Disney with young children

• Arrive at the parks before they open, so that you can park and be at the entrance as the park opens.  You will see more in this first hour than the entire rest of the day.  Also, avoid the parks having extended hours for guests staying on property, these parks will be the busiest.
• Take young children to Fantasyland first upon entering the Magic Kingdom – this will become very busy by 11 am.  If we arrive here as the park opens, we can do all the rides in under 2 hours, but if we arrive an hour or so after park opens, then it takes until the evening to get on most rides.
• Every Disney cast member wears a name tag.  Show young children the cast member name tag in case they need any assistance or you are separated.  You may want to pick a family meeting place in each park.
• Find a comfortable spot 20 minutes before parades start – all the parades are worth the wait!
• Do not wait in lines for characters that have more than a few children waiting.  This will burn a lot of time.  Try the character meals such as Chef Mickeys.  There is also an air conditioned tent in Toon Town with three lines for characters.  Usually one is not busy and has more characters than are listed on the sign above the line.
• Chef Mickey’s is a great character meal and is not at a park, so it does not require a park ticket.  If you time dinner right, you can see the fireworks from the balcony at that hotel and there is a fun shop to spend time in.  Call six months ahead, if possible, for a reservation.
•  Animal Kingdom has a train to a Conservation Center that has a very neat animal hospital inside where they operate on animals and explain the procedures as you watch.  The norm is to have larger animals before 10 am, but at 11 am, we saw a monkey undergo an operation and they were going to follow that with a procedure on a bird.  My 5 year olds LOVED it.  Also try to go on the Safari as soon as possible to see the most animal activity.
• Epcot has Kidcot stations.  Start walking through the nations counterclockwise and receive a free mask to color and collect free paper charms and stamps at each nation.  At the end (Canada) receive a free color 8x10 poster.  Innoventions at Epcot has many hands on kid activities including a family game on putting out fires (very fun for all of us!).  Skip Mission Space as it often makes adults feel ill and has led to the death of a child.
•  The fireworks at the Magic Kingdom are hard to get a good view – consider going to Chef Mickeys at the Contemporary (or riding the monorail there from the Magic Kingdom) and go to the balcony on the fourth floor to have an excellent view of the castle and fireworks.  There is no cost and the firework music faintly plays from the hotel speakers.
• Understand how to efficiently use fast passes.  If arriving at the park when it opens, go on rides that do not offer fast passes first.  Then, a half hour after the park opens, get a fast pass next to another ride you want to ride that doesn’t offer the fast pass.  Go on this non-fast pass ride, then, go on the fast pass ride.  As the fast pass ride times get further out, remember that when your fast pass time hits, you are then able to obtain a new fast pass even if you have not yet used the one you have.  So you can have a fast pass waiting for after you use the first one.  Generally, the window for using the fast pass is 1 hour, but it seems like fast passes are accepted anytime after their start time on the day they are valid so do not panic if you don’t make it back within the hour window.  And, if your fast pass time is several hours away, you can get a new fast pass two hours after obtaining the first one.  More popular rides (especially roller coasters) will run out of fast passes early in the day and many of the times will be very late in the day.
• There are many large theaters that are great for hot or rainy afternoons.
• Ask attendant at start of line about kid switch.  This allows a parent to go on a ride and the other to wait with the kids and then to switch places.  There is still a line to wait in, but it works like a fast pass – we never completely figured out how to use this system, but it is there to help parents with children that are too young/small for the ride.
• Eating can be a challenge.  The Magic Kingdom has some large indoor, fast food restaurants – Cosmic Rays and Peco Bills.  All fast food is outdoor at MGM.  It is worth it to call ahead for reservations at the more affordable restaurants in MGM to have a seat out of the sun and the heat.
• At MGM, a deal is offered that includes making a Fantasmic reservation and eating early at one of several restaurants at a set price although you get your choice of what to eat.  Then, you get priority seating for Fantasmic.  This is worth every cent!  Rather than waiting in line for over an hour and being herded in with hundreds of people, you go to a behind the scenes entrance and are given choice seating without waiting in any lines! 
• When driving to the park, remember, the tram across the parking lot is not always faster.  Especially in the morning when so many people arrive at once or if taking a stroller into the park.  We often found that walking would get us to the car at least as fast as our family that rode the tram.
• There are water play areas for young children at the Magic Kingdom and a very wet ride – Splash Mountain.  My girls wore two piece swim|suits (no clothes or shoes).  Then, they air dried and removed suits in bathroom and put on undies.  The suits went in a plastic bag.
• You are allowed to take snacks into the park – take crackers, pretzels, granola bars, apples, etc.  They are great for standing in outside linestoo.  Freeze water bottles overnight and take into the park.  If you have half full bottles and lay at an angle to freeze, then the water will freeze down the length and you can add water before heading to the park that will stay cold until the ice melts.  The angle will keep the water from freezing across the opening.  You can refill water in the park, but look for shaded water fountains.  Also, you can take those individual packets for flavoring water such as lemonade.  
• It is worth it to carry costumes for "character" meals.  Our kids changed in bathrooms before and after the meals and it made the event even more fun, got the kids lots of attention from the characters and made for very cute pictures!  
• Carry a backpack with large pens for autographs, autograph books, ponchos, snacks, camera, plastic bag, undies if kids wear swimsuits, kid costumes, wipes, sunscreen, sunglasses/hats, etc.  We took bubbles and activities for long lines, but there was so much to look at that we never used them.