Thanksgiving in Orlando With Kids: What to Know Before You Book
Thanksgiving week in Orlando is a genuine peak. The parks run holiday hours, the Christmas decorations are usually already up, and the crowds are among the heaviest of the year. It is also, for a lot of families, the one week everyone can actually travel together.
It rewards planning more than almost any other week, and the planning that gets forgotten is usually the childcare.
What the Week Is Actually Like
Expect long waits and early starts. Expect the holiday overlay to already be running, which is a genuine bonus: you get Thanksgiving crowds but also the start of the Christmas season, and for a lot of families that trade is worth it.
Expect multigenerational groups. Thanksgiving is the week grandparents come, which changes the shape of the trip. More adults sounds like more help, and sometimes it is, but it also means more schedules to reconcile and more opinions about dinner.
The Thanksgiving Dinner Question
If you are doing a sit-down Thanksgiving meal at a resort restaurant, think hard about whether the youngest children are coming. These meals run long. A two hour dinner with a toddler at the end of a park day is a difficult evening for everyone at the table, including the other guests.
A lot of families split it: the older kids and adults do the dinner, and a sitter stays at the room with the youngest. Others book the sitter for the whole evening and do the dinner as adults, which is a different trip but a much calmer one.
Either way, book both the restaurant and the sitter well ahead. Thanksgiving reservations open months out and get taken quickly, and evening childcare that week goes the same way.
Booking Childcare for Thanksgiving Week
Book in October at the latest, and earlier if the date is fixed. Dates 30 to 120 days out can be reserved, which for Thanksgiving means acting well before the trip. Sitter assignment is confirmed 30 days before the booking.
The rate is the same as any other week: $199 for three hours with up to three children, $50 per additional hour, and $149 for a second character for four or more kids. There is no holiday surcharge.
If your group has more than three children, which is common at Thanksgiving, plan for two characters. Two cover up to six. Tell us the headcount and ages when you book and we will tell you honestly what it takes to staff it properly.
Why a Character Sitter Suits This Week
Thanksgiving trips tend to involve a lot of adult time that children have to sit through: long meals, long conversations, relatives they see once a year. A sitter who arrives in character gives the kids an evening that belongs to them, which is often the release valve the whole group needed.
It is also, practically, the easiest way to get grandparents and parents at the same table at the same time without anyone doing shifts.
Practical Notes
Sitters come to your hotel room, resort, or vacation rental anywhere in the Orlando service area. They travel in regular clothes and change once inside.
Fill in allergies, bedtime, and emergency contacts in the pre-booking form, and mention anything unusual about the week: a late dinner, a nap that got skipped, a child who is off their routine because of travel. Your sitter reads all of it before she arrives.
And book the extra hour. Thanksgiving dinners run over. They always run over.
More: the resort and hotel babysitting page, or our guide to babysitters near Disney World.