The first time we took our boys to Walt Disney World, they woke before dawn. They were 3 and 5, impossibly excited after months of counting down the days. Before the sun came up, they were already filled with questions about Mickey Mouse, Cinderella Castle, and which ride we’d go on first. My husband and I could barely keep up as we hurried through breakfast, eager to get to the Magic Kingdom almost as much as they were.
When we returned two years later, not much had changed. Disney still revolved around the kind of magic only little kids can create. We cheered them on as they braved the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, saw their faces light up whenever they spotted Jake and the Never Land Pirates, and planned our days around tired little legs that gave out long before the parks closed. We never seemed to make it to the fireworks, but it didn’t matter. There would be other trips.
Things had changed by our next Disney trip
We were less than a month out from our 2020 trip when the world shut down. By the time we finally made it back in 2023, six years had passed since our last visit. The experiences they’d once been so excited about no longer held the same appeal, and the Disney trip I’d imagined no longer existed. Somewhere during those in-between years, the little boys I expected to bring back had grown up.
We returned again last December, and the shift in our experience felt even bigger. The boys were 14 and 16, and for the first time, I found myself wondering how many more family Disney vacations we might have left. Not because they weren’t having fun — they absolutely were — but because I could see childhood giving way to something else.
Disney has changed since those first visits, or maybe I have, and the rhythm of our family vacations has also shifted. They breeze past character meet-and-greets without a second glance and wouldn’t be caught dead in matching family T-shirts or Mickey ears. Instead of Main Street and Cinderella Castle, our first stop is Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios.
My sons still enjoy going but for different reasons
They finally reached the age — and the height — where I could introduce them to my favorite rides, screaming together through the twists of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and laughing as we dropped, weightless, on Tower of Terror. They’re excited to ride TRON, and even Space Mountain, but it’s the thrills, not the fairy tales, that draw them now.
And yet every trip still reveals flashes of the little boys they used to be. They still laugh at the corny jokes on Jungle Cruise. The first time they rode Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT, they were thrumming with excitement and immediately wanted to do it again. I can still coax them to pose with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger when we have lunch at the Crystal Palace.
Our family trips to Disney have highlighted how quickly kids grow up
For a long time, I mourned the Disney trip we never got to take in 2020 because it felt like we’d missed our last chance to experience the parks with little boys. I wanted one more ride on Peter Pan with small hands reaching for mine, one more family photo in front of Cinderella Castle, where excitement outweighed self-consciousness, one more chance to freeze that season before it slipped away.
But that’s the thing about childhood — we carefully mark the first milestones without ever knowing when the last one will come until it’s already past. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t grieving a canceled vacation. I was grieving a version of motherhood that had already begun to disappear.
The Disney magic I loved was never really about kiddie rides or character breakfasts. It was about watching my children discover something new, whether that meant meeting Mickey Mouse or conquering their fear of the dark to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Every trip has given them a different version of Disney — and every trip has given me a different version of them.
I’m not sure when we’ll go back as a family again. Maybe we’ll have time to squeeze in one more trip before they’re off to college. Whenever it is, I know Disney will look different again. That’s part of the magic. Every visit becomes another snapshot of who we are in that moment, another chance to discover something new together.
And somehow, no matter how old any of us get, there will always be room for one more Mickey bar — and one more ride on It’s a Small World.
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