Briggs at Disney

The last time we went to Disney, Briggs was 10 months old.  He was a prop baby.  He smiled at people, rode along on rides, slept in his carrier, and doesn't remember a bit of it.  We were so excited to take him back so that he could enjoy all the activities that he didn't remember from the first time.

Prop baby

Unfortunately, it took us about 2 days of our trip to figure out what it was that Briggs would enjoy about Disney.  Our first 2 days, Briggs didn't want to ride rides.  He only wanted to be held to meet characters.  He was scared of the parades, the shows, the fireworks.  He didn't want to swim in the pool.  He cried about the Little Mermaid ride and the Nemo ride and It's a Small World and Winnie the Pooh.  He cried at Enchanted Tales with Belle and the Frozen ride.  He started getting upset as soon as we'd enter a building for a ride or a show.  He started telling us "I have to go potty" every time there was something he didn't want to do or see.  He covered his ears in anticipation of any type of fireworks.  He was scared of the dragon in the Festival of Fantasy parade.  We were starting to feel like Briggs might remember this as a torturous week rather than a fun vacation since every time we said, "You'll like this, Buddy", he didn't.

Ready for a night time show

After the first 2 days, however, we started to get him figured out.  There are many inside rides where it's dark(ish) and you see characters or stories or songs as you ride through.  At his age, Adelie loved those rides.  For whatever reason, Briggs didn't like any of the inside rides.  But he loved outside rides--the trains, the People Mover, Dumbo, race cars, safari, the carousel, the teacups.  He didn't like anything even remotely tense or scary, like the dim lighting in Enchanted Tales with Belle, but loved bright, happy shows like Disney Jr.  Once we figured this out, one of us would take the girls on a ride or to a show while the other would take Briggs to do something else that we knew he would like.  He was much happier about that arrangement.

Riding Dumbo

Briggs also started getting braver about the characters.  The first few characters we met, Briggs insisted on being held.  As the week went on, he still didn't want to be put down by the taller characters in costume, like Goofy, Pluto, or the Beast.  And during meals, he was often just as happy to keep eating and have the princesses or characters just pose by his high chair rather than getting out.  But he started interacting more with the characters and happily gave hugs, high fives, and posed with many of the princesses and characters.  He was most excited about posing with Cruz (from Cars 3) who revved her engine and talked.  He also really seemed to like Chewbacca, Anna, Elsa, and Mickey.

Briggs and Cruz

Briggs was pretty go-with-the-flow throughout our trip.  When he'd get tired during the day, he'd ask to take a nap in the stroller...and would.  He would stay up past bedtime without melting down, slept really well at night, happily rode around in the stroller, and made requests for activities he wanted to do or characters he wanted to meet.  Once he realized that we were no longer going to take him on things he didn't want to go on, he'd politely answer "no thanks" to any ride or activity he didn't want to do.  We had way less tears and way more fun once we figured out how to do Disney the Briggy way.