The best attractions at Walt Disney World, Orlando for very young children

Visiting Walt Disney World young children is a fantastic experience. But it can also be hard work. Florida can be hot and humid, and the parks get very crowded. After our visit last year I wrote a post with some tips for visiting DisneyWorld with small children, and after our more recent visit I thought I'd put together a list of our favourite attractions so that you can have some idea of what young children might enjoy there. These are the rides and attractions that appealed most to my two when aged 4 and under.

We spent most of our time in the Magic Kingdom. This is where you will find the most rides themed around the Disney films and characters that are familiar to your children, and if you only have time to visit one park then this should be it. A tip so important it's worth mentioning here too - arrive early, before the park opens. You will be able to fit in so much more while the park is quieter in the morning.

Here are our absolute favourite attractions across the parks for little ones:

Magic Kingdom

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - This ride through a Winnie the Pooh story is very popular, and so to help entertain little ones in the queue there are some games for children to play while a parent waits in line. It's a happy, fun ride with nothing scary at all about it.

Peter Pan's Flight - Another very popular ride, a trip in a pirate ship through the story of Peter Pan which children love.

It's a Small World - A boat ride through a world populated by happy, singing dolls - once the song is in your head you will never forget it!

Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid - A new ride with music and scenes from the film, bright and colourful and fast loading.

Dumbo the Flying Elephant - Recently re-themed with a circus themed waiting area, allowing for a virtual 'queue' which is great for little ones. A classic Disney ride in a flying elephant.

Pirates of the Caribbean - Our two love this ride, although with lots of skeletons it might be a bit scary for some children.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin - A fun shooting game, if your child is too small to work the gun they will certainly be able to reach the joystick which spins you round and round!

Tomorrowland Transit Authority Peoplemover - There is hardly ever a queue for this little ride which takes you through some of the Tomorrowland attractions.

The Magic Carpets of Aladdin - Similar to the Dumbo ride, magic carpets which swoop up and down at your child's command.

Epcot

Spaceship Earth - A ride inside the large silver sphere which is the Epcot icon and journey through the history of human communication. Although the subject matter might appear a little dry for young children, ours loved it!

Living with the Land - A slow boat ride with a focus on agriculture, ending with a tour of Epcot's greenhouses where plants are grown in various futuristic ways. Again, it sounds a little dry, but my pre-schooler son was fascinated!

The Seas with Nemo and Friends - A ride which joins characters from Finding Nemo as they search again for Nemo. At the end of the ride you pass through a massive aquarium where Nemo and his friends are cleverly projected into the tank, then you can explore the aquarium on foot. There is a little shark-themed play area where you can climb inside a shark's mouth, and our children spent a long time in this attraction.

Journey into Imagination with Figment - A journey through the senses accompanied by Figment, a little dragon. Us adults found it a bit silly, but the children loved it.

Gran Fiesta Tour starring the Three Caballeros - A short boat ride with hardly any queue following Donald Duck and friends through a selection of Mexican scenes.

Animal Kingdom

Kilimanjaro Safaris - A simulated open-air safari ride through East Africa with plenty to see, lots of opportunities for taking photos and a few surprises.

Wildlife Express Train - A short train ride through the park, including some of the areas behind the scenes.

The Boneyard - An open-air dinosaur themed play area. As well as play equipment children can also excavate 'fossils'.

Finding Nemo - The Musical - I haven't included any other shows on my list in the post, as to be honest we found most of them a bit of a struggle with our toddler who was reluctant to sit still for very long, but Finding Nemo really captured her attention and was also one of my favourite shows.

Hollywood Studios

Toy Story Midway Mania - This is a very popular ride and is probably the best one for little ones at Hollywood Studios. A very clever, fast moving shooting gallery ride, which is also in 3D.

Disney Junior - Live on Stage - A show aimed at little ones based on three popular Disney Junior shows. It's very relaxed with seating on the floor so that children can get up and dance along, and they'll enjoy it even if they aren't familiar with all the shows.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set Adventure - Not a ride but a playground, and my children spent a long time here. Even very little children will enjoy running about and dodging jets of water from oversized insects. Just make sure you have an adult manning the exit as it can get very busy.

