Hi friends, I’m back today with another Disney post! Last week’s post was all about planning your trip, and this week’s post is going to be all about your actual trip – what to take each day to the parks, how to get around, what to eat, how to maximize your time, etc. If you missed last week’s post, you may want to take a peek here before reading this week’s post!
Let’s get started!
DURING
YOUR TRIP
What to Take Each Day to the Parks
If you have kids under the
age of eight-ish, I cannot stress enough the importance of bringing a stroller
to the parks each day! I originally
thought that we would be fine with a single stroller since Jacob is six and
hasn’t used a stroller in years, but Disney World is exhausting, y’all. Fortunately my friend lent us their double
stroller and it was the smartest thing we brought for the entire trip!! Jacob hasn’t ridden in a stroller in years,
but he rode at Disney World probably at least half of each day that we were
there. This prevented a lot of whining,
tears, and tantrums, I do believe. Both
of our kids were fantastic the entire trip and I do believe it’s because they
had that stroller to crawl into when they were tired.
Some other wonderful reasons
to bring a stroller:
1. To have a place to put your bags to give your
shoulders a rest.
2. Cup holders so you don’t have to carry your drinks!!
3. A place to store souvenirs and other things that you
buy in the parks.
4. A place for the kids to sit and eat their
snacks. When it’s packed, it’s often
hard to find a place to sit, and it’s hard for kids to eat and walk at the same
time.
Just be sure to attach a
sign to your stroller with your name on it so it will be easy to identify. You will see hundreds – probably thousands –
of strollers each day, so you will definitely need to have an easy way to
identify yours.
And in case you’re
wondering, having the stroller there is not a burden at all. Loads and loads of people have them, so
Disney is very accommodating for people with strollers. Every single ride/attraction has a place to
leave your stroller before you enter.
There are actually strollers parked everywhere.
Every time we parked our
stroller we were sure to bring our backpack and cross body bag with us on the
rides since they contained valuables, but we left everything else in the
stroller – cups, jackets, sunscreen, souvenirs, other shopping bags – and not
once did anybody ever bother anything.
.
#TheMagicOfDisney
Now that I’ve made my case
that you should bring a stroller, here is the list of things that we brought in
the parks each day. And one note before
we get started – Disney allows you to bring your own food and drinks into the
parks, so essentially you could be there all day and never have to spend a
penny on food.
Here is our list in no
particular order:
1. Plastic cups that came with our meal plan to refill
throughout the day
2. Chap Stick for everyone
3. Mouse ears for everyone
5. Changes of clothes for both kids (tops, bottoms,
underwear, socks)
6. Plastic bags (Gallon-size) to keep electronics dry
7. Hair elastics (we like this ouchless version)
8. Magic bands/IDs/Credit cards/cash
9. Pennies and quarters for penny souvenirs
10. Phone
11. Camera (if you’re not using your phone for pictures)
12. Pain medicine/stomach medicine/Band-Aids
13. Sunglasses for everyone
14. Gum
15. Itinerary/To Do List/Must Do Ideas
16. Pen
17. Autograph books
18. Black Sharpie marker for autograph signings
19. Snacks (we loved Larabars, granola bars, and fruit and veggie pouches)
20. Dum Dums (to keep the kids occupied while waiting in
line)
21. Sunscreen
23. Baby wipes
24. Chilly Pads (to keep cool when it’s really hot... we LOVE these)
25. A light blanket (to keep warm if it’s chilly or to
use to lay on the ground to sit on for the parade)
26. Ponchos (for rainy days)
27. External charger (to charge cell phones on the go... MUST HAVE!)
Brian carried a small
backpack and I carried a small cross-body bag and we were able to fit all of
those things in those two bags.
Transit
We chose to use the Disney
buses the entire trip and we could not have been more pleased. We literally didn’t set foot in our own
vehicle the entire trip because we used the buses every time. They are free to use if you are staying on
the property and you just can’t beat the convenience! And don’t worry if you have a huge stroller
with you… they accommodate everything!
