The Disney World first-timer waved at Tigger, grinned for photos with Cinderella and faced down stormtroopers on a Star Wars ride.
“Just two princesses living our best lives in Disney World,” wrote Kaitlyn Douthitt on a video she made of the October trip. “I love you! Happy 78th birthday.”
For Barbara Douthitt — Mamaw to 31-year-old Kaitlyn, a medical aesthetician — the trip was “a highlight” that included her first time on a plane. And with nearly 5 million views on TikTok, the Kentucky duo’s experience was a viral example of a trend that has proliferated on social media in recent years: a generation of Disney adults planning trips with grandma.
“We had a great time,” Barbara Douthitt said. “I’ve told older people, I said: ‘Go with a grandchild or whatever one time. It’d be the best time of your life.’”
Grandparents have long taken their grown children and grandkids on theme park vacations, navigating tantrums and nap times, picky appetites and stroller parking. Now those adult grandkids are flipping the script, planning meals where grandparents can meet characters, rides that meet their thrill tolerance and plenty of photo opportunities.
In videos on social media, grandmas (and a couple grandpas) cheer during fireworks, dab tears while meeting Snow White, beam during parades, dance with Pinocchio, laugh on roller coasters and show off mouse-ear headbands. Commenters confess to sobbing.
Just two princesses living our best lives in Disney World
#HappyBirthdayGrandma #DisneyMagic @Walt Disney World
“I would give anything to be able to experience this with my grandma,” one person wrote in response to a video of a teary grandma declaring her trip the “best time I’ve had in a long time.”
‘She became a kid’
Suzanne Warnick, 82, had chaperoned high school marching band trips at Disneyland when her daughters were teens but hadn’t visited in decades. Then one of her granddaughters dropped an idea in a group chat with her sisters: “I really just want to go to Disneyland with Grandma Sue.”
A few months later, in July, Warnick, her daughter and four granddaughters left spouses and kids behind and road-tripped from Utah to Southern California. They made T-shirts for the occasion: a woman who looked like Grandma Sue sitting in an oversize teacup with the phrase “Grandma’s Wild Adventure.”
Before the trip, Rachel Dragon, one of those granddaughters, worried how her grandma would do on rides. Warnick had to figure out a solution to her portable oxygen needs, a necessity since she underwent radiation treatment for breast cancer.
The family wondered how Warnick would do on a scooter. They needn’t have worried.
I’ll never be able to wrap my brain around the fact I got to witness this in person. Core memory, funniest 40 minutes of my life. Once again, shout out to every cast member
y’all contributed to this. & don’t worry, no oxygen/inogen tanks or grandmas were harmed in the making of this video LOL. If you missed part one, you’ve gotta go watch it hahaha. TAKE YOUR GRANDMA TO DISNEY!!! I’ll help ya get there, just message me
“We had our hands full with her,” Dragon said, laughing. Warnick went on just about every ride available, including a log flume with a 50-foot drop, a bumpy roller coaster and an attraction that includes free falls.
Dragon took videos of Grandma’s wild adventure, including efforts to keep up with the scooter, a simulated hang-gliding experience that her grandma did not enjoy and the group’s hysterics while getting soaked on a water ride that ruined Warnick’s fresh perm.
“This is literally the best thing of my life,” said Dragon, 31, a travel agent, content creator and Etsy shop owner. “She’s my last grandparent remaining, and so I just want to get all of the time that I can with her.”
Warnick said the trip was “the highlight of my senior years.” Her husband died in 2019, and she has dealt with health challenges in recent years.
“Being a widow, I just hadn’t done anything fun,” she said. As a “workaholic” before retiring as a court reporter, she said she hadn’t revealed such a carefree side to her own daughter.
“It just really is so crazy how this trip showed us a new grandma,” Dragon said in an email. “She really was so alive [and] the happiest we’ve seen in years, if not ever. She became a kid like I’ve never seen!!”
‘Childlike wonder’
The Walt Disney Company is keen to encourage visitors from all generations, though kids are the obvious audience, and Disney adults get outsize attention.
“We want to be the place where every generation can make memories they’ll talk about for years to come, and it’s extra special to see the joy that grandkids get by bringing their grandparents to Disney so they can be kids again,” the company said in a statement.
A couple years ago, Disney offered to host Gavin Doyle — founder of the news and tips site Mickey Visit — and family members on a trip to Disneyland to “share what a multi-generational trip to Disneyland can look like,” he wrote on the site. He said in an interview that the company was looking to showcase the “childlike wonder” that older visitors can experience.
Doyle, now 28, brought his 85-year-old grandma, aunt, mom and younger sister. His grandmother, Judy Blumenthal, had gone to Disneyland with him when he was 4.
“Disneyland is a place where you can go and there is nostalgia, and it feels in some ways like it hasn’t changed since 1955, even though it’s changed so much,” he said. “So she was obviously having a great time seeing our fun and then also, ‘Oh, it’s Mary Poppins.’”
Doyle said his grandma’s favorite rides remain the classics like Pirates of the Caribbean and It’s a Small World. But he got her to ride the faster-paced Radiator Springs Racers with him.
“She was just gripping my arm the whole time,” Doyle said.
He remembered her verdict: “That was about as much as I could take.”
She has no idea, but this trip brought light into my life during a very dark time. #disneybound #grandma #disneyfamily #granddaughter #disneyworld
Tips for grandparent trips
Elaine Parrett, a planDisney panelist — an independent contractor who provides tips for Disney guests — takes her 85-year-old in-laws to Disney World. In an email, she said visitors should let grandparents take a trip at their own pace. In her own family, she said, the matriarch likes to break off to enjoy a nostalgic ride while others hop on a roller coaster.
Warnick, who used a rented scooter on her Disneyland trip, recommended the mobility aid for a demanding day of walking — though she acknowledged the type of wheels will depend on the user. She doesn’t use one in everyday life.
Ashley Miele, who visited Disney World last February with her mom, sister and grandmother to celebrate her Nan’s 92nd birthday, said they took turns pushing a wheelchair because her grandmother wasn’t comfortable with a scooter.
“Those aren’t always great because people jump in front of them,” she said. “That can add to a stressful experience.”
Miele, 38, who works in corporate events for an insurance company, said she is adamant about taking time for photos, last year making it a priority to get group shots in front of the castle at Magic Kingdom.
She said it’s good to know what appetite a grandparent will have for rides. Her grandmother, Mary Clare Friel, was on her fifth visit to the parks last year and knew she liked milder rides, “not the crazy ones.” Individual rides and online descriptions include accessibility information and health and safety warnings.
When Kaitlyn and Barbara Douthitt visited, their most exciting ride of the day — Rise of the Resistance, a Star Wars attraction — turned out to be Mamaw’s favorite. Kaitlyn joked that she wasn’t going to try to get Barbara on the high-speed Tron-themed roller coaster.
“That’ll be next,” her grandma said.
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