The Great Movie Ride - A fairly slow ride through some great movie scenes which held the attention of even my wriggly toddler. Obviously most of the references go completely over their heads, but there is plenty going on to keep them interested.

Of course these are only our highlights, and all the parks contain plenty of rides and attractions which small children will love. I really hope that this post has given you some inspiration if you are thinking about a holiday to DisneyWorld with very young children. If I've missed your favourites, please do add them into the comments!

Disclaimer - On our most recent holiday our family received complimentary passes to the Walt Disney World theme parks in exchange for writing about the parks. Although as you can see from posts about my previous holiday, I love writing about them anyway without any incentive!

Drusillas Park, East Sussex

We have also made a more recent visit to Drusillas Park - You can read about it here.

Drusillas Park is a small zoo in East Sussex. It's a lot more than just a zoo though - as well as over 100 species of animal across various themed exhibits there are also large indoor and outdoor play areas and a small Thomas the Tank Engine themed train and track. I have very fond memories of Drusillas as it is somewhere that we used to visit when I was younger, so I was delighted when our family was invited along to review Drusillas.

Our visit started with a well marked tour through the zoo. The path leads through the different animal displays, with plenty of extra features to keep children entertained. There is a free animal spotter guide which you can stamp as you see each animal, and a series of challenges as part of the Zoo Olympics where you can compare your abilities to those of the different animals - for example how fast you can run, how high you can jump or how long you can hold your breath. We didn't take it too seriously, but it was fun to try them out as we passed them.

There are also lots of interactive features for children, for example you can have a go at milking a (pretend!) cow and there are lots of opportunities to touch some of the friendlier animals. Harry was also fascinated by a large giraffe model which you can climb into and look out from using a periscope in his neck.

We ate our sandwiches in a large and pleasant picnic area and then headed for a ride on the Thomas the Tank Engine experience. As well as being a train that looks like Thomas the Tank Engine, the ride takes you past a selection of familiar characters from the television show and was a big hit. Then we headed for the adventure playground. This was the part of the park that I remembered most from my childhood, and it didn't disappoint. The outdoor play area is large and contains play equipment suitable for children of all ages. We spent all our time in the area aimed at younger children, where there were slides, rope bridges, a roundabout and the biggest hit which was a large trampoline, safely sunk into the ground. Wi-Fi is also available in the play areas, although it wasn't working when we visited.

Fortunately for the usual British weather there is also an indoor play area, which has a separate section suitable for younger children. Even though the park was busy when we visited it didn't feel too overcrowded. The food and drink in the adjacent café and other food outlets wasn't cheap, but we always take our own along anyway.

Before we left we explored the Eden's Eye Maze, a small themed maze which the children loved looking around and jumping as statues talked to them and squirted them. The park also has a number of other attractions, for example Panning for Gold and Dino Dig, but these do have an additional charge.

We had a really good day out at Drusillas, and I would definitely recommend it for a family day out. To save some money, you can use Tesco Clubcard vouchers for admission and cheaper tickets are available if you book online in advance.

We received a complimentary family ticket to review Drusillas.

Dinosaur World, Orlando, Florida

We have recently returned from a fantastic family holiday in Orlando, Florida, and the first attraction that we visited was Dinosaur World, Florida. Like most young children, Harry (4) is fascinated by dinosaurs, and from reading about Dinosaur World we could see that it looked perfect for him. Mia (2) is also just at the age where she is taking a real interest in everything that she sees around her, and we knew that she would enjoy it too.

Although this was our second trip to Florida with the family, this was really the first time that we had strayed from the main theme parks. It was a very refreshing change to drive into a free car park with plenty of spaces situated just a short walk from the entrance, and to be able to enter and purchase some very reasonably priced tickets without having to queue.

From the map, Dinosaur World doesn't look very big, but it's deceptive. Most of the park is taken up with the Dinosaur Walk, where over 150 life-size dinosaurs are displayed outdoors in a natural setting along with information boards. It's a bit of a mixture of dinosaurs from different periods and climates, and there were plenty of dinosaurs which were new to us. There is lots of vegetation which makes for a pleasant shady walk in the Florida heat, and the children loved feeding the Koi carp in the fish pond where you could buy a generous amount of fish food for a bargain 25 cents. They loved exploring the winding pathways and spotting the dinosaurs.

