Walt Disney World (FL)

Taking Your Tween to Magic Kingdom Without a Single Eyeroll

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Two families ready for a day at Magic Kingdom… look at all those tweens!

This October, our family ventured to Walt Disney World on a shared vacation with good friends, and we spent a beautiful week with four kids between 9 and 11 years old. My two tweens had been to Disney World several times, but it was the other family’s first magical vacation and I wanted it to be special! I arrived with comprehensive two-day touring plans that would cover all of the attractions at Magic Kingdom, in order to give everyone the full Magic Kingdom experience. When it’s your first time touring, you want to see it all, right? As my experience showed, this approach turned out to be flawed.

You see, Magic Kingdom conjures up images of awestruck toddlers dressed in princess costumes waiting to meet their favorite characters, which definitely doesn’t appeal to self-conscious kids on the edge of becoming teens. When I made my touring plans, I forgot to take into account that a member of the fussy preteen demographic can go from elated to scowly in a split second if there’s even a hint of them being treated like a baby. “Just try it, you might like it,” is met with a fierce determination to prove me wrong. And when you add three more children of the same demographic to the mix, you don’t just quadruple the eyerolls, the compounding effect approaches infinity. (I’m sure it can be scientifically proven, I just don’t have time for that today.)

A ride on the Prince Charming Regal Carousel was a “gray area” for the tweens.

So, while my approach was a good one when my kids were in first and second grade, my efforts to expose the tweens to Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room and Dumbo for the sake of experiencing Magic Kingdom to its fullest turned out to be counterproductive. If I could rewind time, I would focus our touring on the “hits” and just repeat them, avoiding the “duds” for this age group. To help you avoid the same mistake, here are the “hits,” as decided by four tweens:

Best Magic Kingdom Attractions for Tweens

The tweens wouldn’t go out of their way to meet a character, but the buffet at The Crystal Palace provided an acceptable photo op.

Those were the tweens’ favorites. For the TouringPlans official one-day touring plan for tweens, go here.

[Not to worry, parents, you are not doomed to spend the day on Space Mountain. If you fear that your tween’s fussiness will dictate your Magic Kingdom plans, you can institute the Parents Choice, requiring your family’s touring plans to include something for everyone to enjoy. Parents can add an attraction or two that the tweens wouldn’t choose themselves (like Carousel of Progress or it’s a small world, in my family’s case.) The best part of Parents Choice? No eyerolls allowed.]

Please welcome Trista VanderVoord to the TouringPlans blog team. Trista planned her first Walt Disney World vacation for her family four years ago and is currently planning for her fifth trip there from her home in Michigan.

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Trista VanderVoord

Trista is an analytical planner with a love for Disney World. With two preteens and a husband who also adore Disney, Trista approaches each vacation with spreadsheets, crowd predictions and touring plans that would make your head spin. Despite her logical approach to vacation planning, Trista still feels the magic as soon as she steps onto Main Street, U.S.A. and spies Cinderella’s Castle.

2 thoughts on “Taking Your Tween to Magic Kingdom Without a Single Eyeroll

  • That is so funny you mention the Hall of Presidents. We did a suicide day of Animal Kingdom (9:00a-1:30p), Hollywood Studio (2:00p-9:00p) and Magic Kingdom (9:30p-2:00a). We sat down and watched Wishes at 10:00p and then had a finite amount of time to spend – I was thinking Splash Mountain and other rides – my 10 year old daughter insisted that we wait the 15 minutes and do this attraction. We had fun; but really? We managed to get Haunted Mansion and Pirates on that side and then hoofed it over to Space Mountain,…where the ride broke down; but we were in line when the park closed, so we waited it out. We talk about that suicide day at least once a week. It was ridiculous; but they loved it and will never forget it!

    Reply
    • I LOVE the idea of a suicide day; my family would be talking about it for a long time too! It is interesting that you had a similar experience with your tween and The Hall of Presidents. I guess we can be glad that they want to do something other than thrill rides!

      Reply

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