NotUrsula
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
My late MIL sounds a lot like yours. She was unused to travel, and found the whole Disney experience VERY intimidating. We took her with us near the Holidays when our yougest DD was 6 mos old. We stayed at the Swan to minimize the amount of walking to be done around the resort (she tired easily, but refused to use an ECV), and we cut WAY back on the amount of things we would normally do. She didn't wish to ride anything with a drop, even PoC or the Norway ride, so she spent a lot of time waiting outside rides with the baby. The only things that we really experienced together were the shows -- THOSE she loved. (That and the Osborne Lights, which are gone now.)
I later discovered that at the end of that trip she told DH that she would NEVER travel in my company again, because I was a slavedriver who expected her to just go, go, go all the time. The reality is that I'm not a park commando at all; it isn't unusual for a full day in the parks for us to be only 5-6 rides. We almost always take an out-of-park break mid-day, and we never do rope drop. However, I do want to get out of the hotel room for most of every day, especially on a winter trip -- I don't pay a fortune in airfare to sit around inside a small room watching television. I think that her idea was that on that 5-day trip we might go to the parks for, at most, part of two days, with at least 2 days in our hotel rooms in-between to recover. We went to the parks for 4 days, with one day off in the middle; which she felt was WAYYYYYY too much active time. (She did go back to her room after dinner every night, while we went back to the parks for nighttime activities.)
My point is that with someone unused to travel, a Disney trip is rather a baptism by fire, and there is a good chance that your idea of taking it easy won't be easy enough. I would sit down with your DH and hash out what will happen when your MIL gets tired or overwhelmed, because chances are that it will happen at times when your children are not ready to rest.
PS: About the table-service meals -- just don't do more than two at the most. IME, kids really HATE long table-service meals while at WDW, especially meals in the park restaurants. It's torture for them to sit still and listen to grownups endlessly chat while there are rides that could be ridden. If you must do them, I recommend doing them for lunch rather than dinner, because kids tend to be more amenable to sitting still if the meal is a break that gets them out of the mid-day heat.
I later discovered that at the end of that trip she told DH that she would NEVER travel in my company again, because I was a slavedriver who expected her to just go, go, go all the time. The reality is that I'm not a park commando at all; it isn't unusual for a full day in the parks for us to be only 5-6 rides. We almost always take an out-of-park break mid-day, and we never do rope drop. However, I do want to get out of the hotel room for most of every day, especially on a winter trip -- I don't pay a fortune in airfare to sit around inside a small room watching television. I think that her idea was that on that 5-day trip we might go to the parks for, at most, part of two days, with at least 2 days in our hotel rooms in-between to recover. We went to the parks for 4 days, with one day off in the middle; which she felt was WAYYYYYY too much active time. (She did go back to her room after dinner every night, while we went back to the parks for nighttime activities.)
My point is that with someone unused to travel, a Disney trip is rather a baptism by fire, and there is a good chance that your idea of taking it easy won't be easy enough. I would sit down with your DH and hash out what will happen when your MIL gets tired or overwhelmed, because chances are that it will happen at times when your children are not ready to rest.
PS: About the table-service meals -- just don't do more than two at the most. IME, kids really HATE long table-service meals while at WDW, especially meals in the park restaurants. It's torture for them to sit still and listen to grownups endlessly chat while there are rides that could be ridden. If you must do them, I recommend doing them for lunch rather than dinner, because kids tend to be more amenable to sitting still if the meal is a break that gets them out of the mid-day heat.
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