Disney and a teenager??

[Lori C- Texas]

We are surprising our kids with a trip to Disney World in September and this will also be their first time to fly on an airplane. They won't know anything about it until the day we leave...that is if I can keep it a secret. I'm not the best at that!! :)

 

My question is what things at Disney have your teenage daughters enjoyed. Our daughter will be 16 when we go. She has never really been into the princesses or other Disney characters. I tried my hardest to get this girl into princesses and dress up! Never went over well! :) She did go through a huge Toy Story phase when Toy Story 2 came out in theaters but that is about it when it comes to Disney stuff.

 

Our boys, 12 and 10, are going to be doing all the pirate stuff and Star Wars things. We are booking some character meals with Mickey and some of their other favorites. I don't want her to feel like this trip is all about the boys. She will enjoy most of the rides and food. But I was wondering what others have done to make a Disney trip a little more magical for a teenage girl. This is most likely going to be our one and only trip to Disney. I really want to make it a memorable experience for all.

 

I was in the 2nd grade the last time I went to Disney World and there was only the Magic Kingdom there then. DH hasn't been since he was 14 and he said Epcot was still really new then. We have no idea what we are doing! I ordered some travel guides but they haven't been delivered yet. I have googled but only come up with stuff for little girls. :)

 

Would love your advice!

[J-rap]

I don't really have much advice to give since I have never been to Disney World -- only Disneyland, and it's been years since I've been there. However, I wanted to mention that I LOVED going to Disneyland as a teen, and in fact my whole senior class went there on a train for our senior year trip. You don't have to be into princesses and all of that to enjoy it. :) I'm sure others will have more specific advice.

[tabrizia]

Would she like a tea party, an adult one? I believe there is afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian every afternoon. Maybe just a Mom or Dad and her fancy dinner (there are some really nice restaraunts on property). Take her shopping at the outlets? or Downtown Disney without her brothers? Would she like Cirque de Soleil, it is a lot of fun as well.

[LinRTX]

Disney is great even if you don't do the princesses. We just took my 12yo dd. She loved tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom, especially the laugh floor. Epcot is fun and has no princess stuff. We also enjoyed Animal Kingdom. I think my daughter's favorite was Hollywood Studios, though. It has some stunt show that are really fun and she loved the movie ride.

 

Hope all this helps.

[Lady Florida.]

My teen boy and his friend (a teen girl) went just a few weeks ago and had a great time. I know a number of teen girls locally who love Disney. Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom all have plenty for teens to enjoy. Also, many secretly like the Magic Kingdom as well. They just don't always admit it. :)

[Lori C- Texas]

Thanks so much! I didn't know they had tea parties for adults. I will look into that. She would LOVE Cirque de Soleil. She has been once before in Dallas. That might be a great Dad and daughter night out. She does love animals. So the Animal Kingdom might be a hit with her. Thanks for the ideas guys! I knew this would be the place to ask! :)

[Jennifer in MI]

She might surprise you! I love Disney because my older boys act like little kids. They willingly hop in pictures with the characters. They ride the little kid rides at the Magic Kingdom. My 12 yo wears his Goofy ears and trading pins everywhere at Disney.

 

FUnny story - on our last Disney Cruise, I ordered the CD of all the professional photos. I was totally surprised at a bunch of them! My kids had gone around and had their photos taken with a bunch of characters!!!! They loved them.

[mumto2]

I honestly don't think you are going to need to do anything special. Your boys are big enough to go on all rides so she won't be spending hours on little kid stuff.

 

A friend recently took his dd15 and sds's 8 and10 for a week at Disneyworld. She had a blast with no special girl activities. She was just so happy to be there--first time.

 

Personally we always choose Mickey character dinner's and dd was a princess girl!;) Mickey is fun!

[Lori C- Texas]

She might surprise me and jump into photos and ask for autographs! :) She really enjoys hanging out with her little brothers. She will probably love just seeing them having a great time. I am probably just over thinking it. I just want her to have as much fun as I know our boys are going to have. She will be glad just to go somewhere. We never go anywhere! :)

[Guest inoubliable]

I've never done the Disney thing, but wanted to say that I think your surprise is an awesome one! :thumbup1:

[JFSinIL]

Schedule time for her to have a special shopping or meal time with you, and a nice sit-down meal with Dad. Away from the little brothers. Treat her like one of the grown-ups. Maybe also ask her to help be the photo-taker of the trip?

[Ellie]

You know, just being there and taking time between rides to enjoy everything is magic enough. Be spontaneous. Take your cues from her. :-)

[HelenNotOfTroy]

I loved Disney World as a teen, DHS and Animal Kingdom did not exist then, but they have a few thrill rides if she likes that sort of thing. My favorites at Magic Kingdom were (and still are) all three mountains, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle Cruise. It is important to know before riding that the Jungle Cruise is meant to be full of puns. Epcot has changed a great deal since then, but I loved the different shows at the different countries in World Showcase.

[Jennifer in MI]

I've never done the Disney thing, but wanted to say that I think your surprise is an awesome one! :thumbup1:

 

 

I agree!!! We surprised our kids with a vacation once! Here it is!

