The perfect Disney world itinerary for young families
One of the biggest things I learnt from taking our little ones to Disney World is that you cant go in with a ‘must do everything’ mindset. Honestly, you’d just end up stressed and sweaty!
We definitely took our park days as they came. We didn’t have a strict itinerary ticking off every single thing. Instead, we went with the flow to make sure everyone was happy. But after a bit of trial and error (and more than one mid-afternoon snack bribe), this is what worked for us…
Balance your park days with rest days
You don’t need to be in the parks everyday to get your money’s worth. In fact, having rest days makes the park days so much more magical because the kids aren’t shattered from the day before!
We found that doing two park days, then a rest day worked perfectly. Rest days for us were either a chilled pool day at the villa or exploring Disney Springs and Walmart!
Perfect park pairings
Some parks are naturally slower paced (and a bit cooler!) so you could use them as your calm park days in between the bigger busier ones!
Magic Kingdom is a big full-on day especially with young kids as there’s so much to see and do. So I’d avoid pairing this with another big park the day after.
Epcot has a much slower pace and there’s lots more room to wander and take breaks between exploring. This is a great calm day park.
Animal Kingdom is somewhere in the middle I’d say. There are busy parts but a lot of the day can be spent on gentle trails and animal spotting.
Hollywood Studios is a smaller park but with more queue-heavy rides so it can feel quite intense. I’d pair this one with a slower day before or after.
Mornings vs afternoons in the parks
With younger kids, I always feel like mornings are better as the kids are happy, it’s much cooler and the queues are shorter.
Our rhythm was going early to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios to do as much as you can before lunch. Then you could take a break in the afternoon and head back for the fireworks in the evening if you’ve got the energy. This worked really well for us as we had the park hopper tickets through Attraction Tickets.
With Epcot we actually liked going here any time of the day. It is a lot cooler in the evening wandering round the world showcase though and the kids loved the lights and music at night.
For Animal Kingdom I’d say morning is the best time to visit the animals as they all seem to be more lively (and you beat melting in the afternoon too)!
When to plan your waterpark days
We found that the waterparks were the perfect midweek reset. After two park days we’d slot in Blizzard Beach as it’s still exciting for the kids but you can make it as relaxed or energetic as you want it to be!
Top tip for this though is to get there early for the shady spots!
Plan breaks!
If you take one thing away from this let it be my advice to plan breaks! Young kids usually hit a wall by 1-2pm so we would usually head back to the villa around then for a chill and a swim and then go back for the evening if we wanted to. Not only did it avoid meltdowns but it meant the kids had energy to see the fireworks!
I always think it’s better to leave the park with everyone happy than to squeeze in one more thing and have the kids sobbing all the way home!
Let me know if you found this helpful and if you have any top tips for planning your Disney itinerary in the comments below!