Harry's absolute favourite attraction at Dinosaur World was the Boneyard. It's a big undercover sandpit with raked seating at one end for the adults to sit down while the children use spades and brushes to dig for a buried Stegosaurus skeleton. What a genius idea, and I think that Harry could easily have spent all day there. The park was very quiet on the day that we visited and so he mostly had it to himself, with an occasional influx of school groups to give him a bit of a hand with the excavation. Mia was quite happy sitting at the edge and digging in the sand too.

Another big hit was the Fossil Dig. This is included in the child admission (ages 3-12), and under threes can pay an extra $2 to take part, which is well worth it if you have an older toddler. Children stand alongside a raised sandpit and are provided with a little sieve and collection pot. The sand pit is stuffed full of small fossils for the children to find, and they can choose three to take home as souvenirs. I think that us adults enjoyed hunting for fossils just as much as the children! Knowledgeable staff were on hand to help with identification at the end, and we brought home some lovely fossils, including a shark's tooth and an ammonite.

The museum was very interesting, with some excellent examples of real dinosaur fossils. At the end is a small animatronic dinosaur display which I must admit did rather scare Harry, especially as you can hear the dinosaurs before you can see them, so that's worth being aware of if you have a younger child. There is also a large playground with a good range of equipment for both younger and older children, and we enjoyed the Skeleton Garden with some life size skeleton replicas.

There are plenty of picnic tables but the only food and drink available to buy is from vending machines (although details of a local pizza delivery company are available!) We were particularly impressed with the Gift Shop, which carried a wide range of very reasonably priced merchandise. Normally we hurry the children through attraction gift shops, but this time we actually bought them a small plastic dinosaur each for just 50 cents.

We spent about four hours at Dinosaur World, and we only left because it was the first day of our holiday and we were all still suffering a bit with the jet lag and the unaccustomed heat. We could easily have spent a lot longer here, and we are so glad that we visited. It's very easy to overlook some of the less well known Orlando attractions, especially if you have tickets to the major theme parks that take up your entire holiday, but we had a lovely day here and both children really enjoyed themselves. It's definitely better suited to younger children, but if you have children the right age you will find that it is pitched perfectly to them and I'd really recommend a visit.

Disclosure - We received two complimentary adult press tickets to Dinosaur World, normal adult admission is $14.95. We purchased Harry's ticket for $11.95 and two senior tickets for my parents at $12.95 each, children under 3 are free.

Catching up

I've been away on holiday! Hopefully my absence wasn't too noticeable thanks to a bit of advance planning and some excellent guest posts. Look out for plenty of posts about the holiday to come.

I have come back to an enormous number of blog posts to go through in my blog reader, and my poor social media channels have been badly neglected. One thing I did learn though was that during the week of our holiday where I had no Internet access whatsoever I didn't actually miss anything. I sometimes have a compulsive urge to check Facebook, Twitter and so on throughout the day, but it was much easier to catch up in one go. So I'm now going to try and put my phone aside during the evening more and concentrate on some of my projects - in particular there are a number of things on my Day Zero Project list which need to be worked on!

I'm giving myself a couple of days to get through the washing and over the jet lag, then I'll be back in the swing of things. Also something exciting for me, just before we went away I took the big step of registering myself as self-employed with the aim of searching out some actual paid work as a freelance content writer. Wish me luck!

Three Things sampler update

It's been a little while since I shared a picture of my very long term cross stitch project, so I thought that it was time for an update. I started off the year with good intentions and was really hoping that I might finish it this year, but other projects have encroached and I've not done as much lately as I was hoping. This is the Three Things sampler by Moira Blackburn (affiliate link).

I'm not doing too badly, probably just over a quarter left to go. I just need to put my mind to it and get on with it! I'm going to work on the lettering in the middle next, I find working on text very satisfying because you can make quite a difference in a short space of time.

The sampler is the Three Things Sampler by Moira Blackburn.

UPDATE - I finished the sampler in March 2014! You can see a photograph of the finished sampler here - Moira Blackburn Three Things sampler completed.

Guest post - Watching my son fall asleep

I'm really pleased to welcome a lovely guest post to the blog today, thanks Ruth!

