids special needs and gave us a pager so they could get in touch with us should something happen. For $11.25/hr it's a great deal IMO they get dinner and can have a great time while we get a break. The kids are excited about going back so next trip we are planning 2 nights to ourselves.

Were you planning on bringing a stroller or renting?

We brought our stroller and while we didn't use it as much as what we expected we are bringing one again next trip. It's just so much walking and the kids did great but I also ended up carrying our DS a lot because he would just pass out (fall asleep) all of a sudden for a power nap, plus the crowds can get intense if you are there even 1 hr before the parades and such for little ones it can be overwhelming esp. when you are all ready tired out.

The only PITA with the stroller was the busses, our stroller is a double Phil & Teds so it folds up small but it was still a pain. Being a AKL you will be on the busses a lot so it's something to consider. We are looking at getting a single umbrella, like a Maclaren, for our next trip.

The ability to gate check the stroller means we can use it at the airport and also that we are not spending extra $$$$ on a stroller so to me it's worth it to bring it along.

Anyway that was really really long sorry, hopefully you get some tips from it.

[SARH7]

For a first trip, there is more than enough to do at the four main parks...so I would just skip the Water Parks and more option.

Delux dining is A LOT of food! We are more than satisfied with the basic plan. The only way to really maximize deluxe dining is if you are doing all the dinner shows and signature meals that take 2 credits each.

As far as a stroller goes, I would definitely bring one. She may want to walk a lot of the time...but toward the end of the night, and more so at the end of the trip, she won't! My dd was 7 this past trip and still rode in the stroller from time to time (we had one for ds anyway, so we didn't bring it specifically for her, but I was glad we had the double.)