We are driving back from our first visit with our daughter celebrating her 4th birthday this week so I thought Iād share our experience as we used this sub so much in planning!
Prep - we didnāt plan when we would do anything, but we had a wishlist of recommendations of rides/attractions/characters suited for her age and ranked top/medium/low. this was SO helpful to refer back to, but meant we were still kind of free to roam and relax.
Rides:
Frozen - she enjoyed, does have a drop which we prepared her for & she was OK with. The queues are mad, I never saw below 80 minutes except at 8:30 for first ride so one for magic hour or fast pass.
ratatouille - we all loved this, one of the best rides.
Rapunzel/magic carpet/quatre ralley - all decent rides she enjoyed
Slinky spin- she LOVED, pure joy. We did once on day 1 & 3x back to back during magic hour for day 2.
spiderman & buzz - v loud and she didnāt love.
autopia - this is a car driving one and she could driver herself, was her request to do a final time before we left.
caseys coaster/its a small world/pays de /lancelot carousel - all near to eachother and very chilled, none the best or worst rides.
peter pan & toy soldiers - saved these for day 2 and then they closed for refurb which was disappointing.
Characters:
Jessie & Woody were both absolutely amazing. Their teams were incredible, they went the extra mile for bringing the magic. Elsa & Anna, Mickey & Minnie were good but not amazing.
The virtual queue was so helpful and limited queue time hugely for Jessie, Elsa/anna & Mickey, tbh they need to make more of them virtual queues as the queing for Minnie/friends was horrendous and I wouldnāt do again. Thankfully we got Minnie but if we had queued for 90 minutes for clarabell I would have been gutted as my daughter doesnāt even know who she is, the whole Minnie Mouse character process needs to be better.
Shows:
The Mickey show was great, the Minnie and frozen shows were a little meh but still good. it was a shame the together show wasnāt on as that sounds great. The main parade was amazing, itās only on once a day so make sure you check when. The fireworks show was genuinely great, better than expected. The Princess cavalcade /million colours mini parades were also good and happened a few times so were good to be aware of and create magic as you walk around the park.
Food/Other.
We ate at Waltās, I was surprised by how good the food was, genuinely one of the nicest meals Iāve had. Watching my daughter watch the parade from the window was really special. We brought packed lunch & ate at our accomodation the rest of the time, but got a few Mickey snacks out. We would have liked to do character dinner but it was Ā£250 plus drinks for 2 adults & 1 child which just felt too much.
We got her a birthday badge from city hall & it was great, they took her out back & got Mickey to call her to say happy birthday - I donāt think everyone gets this but the person in front of us took ages sorting something & it was a really nice touch to create more magic.
Accomodation:
We stayed at centerparcs and it was great, would definitely do again. We booked a package with parking included. The pool was huge, the farm had a huge indoor/outdoor play area, she could feed the goats, there was a forest play area, cute little bakery & a lake. Felt chill and meant we really made the most of our travel days.
Already planning our next trip! hope this helps someone planning!! Youāll love it :)