Traveling With an Infant - Restaurant Issues

Infants and restaurants don't always mix well, but if you play your cards right, you can enjoy all the best dining spots that WDW has to offer -- even with a very young baby:

• Disney has an unadvertised "sleeping baby policy" in which you can take your stroller into a restaurant with you if your baby is sleeping. In general, stroller's aren't permitted inside attractions or restaurants, but for a sleeping one, the CMs will almost certainly "break" the rules if you ask. 

• The restaurants at WDW are often kept very cold...too cold for the baby, usually. We realized quite quickly that the heat and humidity outside made Allan really drowsy. Then, when we went into a restaurant for a meal (or perhaps into an attraction that was air conditioned) Allan almost immediately woke up from the cooler air. Wrapping him up in a blanket as soon as we entered the restaurant kept him a lot more comfortable...and less likely to fuss during our meals.

• We had have no problem getting the stroller into restaurants, so the baby was able to sleep at our table during meals.

• High-chairs (and infant chairs) are available at the WDW restaurants. Feel free to ask for one.

• You should make it very clear when you make priority seating arrangements if you need a high-chair (or a place near the table to park a stroller for an infant). When you check in at the restaurant for your seating, tell the host or hostess that you need a high-chair (sometimes those details get lost in the computerized priority seating system) or room for the stroller.

• Be aware, too, that needing a high chair or a stroller parking space is likely to slow down your seating. WDW is limited by the Fire Marshall to keep restaurant aisles clear. Frankly, considering the number of families with small children that visit WDW each year, there's an amazingly small number of tables in the restaurants that can handle a parked stroller (high-chairs are easier, since you simply remove the extra chair from the table.)