There are one million blog posts out in the world comprised of lists of tips and "what to pack" recommendations for Disney. Some are incredibly helpful. Some aren't. I am not one of those mothers who has been to Disney over and over and knows all of the things, so this is not one of those posts. I am, however, someone who has recently(ish) been, had children in a range of ages in tow, and also has hindsight to my credit. With those caveats, here's a short list of things I'm glad we did for and at Disney:
As I mentioned in a previous post, we took our double stroller. We were SO glad that we took our double and not a single (which we had considered) when we realized just how often Brynnie needed to ride. You can rent strollers there (including double strollers), but that did not appeal to me for a few reasons. 1) They are $25/day (when I already own one) and 2) they are made of hard plastic, which I cannot possibly imagine being anything other than scorching in the heat. Having said that, I will also say that we drove and had room to pack it in the van. I get that this might be different if you fly. I also know that there are private services from which you can rent strollers while at Disney. This just happened to be a great thing for us. It carted our children and bags allllllll over the parks. I tied a bright orange ribbon on it to make it a little more visible when parked in a sea of black strollers, and that was actually super helpful on a number of occasions. The downside of taking your own stroller: you have to fold it (or take it apart) when riding on the buses. That's obviously not impossible, but it's not fun, either.
I'm also super glad that we stuck our Ergo carrier in the stroller every day. We used it several times to carry Hallie when Lily really needed to ride for a while (she was 5 when we went and could obviously walk, but there were several times when she was just so exhausted. It was so nice to be able to let her ride in the stroller with Brynnie occasionally.). It was also helpful to have the Ergo for wearing Hallie when we were in longer lines to get on rides and had our stroller parked outside.
I mentioned that we got the girls inexpensive Minnie ears from Amazon that held up great. I also got myself a two pack of adult sized Minnie ears in classic black and red, as well as rose gold. They were great, too.
We lived out of our Eddie Bauer backpack. It folds into a pocket when you're not using it, it's wipeable/washable, and it holds a LOT of stuff.
Loved having our neck fan. We were there in March, but y'all, Orlando is already hot in March. It got passed around a lot, and we just recharged it every night.
Ponchos. This is a must. It rained some every day and absolutely poured on some days. I wish we would have taken the stroller cover. I used ponchos to cover it as best I could, but that only works to a certain extent.
Bandaids, safety pins, a foldable reusable grocery bag, Ziplock bags, and extra hair bands. We used all of these things.
Disney allows you to take food into the park (with restrictions about cooler/container sizes and rules about glass containers). We opted not to spend big on meals in the park and focus on novelty Disney snacks instead (we did eat some meals in the park- just not the fancy or expensive kind). We knew that the expensive meals would be wasted on our kids, who would be much happier with sandwiches and applesauce packs. So, we packed that for them every day. Plus gold fish, pretzels, yogurt drops, dried apples, granola bars...we had plenty of food for the many moments of hunger. This saved me a lot of stress over paying for food that would not be eaten.
And because we stayed in a suite with a kitchenette, we grown-ups ate a number of sandwiches (but with chicken salad), too. We also had yogurt, boiled eggs, fruit, and Pop Tarts on hand for breakfasts everyday (we never eat Pop Tarts. That was just a treat.). Totally happy with how that worked out.
We were also happy that we took a midday break everyday. We decided before the trip that we weren't going to push them to stay up through nap or way past bedtime, as we knew we would pay for that later. And really? Even Claire and Lily were ready for a break at lunch time. It was hot and crowded and very sensory overloaded, and everyone just felt better after a quiet break in the air conditioning. After the littles woke up from their naps, everyone felt ready to go back for a few hours.
We did not over-plan. The girls had no frame of reference for what is available at Disney and therefore did not have major expectations. Literally anything we did was exciting and exceeded their expectations, so we didn't try to cram everything in. This even included not trying to get a swim in at the resort in the evenings or afternoons. Amiee, Brad, and I kind of discussed each evening 3-4 things we really wanted to try to do the next day, sketched out a rough plan for making those things happen, and then anything else was just extra fun.
I also used the travel agency of a friend of mine to make all of our reservations, and that took so much of the stress off of the planning. She knows what she's doing, and I don't. It also doesn't cost extra to use her services; Disney pays her commission after customers pay for their trips. I'm really glad that I left those details in her hands.
I have no idea if this will be read by or helpful to anyone, but those are my thoughts. May you have a magical time, should you make the trip!
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