Part Two: Creating Magic Without the Madness: How We Planned a Relaxing Disney World Trip
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(continued from Part One…)
Stroller Must Haves
If you are taking a stroller, these are our must haves that we actually used (linking the exact ones we use)! Even if you are not taking one, check out this list because some are great to have on hand anyways! (Affiliate links below)
Stroller fan with mister. We mounted this on top of the stroller handles to cool off whomever was pushing the stroller, and it also acted as an easier identifier to find our stroller. Disney cast members are constantly moving strollers around when you are on a ride or at a show, so this is a great way to find it!
Handheld Fan with mister. Our daughter loved holding this one to cool herself off with in the stroller.
Hooks. These were the unsung heroes of our park days! They mostly held our water bottles at an easy to grab height, but they also had bags, at times, too! Could not recommend these enough!
Water Bottles You can fill these up for free at any quick service food establishments in the park or at your Disney hotel.
Cargo Net Introducing unsung hero number two! These held our sunscreen and snacks for easy access. We also stored my daughter’s princess water bottle and handheld fan here as well. It really was a catch-all for anything we needed to stow away quickly or be able to grab quickly.
Rainy Weather Bag. We filled a packing cube with rain jackets, a stroller cover, and flip flops for Florida rain showers! We ended up only using the flip flops for one of the water rides (Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom), but I would be prepared as it is typical for a daily rain shower to occur without notice!
Snacks for both our preschooler and us! I filled a pouch with apple sauce pouches, pre-packaged mini muffins, Chomps sticks, and other favorite snacks to hold us over until lunch or the next meal time!
Sunscreen. We would apply suncreen right before leaving our hotel room and then would reapply after about 2 hours. I am happy to report none of us were sunburned! We loved using this one on our faces.
Autograph Book. If you are going to meet any characters at all, you are going to want to bring an autograph book! My preschooler LOVED collecting autographs and looking over them. Such a fun keepsake!
Set up night before & charge devices. This is not an item, but an important to-do every night before bed! Trust me. You are not going to feel like resetting your stroller or bags in the morning. Remove trash, grab an devices that need re-charging like fans and magic bands (more on this in the next blog post). Refill your snacks, and in the morning all you need to to is refill your water bottles, get dressed, and go! P.S. This USB plug adapter was quite helpful for charging all the devices.
Night time: Glow Sticks & Glow Wands! They are super inexpensive at Hobby Lobby! These were great to pull out while waiting for the fireworks to start at Magic Kingdom (Pro-tip: grab your spot a minimum of 45 minutes ahead of time! The best views are obviously in front of the castle (be at least an hour early for that spot), but we LOVED standing at the entrance to Liberty Square on the side of the castle. Put yourself directly behind a trash can to ensure your view isn’t blocked! We grabbed a spot at the end of the bridge by Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe.
For Meal Times: I filled a zipper pouch with kinetic sand from the party aisle at Target, Disney Stickers, & coloring books. This kept our pre-schooler busy while we waited for food.
Phone Charging Blocks. You will use your phone quite a bit at Disney for lighting lanes (more on that below), dining reservations, mobile ordering. etc. You will want to have an easy way to charge your phone while still being able to use it. I love this charging block and use it at home as well! It comes with several different USB connectors and plugs directly into the wall when it is time to charge the block itself.
Learning Disney
My Disney Experience App. As soon as you book your trip, you will want to download this app. This is where you will make any dining reservations, link your hotel reservation to your account, order food to go (mobile order), and check wait times for rides. You will want to familiarize yourself with the app before arriving to Disney, so you can enjoy your trip rather than struggling on your vacation to find what you need.
Magic Bands. Magic Bands are like your key to Disney World. You don’t have to have one, but it is MUCH easier than having to pull out a plastic card every time you need to access your hotel room, enter the park, purchase food, or more importantly quickly get on a lightning lane ride you booked. I promise you will get your money’s worth with this band! If you set up a credit or debit card on your My Disney Experience App, you can scan your magic band most anywhere on Disney Property and it will be charged to your card. Easy as pie!
Learn the park via the My Disney Experience App. Back to the app, you will want to use this to familiarize yourself with the four different park layouts. When you are making your attraction priorities list, this will help you from jumping from one end of the park to the other because you didn’t realize three of the attractions on your list were pretty close together.
