Why Disney Is More Relaxing Than the Beach With a Toddler

I know how that sounds. The beach is supposed to be the easy trip. Sand, water, a book. Then you do it with a toddler. You spend six hours standing ankle-deep in the sea with a hand hovering over the back of a swim shirt. You reapply sunscreen to someone who is actively running away from you, with sand all over them while you try to rub it in. Sand gets thrown. Sand gets in the eyes, and there's a meltdown because it hurts. The beer you ordered three hours ago is scalding hot, and your mind is wandering back to the days when this vacation looked very different.

Disney, done a certain way, is the opposite. Here's why, and what that certain way is.

The beach is a lifeguard shift

With a one- or two-year-old, the beach has no edges. Open water in front, sand in every direction, and a sun that doesn't care that you're in the shade of an umbrella that keeps tipping over. Somebody is on duty every second, and it's usually both of you.

If a family really wants the beach at this age, I put them at a very nice resort with beach beds, umbrellas and service on the sand, and I suggest gear the baby can actually nap in. That helps a lot. It's still lifeguard duty.

Disney is built for exactly this age

Everything in a Disney park assumes someone in your group is small. Pavements are wide and flat, strollers go everywhere, and there are stroller parking areas at every ride with cast members straightening them up. Every one of the four parks at Walt Disney World has a Baby Care Center with changing tables, private nursing rooms, a small kitchen for warming bottles, and quiet. There's a bathroom around every corner. Shade and air conditioning are never far.

There are plenty of rides the whole family can go on together, maybe even most of them. But at this age, what mine love most is just looking at Mickey, and Mickey is everywhere. You can meet their favorite characters or sit in the air conditioning for a show, and if you plan it right, you rarely wait in a long line.

Rider Switch covers the rest. If there's a ride the toddler is too small for, one parent rides while the other waits with the kids, then you swap and the second parent goes in without queuing again. You both get the ride. Nobody has to sit it out.

Parents of small children are entertaining all day long. Doesn't it sound great to stroll around with your kid happy as can be while you have an (overpriced) iced coffee and, hear me out, talk to each other?

The certain way

This only works if you don't do Disney the way people usually do Disney. All day in the park. Trying to ride everything. Forcing your kid through something they hate because it was on the schedule. Standing in long lines in the full sun. "Saving" on the hotel because you'll "be at the park all day." Overpacking for the park. What I plan for families with kids under four:

Stay close enough to go back for the nap, at a hotel with a great pool

This is the whole thing. Mornings in the park, back to the hotel for lunch and a nap, pool in the late afternoon, back in the evening only if everyone is up for it. That only works when the hotel is minutes away. Grand Floridian and Polynesian are on the monorail loop to Magic Kingdom. Beach Club and BoardWalk are walking distance to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. The Skyliner hotels, like Riviera, are also great IF you know for a fact that your kid isn't scared of gondolas. Fun fact: ours apparently is. You're back in your room faster than it takes to find your car.

Split the stay, and get the one-bedroom

I suggest a split stay: a few nights at an Epcot hotel and a few at a Magic Kingdom one. Disney moves your luggage from one hotel to the other while you're at the park.

Wherever you land, I highly suggest a one-bedroom villa for the kitchen and the laundry. The Disney Vacation Club villas at Beach Club, BoardWalk, Polynesian and Grand Floridian have one-bedrooms with a full kitchen and a washer and dryer, and you can book them like any other hotel room.

Park in the morning and at night

Go in the cooler hours. Staying at a Disney hotel gets you Early Theme Park Entry, half an hour before the gates open to everyone else, which is when you do the rides with the long lines later. Book Lightning Lane Multi Pass for the rest of the morning so you're not queueing with a toddler on your hip.

Then lunch at the hotel, nap and pool. Dinner can be in Epcot or at one of the resorts close by. If your kid is still awake and happy, go into a park for fireworks. If not, these resorts have spots where you can see them without going in. We often had the kids fall asleep in the stroller and went into Epcot for a beer while we walked around.

That's why I do suggest the Park Hopper. When you're walking distance from Epcot and Hollywood Studios, you want to be able to do one in the morning and the other at night. Deluxe hotel guests also get Extended Evening Hours at one park on select nights.

Go on the day the park closes early

If Magic Kingdom closes early on a Wednesday for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, go that morning. There will be no one there, and you'll get so much done in three or four hours. Like, the whole park.

Weekends are resort days

DO NOT go to a park on a weekend. Come on a Sunday, leave on a Saturday, and put a full resort day in the middle of the week.

When I book it

September and October, or late February through April. The weather is warm enough for the pool and the crowds are lower. Except spring break. I wouldn't go in July or August with a toddler if the dates can move. Florida in summer is heat and afternoon storms.

If your kids are small and you've been saving Disney for when they're old enough to remember it, I'd go now anyway. That's how we do it, and it's been more relaxing than any Europe, beach or even family vacation (now that one might be family dependent ;).

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