This is a post from Ruth, who blogs as DorkyMum. Ruth lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and 4-year-old son. She posts about parenting, politics, current affairs and photography, and is a finalist in the Outstanding Blogger category at this year’s MAD Blog Awards. You can always find her for a chat on Twitter or Facebook.

Watching my son fall asleep is my favourite thing to do.

It doesn’t happen so often anymore.

When Tom was just a baby he'd nod off in my arms, or leaning on my shoulder, all the time. I took it completely for granted.

One time my Dad came to visit, and we went out for a walk. As I pushed the pram along, Dad kept skipping ahead to peek into it.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, laughing?

‘Just watching him fall asleep,’ said Dad. ‘It’s one of the loveliest things to see.’

I thought he was a bit mad, and said nothing.

Now Tom is four and he has taken sleep - that most private of things - behind closed doors. He tucks in to bed with only Binky - his manky old hippo - for company. We will hear him sometimes, singing a song or chatting to himself for a few minutes before falling silent. Sometimes he will call me through, bleary eyed in the middle of the night, for a nose blow, a sip of water, or to retrieve Binky from somewhere in the tangled sheets. He'll be in that half sleepy state; will murmur something dreamy that makes no sense to me.

But the actual process of falling asleep, those precarious moments between one world and another, are not something I see very often these days.

When I do - usually on some long journey - I understand what my Dad meant all those years ago. I’m reminded what a sweet and lovely thing it is.

He fights it, first. Bashes his head from side to side as though trying to shake those snoozy sensations right out of there, blinking frantically to ward off sleep. Any small noise or movement will make him jolt and sit straight up with a start.

But eventually, with a sense of resignation, he starts to settle. His eyelids become heavier, and his blinking slows right down, giving me the chance to admire those eyelashes that are longer and thicker and darker than is really decent. He clutches Binky to his face, turning him over and over until he finds the most loved part – his tatty old tail - that he picks at with the pinky nail of his right hand. Pick, pick, pick... No wonder poor Binky has needed so many repair jobs.

Tom’s left hand is saved for the serious business of ‘thumb pie’ which is what he calls sucking his thumb. Gentle, at first, although as he falls deeper and deeper into sleep it becomes more furious and noisy, great slurping noises that make me giggle, until he finally reaches that sleepy place where all is calm, his mouth relaxes, and the thumb is released.

He will nap like that for an hour; soothed by the motion of whatever train or plane we happen to be on. His head will get incredibly warm, and often a tiny bead of sweat will course its way slowly down his pink cheek. He will twitch, sometimes, dreaming of ice cream or buses or whatever other things make little boys happy. If he is lying on me, I will have to shift in my own seat, slowly so as not to wake him, trying to get comfy as his weight becomes heavier and heavier.

And then, when he is done, when the batteries are recharged, he will open his eyes and sit up, his hair a mess, his face crumpled and flushed.

‘Good nap?’ I’ll ask.

‘What nap?’ he’ll say. ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t nap at all.’

‘Oh,’ I’ll say.

‘What a shame,’ I’ll say.

I like it, watching Tom not nap. It’s one of my favourite things.

A quick children's craft - design your own room

This craft is something that I remember doing with my Mum when I was little. She used to receive a mail order catalogue and when the new one came we could have the old one to cut up. I used to like choosing my favourite items to glue on to a cardboard house. All you need for this craft is a thick catalogue with plenty of pictures of furniture, homeware, toys and other things that appeal to little ones. Ours was a Tesco one, and the Argos one would work well too.

I'm working with Harry on his scissor skills at the moment, and he's doing pretty well at it. We went through the catalogue and I got him to cut out pictures of things that he'd like in his bedroom, then we stuck them all down on to some coloured paper to make his dream room.

This is it:

This craft provides a very interesting and often amusing insight into your child's mind. Harry chose a bed with the same bedding that he has at home anyway, but then chose some very pink, girly accessories including a dresser. I was pleased to see that storage was important to him, less pleased to see that he considered a large television essential. He also picked out some smart bookshelves and he really wanted to include a display cabinet, which isn't something that we have in our house. I asked him what he was going to put on display and he said "my stuff".

The good thing about this activity was that it kept Mia entertained as well with her own little pot of glue and the off cuts of paper. A really quick, easy and cheap activity - and lots of fun!