For our Disney(land) trip, we stayed at a motel ~ 1.5 miles from the park (Canadian walking distance) and the thing my kids LOVED was we walked by a 7-11 every day and I would buy them a slurpee on the morning walk to the gates. Probably $20 for the week (and likely not much worse for you than a typical vacation breakfast).

The "make your own waffle" station at the included breakfast was also a huge hit. The park and rides were satisfactory.

I've taken my older daughter to Disney (World) twice now (at ages 7 and 9). Her absolute favorite part: riding the Skyliner to EPCOT. On our second trip we went an hour out of our way to go ride it because we weren't at a served hotel that time.

When pressed for a favorite activity within the park, it was "that time we ran all the way from Japan to Soarin', dodging people".

It’s so funny you mention this.

My family are pretty regular Disneyland goers. Last year we finally made it to Disney World for the first time.

My four “kids” were between the ages of 12-23.

And I think their favorite part of the trip was the Skyliner.

How was DW compared to DL? Like yourself, I've been to DL dozens of times, but never made it to DW.

I could happily go to WDW a dozen times never once stepping foot in the Magic Kingdom. Whereas DL is only the Magic Kingdom.

Must be from Winnipeg or something

(Winnipegers have a culture of slurpees)

A few months ago, we took our year-and-a-half-old daughter to Belgium and Spain for two weeks. Her favorite part of the whole trip was seeing horses, sheep, and geese (all of which, believe it or not, we have here at home in Canada).

When I was about seven, my sister and I were taken on a special trip to see the Giant Pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The pandas were fine, but we were fascinated by the chipmunks running around everywhere.

Given your username, I will mention the fascination of visitors with the squirrels in Washington. I know that they used to interest me when we visited my grandmother in Arlington. We had some in northern Ohio, but a) there was less tree cover, and b) a far smaller proportion of the trees were oaks.

As a grown ass man, I make a point of visiting zoos in foreign cities if I'm in a city that has one. My lady is never as enthusiastic, but then quickly forgets about her lack of enthusiasm with the first glance of a meerkat

My gf and I went to Ronda in Spain a few years ago and stopped at the amazing bridge over the gorge. Looked around for a few minutes and then spotted a mother cat leading her litter of kittens through a field down below. We watched them, entranced, for ages. It's always the way with us.

Even as an adult I enjoy time when some other person I am spending time with is fully engaged and fully present, I’d call it quality time, but it’s just so rare…

Same - I hold onto friends for dear life who are capable of keeping their phone in their pocket. There is a time and a place for devices of course, but it's such a terrible feeling to be fully engaged in conversation with someone and all of a sudden they pull out their phone to get a bump of that endless scroll.

This. "My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions."

Things a screen and all the gadgets and fancy engineering in the world can never replace.

Ummm.. Have you played with ChatGPT's new voice mode? ;)

More pertinently, have the kids played with it?

As per the examples in this thread, what kids do and don't like has very little in common with adults' expectations of what they'll like.

My little brother once got a bicycle for christmas. He played the whole evening with the cardboard box it was in.

Consider the possibility that your brother might be a cat ...

When we were kids, at some point we lived in a house whose garden was on top of a hill. So we would sometimes just look for whatever cardboard box is available and roll down the hill inside it.

I stopped offering stuff to my kids for birthdays a long time ago, they got enough from uncles and aunts. I prefer offering "events" like going some place special. Memories are more important than plastic stuff.

A pretty cool one, at that!

I should think a combination transmogrifier/duplicator would be more fun than a boring bicycle, sure.

I once made a cardboard box (from an oven) into a real-life duplicator as a mad scientist at a talent show using a couple of twins as part of the show. Had some people blown away. lol.

At least where I grew up, biking on christmas day was a miserable recipe.

First time I took my eldest to London Zoo, we asked her what her favourite part was, she said "the puddle".

> My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions.

Exactly. The author didn't mention it but it's not just the bus ride, it's how they engaged with their daughter during that ride.

Remember the mania over the total eclipse in April in the US? I took my daughter on 250-mile roadtrip to see it. The drive took a few hours there, then 9 (!!) hours back because of horrendous traffic. It could've been a tantrum-filled disaster, but I committed to staying upbeat and fully engaged the entire time, and as a result it was a fun and memorable trip we still talk about today.

Oh and we didn't even get to see the eclipse ... 95% cloud coverage.

So yeah step 1 is creating time + space for things like this -- like taking a long bus ride -- but a crucial step 2 is leaning into it with presence and attention to your child.

As a kid I remember - swimming pools and any museum that had buttons you could press to make the displays do something.

also parents have gotten rid of BB guns and fireworks!

I had a similar experience -- their (age 2 & 5) favorite thing? Was it the rides, meeting all the characters? No. The parking lot tram.

Funny, this was also my favorite ride when I was 4!

I have travel entire Vietnam with people with kids. After seeing all the pagoda, park, cave, amusement park.. the best part of the travel for the kid was the pool at one hotel.

Our son loved the Monorail as much as the park, and when by luck of the draw we were the first in line at one of them, he was invited into the cabin by the engineer(? conductor?) and got to "drive" one was the highlight for him for years.

Wow, we did the exact same trip a couple years ago, and also stayed at that amazing cabin place. Took home 80 lbs of crystals! Highly recommend.

We also stopped by the Arkansas diamond mine and tried our hand at it. Way less fun, with a near zero chance of finding so much as a speck of a diamond.

Yes! We had the same experience! Mining for diamonds was real work, and we never found a trace.

The crystals were beautiful, and the kids could find them with ease. Tons of fun.

They each got their own pickaxe, which they loved.

They claimed they were already expert diggers because of all the hours they spent playing Minecraft. "We know how to dig, Dad."

My wife remembers going to Disney World with her grandparents when she was 6 or so. Her fondest memories were the hotel pool and the lizards that lounged around it. Those poor grandparents. Imagine spending a lot of money and then dealing with a tantrum when you say "Let's go to Disney World."

If they like that consider taking them clamming if that's a thing near you. I don't really eat clams and thought I might get bored digging in the mud, but somehow it hits some "natural slot machine" desire in my head.

Friends did around the world trip from Europe, via Australia, drive for days in outback, etc etc with 2 kids and 1 newborn.

I asked kids (7 or so yo) what was the favourite part?

He answered Singapore, because it was cold (aka air conditioning everywhere)

yep, my parents took my sister & I to Florida. My mother went with my sister to Disney World. I didn't go, I stayed back at the place with my father & we played marbles. I got to see a turtle run down a hill. Great time. Thankfully they knew amusement parks weren't of interest to me already from when we'd gone to Universal Studios & I mostly remember sitting on a bench