Early Entry. If you are staying at a Disney hotel (plus there are a few more that qualify), you are eligible for what is called Early Entry. Early Entry allows qualifying guests to enter the park 30 minutes before posted park opening. 30 minutes may not sound like a lot, but this time period is pure gold for getting on the most popular rides with a much shorter wait time. Sometimes, you can knock out two of the park’s most popular rides within that 30 minute time. My suggestion is to arrive no later than an hour before early entry, so you are at the front of the wave of people. We quickly learned if we were at the front of the line we were some of the first people on the ride with time left for a second ride prior to the park opening to everyone else.
Rope Drop. You will hear the term rope drop all over the place. Here are a few examples of rope dropping. At Magic Kingdom, you can rope drop Fantasyland & Tomorrowland during early entry. That means, once you are let in the park and your magic band or card have been scanned, you briskly walk (do not be the people who run, seriously.) to the entry of either of the two lands listed above, and you will be met by cast members (what Disney employees are called) holding a rope blocking off that land. Once the cast members are given the okay by their boss, they will remove the rope in front of you. Do not move at this point. They will tell you when it is time to step forward. When it is time, you will stay behind the cast members and follow them to your priority ride. Cast Members will typically hold signs with the most popular attractions and you will follow behind them as they lead you to the ride. Oddly enough, rope dropping policy varies from park to park. At Hollywood Studios, instead of waiting behind a rope, you head straight to your first attraction and wait in line there for them to open the ride.
Rope dropping is not just for early entry folks. You can also rope drop a ride at park opening. For example, at Magic Kingdom only two of the “lands” are open for early entry. If you do not have early entry, your best bet is to head to one of the other lands like Liberty Square and wait behind the rope there. It is the same process I mentioned above.
Extended Evening Hours. Extended Evening Hours (EEH) may be my favorite way to enjoy the parks besides Genie Plus (see below). EEH is reserved for guests staying at deluxe Disney resorts only. This means even lower wait times than early entry! EEH are usually offered once a week for certain parks. Currently, Magic Kingdom offers EEH on Wednesdays & Epcot on Mondays. Extended Evening Hours allow for deluxe resort guests to stay in the park an additional two hours after the park officially closes. The way cast members will check if you qualify for EEH is by scanning your magic band at the entry of every ride. We rode 5 of the biggest rides in Magic Kingdom in those 2 hours! My tip is to take a midday break to rest up because these Extended Evening Hours can run pretty late! We were even able to book a spot in the virtual queue for Tron, one of the new riders that you can only ride if you are able to grab a spot in the virtual queue. More on virtual queues next!
Genie Plus. (UPDATE 6/25/24: Starting July 24, 2024, Disney is changing the name of Genie Plus to Lightning Lane Multi- Pass, which will allow you to book your lightning lanes days before your actual park day!) Genie Plus is a free service that allows you to make a list of your priority attractions, shows, & character meet-ups. There is also a paid Genie Plus service, which is the service I will be referring to going forward. The paid Genie Plus service is available to book at midnight on the day you are wanting to head to the parks. They sell individual park Genie Plus, as well as an all parks Genie Plus. The price fluctuates day by day based on how busy Disney thinks each park will be. You can book your first lightning lane at 7AM for all parks on the day you are planning to go. Quick tip: Genie plus does not start until official park open. Even though you may be at the park for early entry, the magic time is 7AM. Genie Plus is a whole topic on it’s own, so I am going to share who I consider the absolute master of the service: Rob with Ear Scouts. Click here to go to his YouTube account. There is a lot to learn, but you will be fully equipped if you watch his videos and follow his tips and tricks. Guys, we hardly waited in any lines because of Genie Plus, Early Entry, & Extended Evening Hours. 100 percent worth it!
Mobile Order. Mobile ordering is how you will order food at any marked quick-service food locations at the parks or hotels. You can access this via the My Disney Experience App. I recommend hitting the schedule ahead of time button before you are ready to eat lunch, and as you are heading to the quick-service location, press the “I’m here” button. 9/10 times our food has been ready and waiting for us when we arrive (nice and hot, too!)
Beat the Heat (lunch, shows, resort time). It is no surprise that Florida can be quite hot in the summer time. Besides using misting fans and drinking lots of water, we also plan to our days to take advantage of the coolest parts of the day. We will typically opt for early entry since it is cooler in the mornings, and then we will eat lunch inside at the park and then hit an indoor show, or we will eat lunch at the park/resort then head back to our hotel room for a midday break. Sometimes we will nap, shower, or even hit up the resort pools. (Pro Tip: The Grand Floridian has the best splash pad for kids plus two pools!) After 4pm we head for an indoor dinner somewhere and then sometimes hit the parks again or head out to explore.