Timing
If you stay at a Disney
property, you can get in each park ONE HOUR PRIOR to the normal time it
opens. This is HUGE and you will want to
utilize this hour to the fullest! We arrived
one hour early every single morning at every park and we used that hour to run
to all of the popular rides that we didn’t have fast passes for.
Our travel agent scheduled
all of our fast passes to start late morning/early afternoon, so we had the
entire morning to ride everything we wanted to ride without fast passes before
the lines got too long!
Breakfast
As stated before, we chose
the middle meal plan which included one quick service meal and one table
service meal per person per day. We
chose to use all of those for lunches and dinners, which meant that breakfast
wasn’t covered each day. We do love a
big breakfast every now and then, but on a typical day none of us ever eat that
much, so we chose to bring breakfast bars and fruit pouches in to the parks in
our backpack and we just ate breakfast on the go each morning. That way we didn’t waste precious park time
(and money) eating somewhere. Remember,
Disney lets you bring your own food and drinks to the parks!
The kids were usually hungry
by the time we arrived at the parks each morning so they happily munched on
their granola bars and fruit pouches while we waited in line for security. B and I would then eat Larabars while walking
around the parks whenever we got hungry.
If anyone got hungry by mid-morning, we would just use one of our snack
credits and grab something else. Easy
peasy!
We did want to do one
character breakfast during the trip, so our travel agent planned our breakfast
for the last day that we were there, the day that we were scheduled to
leave. That way, we had one last fun
thing to do before leaving town, and it didn’t interfere with getting to the
parks in the morning.
Lunch
Since we had the meal plan,
we used all of our quick service meals for lunch each day. Quick service meals are not reserved by your
travel agent so you are free to choose whatever you’d like. Reservations are not required for these as
they are easy to get into. There are
some really great places! Here is where
we ate lunch at each of the parks and, again, each of these meals counted as a quick
service meal:
Animal Kingdom – Satu’li
Canteen (We LOVED this place. The food was amazing.)
Epcot – La Cantina de San
Angel in Mexico
Hollywood Studios – Backlot
Express (The kids loved the chicken and waffles because the waffles had Darth
Vader on them. Brian and I loved the Galactic
Lemonades. They also have freestanding
refill drink stations so we were able to refill our cups with our choice of
beverage without bothering an employee.)
Dinner
All of our dinners were
reserved by our travel agent which meant that we had a specific time that we
had to be there. All dinners were
considered table service meals, so we used our table service credits for dinner
each evening.
My favorite dinner was at Be
Our Guest in Magic
Kingdom
Disney Springs – Wolfgang
Puck Express (The pizza is excellent.)
Animal Kingdom – Tusker
House (Reservation strongly recommended, buffet style and character dining)
Epcot – Akershus Royal
Banquet Hall in Norway
Hollywood Studios – Sci-Fi
Drive-In Theater (Reservation strongly recommended, you literally eat in old
convertible cars while watching old sci-fi movies under the “stars.” SO COOL, Y’ALL. And their desserts are out of this
world! Get the Warm Glazed Doughnut with
Cinnamon Apples, Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, and Caramel Sauce or the House-made
Sci-Fi Candy Bar. OMG.)
Snacks
As stated before, with our
meal plan each person was allowed two snacks per day per person. You can redeem these for ice cream, popcorn,
candy, coffee, and many other things.
All you have to do is look for the symbol below.
You can choose from any items that have that symbol. You can’t go to Disney World and NOT get a Mickey ice cream bar! ;o) And you also must get a Dole Whip while you’re there! There’s one place in MK that has them (Aloha Isle right next to The Magic Carpets of Aladdin) and you can also get them at The Polynesian Resort.
You can choose from any items that have that symbol. You can’t go to Disney World and NOT get a Mickey ice cream bar! ;o) And you also must get a Dole Whip while you’re there! There’s one place in MK that has them (Aloha Isle right next to The Magic Carpets of Aladdin) and you can also get them at The Polynesian Resort.
Also, all cafes and snack
carts provide FREE ice water to you at any time. We never once purchased a drink while we were
there because we asked for free ice waters throughout the day as we would run
out and then we would use those to refill our Disney cups.
