Using Walt Disney World's In Room Childcare - Kid's Nite Out
A Walt Disney World Child Care Review
by Lauren Cataldi-May, PassPorter Guest ContributorLast modified 09-29-2016
I love taking family vacations to Walt Disney World! I enjoy spending time with my husband and my children. My husband and I do make a point to have a date night every time we travel to see Mickey. It not only gives us adult time, but we get to enjoy the “finer side” of Walt Disney World.
I know that many of the Deluxe Resorts offer the Children’s Activity Centers. These centers are a great way to have a date night. We have a child who has autism, so they are not an option for him or us. We need someone who can give our child a more one-on-one approach when we leave for the evening.
Grand Floridian Lobby
Kids Nite Out is a professional child care service that provides in-room babysitting, event babysitting, and Kids Camps at the Universal Resort Hotels. Their staff is put through a myriad of interviews, background checks, reference checks, and training before being allowed to provide services to clients. They even go through Walt Disney World “Traditions” training.
Kids Nite Out charges a flat rate based on the number of children. Their fee starts at $18 per hour for one child and also charges a caregiver transportation fee of $10. There is a 4-hour required minimum. You can reserve sitting services in advance as far out as 3 months and as little as 2 weeks before your desired date. There is a 24-hour cancellation policy. The caregivers can even accompany you in the parks, but you need to provide a ticket for them. Kids Nite Out does state that caregivers will not participate in water activities. We have also found that our children are not allowed to be on the balcony. This was a little disappointing the last trip as we had a Savanna view at Animal Kingdom’s Kidani Village and our children loved sitting on the balcony and watching the animals. After a couple of caregiver visits, we have been able to request our preferred sitter. She is usually available and knows our family very well and knows their likes and dislikes in terms of toys and activities. Kids Nite Out does not guarantee your requested sitter, but they do their best to accommodate your requested sitter.
Prior to the caregiver’s arrival, we place out our children’s pajamas, diapers (when needed), medicine our son is taking with explicit instructions on when to give the medicine, any toys our children like to play with, and DVD’s to keep our children occupied.
Our sitters always arrive promptly at the scheduled time. The sitters are easy to spot. They arrive wearing purple polo shirts with the Kids Nite Out logo. You meet your sitter and fill out paperwork. This paperwork includes contact information for you, medicines that your child may be taking, bedtime routine, and where you will be going for the evening. When we fill out the paperwork, we give a general vicinity of where we are going. For example, we may say we will be in the EPCOT area. The sitters we have are always willing to give us their cell phone numbers so we can text them (or they can text us) if there is a problem. When using a care giver for over 6 hours, Kids Nite Out requests that you provide a meal for the sitter. We usually have the care giver order a pizza through room service and charge it to our room. This way our children are fed and the care giver receives a meal. The caregiver also comes with age-appropriate toys for your children and is a good distraction when trying to make an exit from the room without too many tears.
When you arrive home after your evening out with your spouse/significant other, you are greeted by your caregiver. Our kids are always asleep when we arrive back to the resort! Your caregiver will give you a sheet detailing the activities they did with your children. The caregiver writes the time you return and gives you a total for the evening. You then sign the paper so they can charge your credit card. We always give the caregiver a tip for their services. They can only accept cash tips.
We also had a great experience with Kids Nite Out during our vow renewal at Walt Disney World. Since we were not traveling with our extended family, we hired a caregiver from Kids Nite Out to come to the ceremony with us, occupy our child during pictures (he was 7 months old), and then watch him in the hotel room so we could go celebrate as a couple after the ceremony.
I highly recommend hiring Kids Nite Out for any occasion where you do not want to put your child in the activity center or when the activity center is not open. It gives my husband and myself great comfort knowing that our special needs child and younger son are cared for by a loving and skilled caregiver while we are spending time together as a couple. Give them a try on your next Walt Disney World visit!
Epcot at Sunrise
Epcot at Sunrise
Lauren teaches Kindergarten Music in Delaware and is also a church organist and handbell director for her home church. She enjoys visiting Disney World with her husband, Jeff, and two boys, Jacob (7) and William (2). In her spare time, Lauren enjoys helping to raise money for Give Kids the World through the charity Delaware Magical Wishes Association.
Comments:
Beam on 09/30/2016 at 8:28:44 pm EDT says: Reply
We scheduled a sitter with Kids Night Out about 14 year's ago and she never showed up. KNO had the reservation but no good explanation as to what had happened and no alternative. So my husband and I cancelled our Segway tour. We decided to give KNO another try a year later. At that time our daughter was 10 and our son, who has life-threatening food allergies, was 5. The sitter showed up and we provided explicit instructions about foods that he couldn't have and the use of his Epi-Pen if needed. We did manage to do our Segway tour. However, our experience with the sitter this time wasn't any better. When she was taking the children for a walk around the volcano pool at the Polynesian my son fell in! In our opinion, she wasn't paying nearly enough attention to our children to allow that to happen. As you might guess, after those 2 experiences, we never contacted Kids Night Out again! After all these years perhaps their service has gotten better, but I could never recommend them to anyone!
Recent Walt Disney World Articles:
Christmas at Hollywood Studios
Without the Osborne Family Lights!
The Top 5 Lounges at Walt Disney World
A Walt Disney World Dining Review
The 50's Prime Time Cafe at Disney's Hollywood Studios
A Walt Disney World Dining Review
Making the Most of Split Stay at Walt Disney World Resorts
A Walt Disney World Planning Article
DisGo2Girl on 09/30/2016 at 6:01:58 am EDT says: Reply
Nice Work! We don't even have kids, but found your article very interesting and informative. Thank You!
DisGo2Girl