 

 

Weird. It's only playing the first 45 seconds. Oh well. You get the idea!!!

[Lori C- Texas]

It is going to be so hard for me to keep it a secret!!! We are planning on surprising them by waking them up for our early flight by telling them to put on "I'm going to Disney World" Tshirts. :) I can already picture the confused/sleepy faces! :)

 

Loved the video Jennifer!

[Jeannie in NJ]

last year when my dd was 16, my sil, dd and I went to the adult tea at Grand Floridian. We had a very nice time. Also the 3 of us decided that we were going to vist every single deluxe resort. Not stay there, just visit, look around, spend a hour or two at each one. This is easy to do, some you get to from the Monorail ( Grand Floridian, Contempary and Polynesian), others you just walk out the back of Epcot and you are there at the resorts of Boardwalk, Beach Club I think that is what it is called and the Yacht Club. We took a boat from one of the parks to visit Wilderness Lodge and the day we went to Animal Kingdom Park, we took the bus to visit Animal Kingdom Lodge. The 3 of us had so much fun just visiting all the lobbies, the shops, walk around outside. They are all so different and so interesting to see.

[StaceyinLA]

Jennifer, that is TOO funny! I love how your son read the shirt then said, "You did not," before he figured it out! I wanna be that cool of a parent once!!

[besroma]

The dessert buffet with a view of the fireworks is supposed to be wonderful.

 

If you are staying onsite, watching one of the movies on the beach at one of the resorts is a lot of fun.

 

She would probably enjoy eating at 'Ohana and walking down to the beach to watch the MK fireworks.

 

Our entire family loved the Hoop De Doo Revue.

 

These are things everyone would enjoy, but might be especially memorable for her (like the pirate activities for the boys).

 

I definitely recommend purchasing the Photopass Plus in advance for a trip like this. We had so many great photos taken, and loved that everyone was in every photo. We had quite a few taken with special effects also ( Tink standing in DD's hand, me holding balloons, etc.).

[Lily_Grace]

Um....freedom?

 

:)

 

 

My oldest will be 15/16 when we go back, but we're building into our schedule *one* special event for each of us to do alone. The 5/6yo - a Pirate Cruise, dh - golf, me - tea, and the 15/16yo - a tour he wants to do. We plan on linking up with cell phones and giving him the same rules we had when we were young: he's allowed to go off and explore the park by himself, but must meet us for meal times and the closing spectacular. When we're at the hotel he's welcome to explore by himself, have a room key, etc.

 

We did a trial run of this in DLParis (him, 13yo) and it worked beautifully. Of course, Disneyland Paris is much, much smaller but he was quite responsible with the freedom he was given.

 

 

 

Check out the Disboards. They have a section for teens and you might find something you would have overlooked.

[tex-mex]

We went to Disneyland/CA Adventure for ds' 10th bday.

 

We then went to Walt Disney World when ds was 13 many years ago... ds will be 18 years old in a few months. He says he LOVED both places and would go back in a heartbeat. If someday, we have 2 nickels to rub against each other, we'd go back to WDW. The rides, Downtown Disney and Blizzard Beach were big hits with him! And I'd invite ds' buddy to join in on the fun!

[Mom in High Heels]

She will love it! I went twice as a teen and had a blast. Heck, I'm almost 40 and we've been so many times in the past few years and I still have a blast! There's so much to see and do and I think it would be pretty much impossible for her not to have fun. I think you are over thinking it. Make a few plans, but try to follow the kids' lead and do what they interested in.

 

I like the surprise element. We've done that twice to Indy.

 

A few years ago we went to Disneyland Paris, and James Bond had Indy totally convinced we were going bird watching. Indy was 7 at the time and packed his little binoculars and a notebook and pencil to sketch the birds. We should have been there in about 5 hours, but I accidentally set my GPS to avoid toll roads (almost all of the main roads in France are toll), so we went a very, very circuitous route that took 7 hours (I figured out the problem in hour 5), so by the time we got there, Indy had fallen asleep. I checked us in and went to the room. He had no idea until the next morning where we were!

 

Last year, when we were in the States, we told Indy we were going on a trip to do things that JB wanted. Well, JB said he wanted to do a "crafting" trip. Indy was soooooo not happy. We kept talking up all the cool stuff we were going to do and even got him to design a quilt on a piece of paper, but he was still grumpy. We stayed at a hotel about 150 miles from WDW the first night and I saw a pamphlet in the lobby for a golf museum. We told Indy we were going to stop there, but we had to stop at Shades of Green (the Disney military resort) to buy discounted tickets. OMG, he was so upset. We're such terrible parents. I actually bought the discounted Disney tickets (we weren't staying at SoG) and then drove over to The Caribbean Beach Resort. JB and I were talking the whole way about how the GPS was wrong, so we stopped at the lobby to "get directions." I checked us all in and we got back to the car. As we drove out to our hotel 'island' we started arguing about which way to go and JB finally told me to pull over and get directions again because clearly I was confused. We all got out of the car, JB and I grumping at each other the whole time (really we were trying not to laugh), went to our room, which we told Indy was the office and he STILL didn't know we were staying until we opened the door to the room. It was the best reaction ever. We're either very convincing, or he's very gullible.