Some Disney thoughts

Well, it's definitely not a waste to bring a toddler. Porter is having a great time, as well as the adults. Here are my thoughts so far on toddlers and Disney:
1. Observe naptime. If you are at the park of your choosing when it opens it's not crowded and you can accomplish a lot before lunch. We have been eating lunch in the park and porter falls asleep shortly after, for which we use to shop a little and then head back to the room to finish naptime.
2. Scout out the toddler friendly rides. If you have done a little research before you go, you can get a little gameplan together for the day or park you are visiting. There are some many things to do you could basically have a totally different vacation every year for many years as your kids grow and change interests. This year we can't do any roller coaster type things, and Porter isn't quite ready for the 3D movie type attractions, but we have had plenty of stuff to do.
3. Make dining reservations. I wasn't going to structure our trip so much by making a ton of reservations, but I highly recommend it. I ended up scheduling lunch every day, which has been wonderful because if you don't want to eat a hamburger or chicken fingers every day for lunch you would end up waiting forever with a tired, hungry (=cranky) child, and by the time lunchtime comes, you want to just sit and relax for a little while. This place is just too packed to "wing it" with a toddler. That would be much easier to do when your kids are a little older and more flexible.
4. Hoop Dee Doo Revue is a great dinner show. It totally held Porter's attention for the entire 2 hours. That has NEVER happened with anything before.
5. There is a pharmacy that will I'll prescriptions and deliver them to your resort. We have taken advantage of this for 2 years now.
6. Don't take the buses to downtown Disney at night. It takes entirely too long, and if you are hungry on your way there or tired on your way home, it just makes for a miserable trip. They have plenty of parking that is close, so drive your own car.
7. Use the fastpass system. If a ride has a long wait you can get a fastpass. It will give you a time range for when to return and you go in a separate entrance and it cuts the wait to 5-10 min.
8. Stay at a magic kingdom resort. With toddlers you are going to want to spend most of your time at MK, so staying at a MK resort gives you direct transportation that is very easy to use.
9. Get on the Disney destinations mailing list. We got our room at a discount of 40% for this trip by using the code from a Disney email!!!! Basically cut the cost of our trip in half. We are staying at wilderness lodge this year, and love it!! We stayed at the polynesian last year and it was great too, but I think we like wilderness lodge a little better.
10. Get a 4 or 5 day park ticket. The difference in cost between a 3 day and 4 day ticket is $8 per ticket. Difference in 4 and 5 day ticket is $5. Difference between 1,2, and 3 day tickets is $80+. We originally got a 3 day ticket, but when we got here so much earlier than we expected I checked in to adding a day to our ticket and found out it was only $8. We definitely got our $8 worth out of the first afternoon.

That's the quick list I have come up with so far.

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