Disneyland and Age

I got the e-mail - the one asking what age I think is good to take kids to Disneyland. I responded to said e-mail, and then I decided to do a blog post about it.

The truth is, it depends on the parents, the children, and a million other factors.

I never intended to take my kids to Disneyland until they were all old enough (i.e. big enough and willing enough) to ride all of the rides. Then for Nicky's first Christmas, my mom surprised us by taking us on a trip... to Disneyland.

We were pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things went with an eleven-month old at Disneyland. We ended up taking Nicky to Disneyland twice the following year. Then, when Scotty's family invited us to go to California a mere FIVE WEEKS after Daisy was born, we thought, why not?

So I guess you could say that my answer to the question is five weeks.

Not really.

But kind of.

Scotty and I are pretty easy-going. We don't disagree very often, and we don't get angry with each other after being cooped up in a car for 12 hours. We can easily go to Disneyland for five days straight and not argue once (and I'm not fibbing to make us look good on the Internet - that is the absolute truth). We both enjoy being with our family, and we both LOVE Disneyland, so there are a lot of personality traits that make us a good fit for frequent Disneyland vacations with young children.

So I can't give a definitive answer, but I can tell you a few things that might help you decide:

Thing 1: There is a lot to do at Disneyland, even with a baby. If there is not a height requirement on a ride, you can take your baby on it. There are a couple of rides that require your baby to be able to sit in his own seat (i.e. Roger Rabbit in Toon Town and the Golden Zephyr in California Adventure) so younger babies may not be able to ride, but most rides only require that your baby faces forward on your lap so his legs can be under the bar.

Thing 2: Disneyland is stroller friendly. There is stroller parking all over the place so you can easily abandon your stroller for hours at a time. Occasionally the employees, oh! Excuse me! "Cast members" will rearrange the strollers to keep order, but other than that, it is rare for your stroller to be disturbed. Just don't leave anything valuable in it and don't padlock it to a fence like my weird brother-in-law (they will cut the lock). Rental strollers are available, if needed, but we always take our own because we need it to haul the kids to and from the hotel, and that can't be done with a stroller that needs to be left at Disneyland.

Thing 3: Disneyland is bag friendly. You can take purses, backpacks, gigantic fanny packs, or whatever you like to carry your stuff in on the rides. If you can't hold the bag on the ride, there is usually a place to put them for safekeeping, such as a pouch on the ride or a place off to the side of the ride where it will remain visible. There are also lockers, if needed. I usually take a small cross-body bag to keep my camera, cell phone, and baby necessities in.

 

We park our stroller for long periods of time, so I just make sure we have a bottle, a diaper, and a binky with us. Oh! And a few snacks for the older kids.

Thing 4: You can take in your own food. I will forever praise Disneyland for this! I hope it never changes! We usually pack sandwiches, bottled water, fruit, granola bars, and a million other snacks in our stroller so we don't have to buy food at Disneyland. We still grab a churro or two, of course, but we bring in most of our meals. Apparently my brother-in-law, the one with the padlock, got in trouble for making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Disneyland. I have no idea why, but he was told that he could bring in "already made" sandwiches but couldn't bring peanut butter, jelly, and bread to make them there. So... just a heads up. Make your sandwiches before you go to Disneyland.

Thing 5: Disneyland has Rider Switch Passes. So if you have to stay off a ride with a child who can't ride, go to the "cast member" at the entrance of the ride with your party and ask for a Rider Switch Pass. The rest of your party can ride, as usual, while you wait. Then later you can take one member of your party with you to the front(ish) of the line to ride (most rides allow you to enter through the Fast Pass line). 

Update 2024: The riders switch passes are now issued electronically. For assistance, just ask the cast members at the ride's entrance. Fast Passes (a formerly free service available to all Disney goers) no longer exist and have been replaced by Lightning Lane and Genie Plus which you (sadly) have to pay for. 

Really, the only reasons not to go at any age lie within your own family. If you typically want to strangle your spouse while you're on vacation, or if one of you is expected to carry a greater work load with the children, maybe taking young children isn't the best idea. Go when the kids are older and can fend for themselves a little bit. Disneyland definitely takes cooperation and tag-teaming with little kids. 

I'm going to do a follow-up post to this one soon with some additional information about how we travel, like, how we handle the car ride and a few tips and tricks we've picked up. We are not "travel experts," (don't ask me how to book a trip to Europe!) but we might be "travel to Disneyland by car experts." So if you have any questions or anything you want my "expert" (ha!) opinion on, let me know, and I'll try to work it into that post.

Update: That post is now written. You can find it here.