Maximizing Rides and Attractions
Disney gets crazy crowded
and lines for rides and attractions get super long as the days goes. Here are a few tips to maximize your time:
1. Arrive at the parks early and utilize that extra hour
before the parks open to the general public.
2. Use fast passes in the late morning/afternoon when
lines are the longest.
3. Some rides offer single rider lines where the wait is
generally way shorter. That way, if only
one person in your party wants to ride, everyone else doesn’t have to wait for
a long time.
4. Disney also offers Rider Switch for groups of people
who have children who can’t/don’t want to ride particular rides. This means that one person can wait with the
children who can’t/don’t want to ride while the other person rides. Then when the other person is done riding,
they can come back and wait with the kids while the original person who waited
goes and rides. The original person who
waited can board the attraction without having to wait in the regular line
again. Sweet!
5. Lines for the rides and attractions are way shorter
during the parades (since everyone is watching the parade), so if you’re not
interested in the parade, use this time to ride!
Murals to Check Out
Y’all know I love a good
wall mural, and Disney is loaded with them.
Here are a few that we found…
1. Magic Kingdom
2. Epcot – #BubbleGumWall (Just outside the exit of
Spaceship Earth)
3. Epcot - #BlueberryWall (Right next to the Bubble Gum
Wall)
Extra Magic
Want to add a little bit of
extra magic for your small kids? Here
are a few tips:
1. Buy personalized shirts for them. The Disney cast members are trained to look
for this and they will greet your children by name as they interact with your
family. Our kids were amazed every time
a Disney cast member said, “Hello, Jacob and Olivia!” because they didn’t
realize they were just reading it on their shirts.
2. Opt in for the photo pass package. It’s a little pricey, but when your kids get
the pictures back of them holding Tinker Bell in their hands, it will be worth
every penny!
3. When you wear your magic bands on the rides, it
magically knows when you are in there, and pictures and videos are taken of you
riding. All of those photos and videos
then show up in your Photo
Pass
4. Buy autograph books for each of your children to
bring when meeting characters. All of
the characters will sign (except for the Star Wars characters in Hollywood
Studios), so it makes the ultimate souvenir from the trip! There are blank autograph books that you can
purchase, but we loved having these.
They are actually cheaper than the regular autograph books and you get a
beautiful hardback book with pictures and fun facts about the characters. Plus these books actually kept the kids
occupied in line because it gave them something to read while they waited. :o)
WHY GO TO DISNEY?
Overall, our Disney
experience was fantastic. All of the
Disney cast members bend over backwards and you can tell that they truly want
to be there. On the days that our kids
didn’t wear their names on their shirts, they were always treated like royalty
and called “Prince” and “Princess” and they were constantly going above and
beyond to help us. We probably
interacted with hundreds of Disney cast members on our trip and I can honestly
say that literally every single one was just wonderful. We have zero complaints. They do everything in their power to make
sure that your vacation is as magical as it can possibly be and they do it with
genuine smiles on their faces.
Not only is Disney the
happiest place on earth, but it’s the cleanest place on earth. The entire time we were there, I only saw one
piece of trash on the ground, and an employee was already there scooping it
up. I kid you not.
I am a details girl (as you
can already tell if you’ve been reading for a while… hello, lengthy blog
posts!) and Disney just gets me. They
are the masters of details. They
literally think of everything and that’s what makes the experience so special.
They are also masters of
efficiency, line management, and crowd management. They spare no expense to ensure that there
are enough cast members needed at all times to corral the massive amounts of
people visiting the parks each day. I
have never seen such efficiency in my entire life and I can’t even tell you how
happy that made my Type A heart.
Overall, we feel that we
used our time very efficiently and there honestly isn’t a thing we would change
about our trip. There is nothing that we
regret doing or not doing. I was really
worried that we were going to end up doing something wrong since it was our
first trip, but everything was perfect.
Just perfect.
And we are already beginning
to think about heading back in 2020!!
And these posts were not sponsored in any way... we just love Disney and we want to spread the word because we were just so darn impressed!
And if you missed our trip recaps, here they are!
And if you missed our trip recaps, here they are!
