This post is in collaboration with Walt Disney World. All opinions are my own. 

Brad and I spent last week in Orlando with our next door neighbors – Kevin, Renee, and Jaxson. One thing that we had planned for the trip was to visit Magic Kingdom because Jaxson is a huge fan of Mickey Mouse (plus, I’m always game for a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth and getting some rides in). We had such a magical day at Magic Kingdom that we decided to add Animal Kingdom to the itinerary later in the week (I’ll have another post about Animal Kingdom later).

Since Jaxson turned 2 just a couple weeks ago, we utilized the app to plan our day around minimal wait times. This might have lead to a few treks from one end of the park to the other; however, it helped keep the toddler occupied and made my fitbit happy. He was a trooper while waiting in line – there are so many fun things to look at while in line that we could point them out to him and he would be distracted for a few more minutes investigating them.

Fast Passes were definitely a good idea for meeting Mickey Mouse, and any other characters that are on your “must see” list, even right away in the morning he had a long line and we were able to see him in about 10 minutes. It took Jaxson a while to figure out that “say cheese” meant to smile, but we could always get him to smile by telling him to say “touchdown”. It was so fun when the characters played along too and did the touchdown pose with him.

We are so glad that we signed up for the Magic Maker, any photograph that Disney cast-members took of us would show up in our account (generally within minutes) and we could immediately share them from the app, or download them for use later. Even though we were only planning on being in the park for a single day, we thought the price was worth it because we could just enjoy the moment watching Jaxson meet the characters and didn’t have to think about capturing the memory on camera.

Jaxson LOVED going on as many rides as he could. The teacups were probably one of his favorites because he loved spinning fast (and Kevin definitely got us spinning). We were able to get a lot of the Fantasyland rides in during the morning before the crowds got busy. Jaxson is just under 36″ and could go on quite a few rides – some of his other favorites were Dumbo and Barnstormer.

In addition to meeting the Characters and going on rides, there are plenty of other ways to keep kids occupied throughout the day. One way is to look for all of the fun pressed penny machines that are located throughout the park. These are fun collectibles (and make for a relatively inexpensive souvenir). When we went to Disney in 2014, Aubree and Brad would go search for the pressed penny machines while her parents and I went on rides.

Walt Disney World is full of Magic. After meeting Goofy & Donald in the circus area, Jaxson and I were watching some cast members make Mikey Head treats (they were brownies and marshmallows dipped in chocolate – yum)! While we were standing there watching, one of the cast members asked if Jaxson could have a cookie – he was in heaven as he enjoyed this free treat and definitely made the moment a little bit more magical.

Jaxson was on such a high simply being at Disney World that we weren’t sure whether or not he would take his daily noon time nap (the FOMO is strong in this child); however, soon after lunch, he was lulled to sleep by walking through the park in his stroller. Kevin & Renee brought along their BOB stroller which was great for storing our jackets and waterbottles throughout the day (along with giving Jaxson a place to sit and sleep). If you have a popular style stroller (BOB, City Select, etc) make sure to put some sort of personalization on it because there will probably be lots of the same strollers in the stroller parking.

We didn’t have any meal reservations booked so we stuck to quick service meals during the day. We found that if we could eat slightly early (11:15 lunch and about 5:15 dinner) we could avoid most of the crowds in the restaurant and then enjoy the rides/activities while everybody else was eating at a normal time.

Overall, our day at Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom was filled with amazingness and packed with activities. We can’t wait to go back and enjoy some more of the magic.