What did your 2 year old love that surprised you?

[eskimopie]

Definitely characters - however, I would suggest meeting a couple "human" characters first. My daughter was a little scared of the giant Mickey the first day, but by the end would run right up. It helped having her see a couple princesses that first day and make the experience a little easier as the days went on.

Fantasyland - no surprise there, but I was surprised she loved the Barnstormer and the teacups (going pretty quick).

She loved the people mover. She called it the blue roller coaster. It was also great because after lunch we would just sit on that for a couple spins while she fell asleep and then we could take turns doing the rides we wanted.

I swear her favorite ride was the Triceratops Spin in AK. We rode that probably 10 times in a row and there was no wait.

 

[jezebel73]

My daughter was terrified of the fur characters until she was 3 or 4. She also was scared on POC at 2 yrs, but has since become fearless.

She was OBSESSIVE about anything water - any fountain, splash pad, etc. and the pool. Not that that was surprising, but it went way beyond what I expected. Those splash pads show up everywhere and I learned very quickly to bring a swim suit and towel and ziploc bags for wet stuff (and swim diapers!!!) wherever we went.

My biggest piece of advice was to let go of your planning when they are at that age. I went into the first couple of trips with grand ideas of how the day would go then she would spend 45 minutes walking the curb like a tightrope and belly laughing until we all had happy tears. Those are some of the best pictures of her EVER. Or in Epcot she ran through the fountain for well over an hour and we just went with it and took turns doing beer runs up to Canada. Sit back and the magic will find you!

 

[lheav09]

My little girl LOVED POTC which we did not expect at all. She is 2 1/2 and keeps saying "pirate ride?" which makes me happy because it means that she at least has some memory from our trip a few weeks ago. She also keeps saying "Tigger, Pooh, eat" so I think she enjoyed our character breakfast too!

 

[kboo]

My DD was 21 months and loved all the rides, Dumbo, Pooh, Mermaid, Small World, etc. She is also a fan of Donald Duck, so like ktlm's little one, the Mexico ride was a big hit. Maelstrom, not so much - she was fine until the troll and the short backwards ride. She is super excited to try the barnstormer when we go in August! (She says, "And then I will put my arms up and go 'wheee!'" um, yeah, we'll see. DH says he can't wait until she's tall enough to be my roller coaster buddy. He could take or leave them.)

Also - she loved the shows, and loved the belly dancer at Marrakesh and got up to dance.

 

[nataliejane]

I took my son when he was 18 months on everything and he was fine if anything he was worse when we went at 5 as he had fear then and was scared of the dark

 

[Dsnyfireman]

My two loved carousel of progress!!! Which is cool because we love it too and it made for a nice 20 minute calm down and sometimes nap!!! For me not them!! Lol!! They never stopped!!

 

[Collmal]

The Matterhorn! It was by far her favorite ride! She just made the height limit before they refurbished it and increased the requirement.

 

[Mrs Lapo]

I am so glad I found this thread. My son will have just turned 2 before we go & I was worried there wouldn't be much for him to ride. But after reading this I see there are a lot of rides for him! My girls will be 5 & 9 so I was unsure if how many rides we could all go in as a family. I think I'll have more trouble finding rides for my oldest bc she is a big scaredy cat! We're hoping a trip to Wildwood over the summer will toughen her up.

 

[#1 Pocahontas]

While my kids really LOVE the characters, parades and rides at that age they seemed to enjoy two things the most over all. One was Digging in Animal Kingdom. All of my kids at that age would have stayed there all day long. ALL day long.

Their other favorite thing, and actually even as they get older they still like it, are the Kidcot stations at Epcot. I sometimes had to drag my kids away from those stations promising them they could color in the next country.

I think in the midst of our busy on the go vacations they just really enjoyed a little down time.

 

[ErinTwinmom]

So last year I took my twin 2yo's to Disney land resort for 3days. This year it will be 8days in the world. My kids have autism and are mostly non -verbal but a lot of their behaviors are pretty spot on for there age. Only things that really fazed them were fireworks which one child hated and that we couldn't play in the water play areas forever. I would consider getting a few movies, sing-a-long at disneyland and sing-a-long beach party at wdw. My kids therapist suggested it to help the girls not be scared of characters and it really worked. Now I know your kid is probably not special needs but we saw lots of normal kids get scared. The disneyland video also has the song from the haunted mansion which I think made it more fun for the girls. The beach party is more of the same without the cool disneyland background but it has a really good bit with a mermaid Ariel face character if you want to gauge their reaction to that.

 

[hpsalb]

DS was 2.5 last year and really loved the Seas at Epcot. He did much better than I thought at the World Showcase - he liked the little craft stations too.

Really enjoyed Tom Sawyer's Island and riding the boat over. Honey I Shrunk the Kids was a hit too, but harder to keep an eye on him there. Was brave enough and just tall enough to try to Barnstormer, although I'm not sure he would do it again. Most Fantasyland stuff was a hit. Loved the Dumbo playground. Swiss Family Robinson is a fun one that most people never do so it's never crowded. The train around MK was a favorite and we often did that to avoid walking across the park.

Mesmerized by the Nemo show at AK. Liked the Safari too.

Things that flopped - For some reason he hated the train ride and petting zoo area at AK, which still baffles me. He was hit or miss with characters (fine with me, I didn't want to wait in line for them). Mostly he just wanted to point them out, not meet them. He also didn't want to do the interactive stuff at Epcot which I thought he would really enjoy. He didn't like the Disney Jr show at HS - I think the puppets were hard for him to see?