Originally Posted By markedward My partner and I have managed three trips to Disneyland since moving to California. But this was our first trip since our family grew with the arrival of three foster children, age 7, 4, and 2. The younger two had been to Disneyland once before. Our 7 yo had never been. Disney books and movies are a pretty big part of our entertainment, so they were pretty familiar with Disney. To help the boys connect with stories they weren't already familiar with, we checked out several books from a nearby public library: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES, ALICE AND WONDERLAND, AND PINOCCHIO, as well as DK'S DISNEY, THE ULTIMATE VISUAL GUIDE. We've done some fairly long drives with the boys, up to four hours, but Disneyland was going to be a much longer trip, so we broke down and bought a portable dvd player. The day before we left I rented BUZZ LIGHTYEAR OF STAR COMMAND - THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, PINOCCHIO, THE SWORD IN THE STONE, MUPPETS TREASURE ISLAND, AND THE BOOK OF POOH. By the way, I found Blockbuster, which is not my usual video store, to have a really good Disney collection. The older two watched Buzz and Pinocchio on the way down, and Sword in the Stone on the way back. Our 2 yo doesn't watch videos for long. I've become a big fan of iTunes. I made two cds of Disney music for the trip. I'll spare you the title list, but the sets were Woody's Roundup/Cowboy Mickey, Peter Pan/A Pirate's Life, Jungle Jams (Lion King, Jungle Book, etc.), At Disneyland, Mary Poppins (a very popular movie at our house), and At the Movies (a catch all for everything else). We left Easter morning, and the boys' easter baskets included hats from the Disney Store, and book/plush sets from Toys-R-Us, a great bargain: a small Golden Book and a plush for about seven dollars. I also got them each a Disney shirt which I gave them our first morning there. We'd made Easter cookies, and there was no lack of Easter candy, so these supplemented our Disneyland snacks. We stayed at the Best Western Anaheim Inn. We weren't going into the park the day we arrived, and it was much warmer than we'd expected, so we hunted through gift shops till we found the 4 yo and 7 yo swimming trunks. I'd gotten a good bit of advice on Laughing Place Discussion Boards about taking young children to Disneyland. In the next installment, you can judge for yourself how successful we were at following our carefully thoughtout plan for introducing Disneyland to the boys.
Originally Posted By Kala Awwww, very nice. I think preparing for a Disney trip is just as much fun as going! For our trip we would build up excitement by calling our nephews with a count down shout, like, "7 more days!", For the 5 y.o we'd say, "1 more week", so it wouldn't sound so far off. I liked showing them pictures from other LP'ers photo albums and say, we can do this and do this... It really prepared them mentally for what they would see and make mental lists of what they wanted to do. Hmmmmm I think the build up was probably more for me than for them!
Originally Posted By nevadarebel Sounds so nice, I cannot wait to read the rest to see what your boys thought of this wonderful place.