Character Meals. We found the best way to ensure we met the characters we wanted without having to wait in line was through character meals. Disney offers so many different character meals at both the parks & hotels/resorts! Our very favorite was dinner at 1900 Park Fare at The Grand Floridian. You do not need to be a guest at the hotel in order to dine here, but making reservations ahead of time is definitely recommended. The food at Disney is not known to be the absolute best in the world, and a lot of it can be average or what you might expect at a theme park, but 1900 Park Fare was surprisingly our favorite! It is set up as all you can eat buffet style with the freshest and tastiest food! The characters make their rounds about the dining room and spend time with each table taking pictures, signing autographs, and interacting with guests. We met Princess Tiana (In her Bayou Adventure outfit), Cinderella, Mirabel from Encanto, and Aladdin! We also had a great experience eating breakfast with the princesses at Cinderella’s Royal Table inside her castle! We met Cinderella, Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Jasmin, and Merida from Brave. The princesses in attendance change from day to day, but we for sure hit the princess jack-pot the day we went! We also had breakfast at Topolino’s Terrace at the Riviera Resort with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, & Daisy Duck, but surprisingly it was just okay. Food left a lot to be desired, but characters were good!
Experiences: Disney World offers all kinds of additional experiences that you definitely want to check out. Our favorite was the beloved Bippidi Boppidi Boutique at Magic Kingdom. Kids become princes and princesses and brought into a large room filled with Disney princess gowns and prince oufits. They are invited to select their favorite, and they are assigned to a “fairy godmother in training” who will give them a prince or princess hairstyle with glitter nail polish and face glitter for the princesses. This was our daughter’s favorite part of the trip and she wore her new princess dress every day for the rest of our trip!
Major Heads Up: Both Cinderella’s Royal Table and Bippidi Boppidi Boutique are quite popular and will need to be booked well in advance! If you are staying on Disney property, you are able to book dining reservations and activities 60 days in advance. You will want to set an alarm and be ready on your My Disney Experience app at 6AM EASTERN time ready to book Cinderella’s Royal table followed by any other reservations you would like. Bippidi can actually be booked at 12AM EASTERN time 60 days in advance, and I recommend you be ready at that time to book!
Travel Agent. Speaking of booking reservations, I also recommend using travel agent who is an expert at Disney World! They will actually book your dining reservations and special experiences like Bippidi Boppidi Boutique & Cinderella’s Royal Table. This takes the task of waking up early to reserve these hard too book experiences. Your travel agent will also have great tips and tricks for navigating the parks! We liked working with our travel agent, Kim Haig. I will link her Instagram here. She booked all of our dining reservations, experiences, and hotel for us, and all we had to do was show up! Now, if you use the DVC Rental Store I mentioned in the previous blog, I am not sure how that works with being able to use a travel agent. It is definitely something you will want to ask!
Best advice we were given: 3,2,1 by Dana Stanley with Somewhere Worth While (Instagram) Her post (click here) explains 3, 2, 1 so well! Keep in mind she is not saying ONLY do these 5 things, but it helps make sure your priorities are checked off!
Additional Resources. In addition to the Ear Scouts account, I also found these two YouTube channels extremely helpful for taking younger kids to Disney: Bekah Hart & Ashley Wright with Pixie Dusted Mom. These ladies are literally professional Disney moms who are at the parks quite often, so they are able to share very helpful tips and tricks! Even if you are not traveling with kids, they share room tours and share their dining experiences at different property restaurants.
***Bonus: Navigation Disney World with food allergies. Their are a ton of Disney focused food allergy accounts out there! For gluten allergies, Gina with @glutenfreedisneyworld knows it ALL and shares everything! Her page is a wealth of knowledge. For other allergies, follow Seely with @safedisneyfood. She is always checking the allergy books at dining locations and sharing any updates to allergen menus across the four parks.
Beating the vacation blues: You have left your vacation, but you aren’t ready for it to end! How can you help “extend” your vacation back at home? Bring one or all of these things home with you for a taste of vacation from the comfort of your living room:
Food. I like to bring back a treat to enjoy. I brought back some gluten free lemon cookies, and still have plenty left to enjoy!
Candle. Basin White at The Grand Flo & also at Disney Springs allows you to build your own candle with scents from Disney Resorts and Disney rides. It has been fun to bring the scent of our resort back home!
One other item. I bought a t-shirt I could wear to remind me of our wonderful trip, but the possibilities are endless! From the good ol’ coffee mug to something fun like a Lumiere lamp (this might have come home with my husband), pick something you know you will cherish and will not end up in the donation pile sooner than later!
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