Disney World With My Granddaughter
By Thad
A trip to Disney World can be a lot of fun. A trip with family and a young granddaughter just makes the experience better. It really helps when the granddaughter who is 2 ½ is well behaved and really enjoying herself.
We live in a suburb south of Atlanta, so a drive to Orlando isn’t too bad even with a young one. We did make an unscheduled stop or two when driving down and back. You really don’t ask a 2 ½ year old to “hold it for a few more minutes.” We were lucky enough to use these stop for an early lunch, gas stop or chance to stretch our legs. Of course, they always occur just past a rest stop or exit with a lot of good stop choices.
We were staying in some condominiums in Kissimmee close by the Celebration neighborhood. This location is great for a trip to Disney. We were even able to take a back road to have breakfast at the Animal Kingdom lodge missing the traffic on I-4. But even with the traffic it was only a short drive to an exit that took us to a Disney park.
Condo Kissimmee
Our trip was a short one since my son and his family had to leave on the upcoming Friday to head back home to China. We cut our scheduled stay short by two days so we could get back to Atlanta and give them a day to rest and pack for their trip home.
We went to the Disney Village a couple of different evenings and my granddaughter loved the merry-go-round. She really enjoyed the dancing show that is set up in front of the lake. The young man who emcees the show works very hard and the crowd has a lot of fun dancing to the tunes he plays for them. I think my granddaughter had the most fun of anyone.
Dancing at Disney Village
We actually did Disney Parks on two different days while in the area. My son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter visited the Magic Kingdom one day. I visited Epcot with my son and granddaughter on another day.
I got to enjoy a day by myself back at the condo while they went to the park. My daughter-in-law enjoyed some time alone while the rest of us toured Epcot. It is nice to have some alone time.
One thing my daughter-in-law enjoys is shopping at the outlet malls. Orlando has two outlet malls and a nice variety of shops. She does a lot of shopping for friends back home in China. Even though China produces a lot of the things we purchase here, they are not able to get the same things there.
I did get to do some baby-sitting while mom and dad shopped. My granddaughter had gone from not wanting to get in a swimming pool, to not wanting to get out of the swimming pool. The condo had a nice pool with a kiddie pool and hot tub close by. My granddaughter played some in the kiddie pool, but spent most of the time paddling around with her float in the big pool.
She was a bit miffed that some older kids who were tossing around a beach ball did not invite her to join the game. If the ball left the pool she quickly climbed the ladder and was sometimes the first one to reach the ball and toss it back in. I think this gave her almost as much satisfaction as swimming. The kids were super nice to her; they just did not include her in the ball toss.
As I mentioned earlier, my day at Disney was spent at Epcot. One of our prime objectives was to get my granddaughter, whose name is Alice, a chance to visit with as many characters as we could. She was not the least bit put off by any of the characters. She recognized them all and was happy to pose for a photo with each one.
Alice meets Alice
I guess our neatest experience with characters was when Alice met Alice in Wonderland. The line for Alice was pretty long and the character Alice was not spending much time with each visitor who was getting their photo made with her. This changed for our Alice. When the character Alice found our Alice had the same name, she seemed to show some real interest and asked her a lot of questions while they posed for photos. It was just a little special time between two ladies named Alice.
We toured the park and road a few rides that were suitable for a little one. Alice was not even fazed by the dinosaurs on the Energy Pavilion ride. We did stop at the American Experience which once again provided a nice air conditioned nap time for a little one. This and the Hall of Presidents in the Magic Kingdom both worked wonders for our tired little ones.
Disney in July is hot and crowded. Our visits worked well. The Saturday trip to the Magic Kingdom was not too crowded and our Tuesday trip to Epcot was not terribly crowded either. We don’t do a lot with the Fast Pass option but did make use of it a couple of times.
All in all it was a quick but pleasant trip to central Florida. I am glad I got to experience Disney through the eyes of my granddaughter. It made the trip a bit more magic for me.
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