How do you countdown for your Disney trip?

[justplaingoofy]

Thought maybe other Disney addicts could get some ideas from one another on how to countdown for your Disney vacation...

I use black construction paper and cut out circles; one big, 2 small. This makes a hidden mickey... big one for face, use tape for the 2 small ones for ears.... You & kids can decorate them, and put #'s on each one for a countdown.. 14, 13, 12, etc..

Then, everyday I hide one! We don't have children, but my husband loves finding them..If too much of the day goes by and he doesn't find one he says ...in a dissappointed tone... "hey, where's my hidden mickey?"

I've put them on his rearview mirror, in the microwave, in lunchbags, inbetween plates (if he's setting the table), in the shower on the wall, as a bookmark in his reading book, in his money clip, on the remote..(he's sure to find that!), taped to the container of 1/2 & 1/2. heck, I even taped one to the dog and called him into the room... But my all time favorite was taped inside the lid of the toilet... hey.... he almost pee'd on mickey!


We have friends that make a chain out of paper and each ring is numbered, and everyday the kids can take one off....

 

[Robo]

After New Year's 2000, there were lots of "millennium close-outs".

At K-Mart (of all places) I found some battery-operated LCD clocks that were designed to "Countdown to the Millennium". They gave a running Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds on the display.
Of course, since New Year 2000 had already come and gone, these clocks were useless, right... NOPE.

I found you could RESET them for ANY date, ANY year, and they would count-down from "NOW" until "THEN".

I bought 3 of these for about $2.00 each.

So now, every time we come back home from WDW, I set them for the "projected NEXT TRIP date" and sit them where se can see them.

(Then as we firm-up our plans, I can reset for the "real" date.)

A running reminder that the start of another trip to WDW is just XX days, XX minutes, XX seconds from RIGHT NOW!

 

[JillandFamily]

We also do the paper chain thing. My DD seems to really enjoy it. And so do myDH and I.

 

[Alice Sr.]

Thought maybe other Disney addicts could get some ideas from one another on how to countdown for your Disney vacation...

I use black construction paper and cut out circles; one big, 2 small. This makes a hidden mickey... big one for face, use tape for the 2 small ones for ears.... You & kids can decorate them, and put #'s on each one for a countdown.. 14, 13, 12, etc..

Then, everyday I hide one! We don't have children, but my husband loves finding them..If too much of the day goes by and he doesn't find one he says ...in a dissappointed tone... "hey, where's my hidden mickey?"

I've put them on his rearview mirror, in the microwave, in lunchbags, inbetween plates (if he's setting the table), in the shower on the wall, as a bookmark in his reading book, in his money clip, on the remote..(he's sure to find that!), taped to the container of 1/2 & 1/2. heck, I even taped one to the dog and called him into the room... But my all time favorite was taped inside the lid of the toilet... hey.... he almost pee'd on mickey!


We have friends that make a chain out of paper and each ring is numbered, and everyday the kids can take one off....

Awe that's so cute. We (actually my DD) picks a bunch of WDW pictures and we use them as screen savers. If we are fairly far out we change it weekly and as we get closer we change it daily.

 

[DeterminedOne]

Thought maybe other Disney addicts could get some ideas from one another on how to countdown for your Disney vacation...

I use black construction paper and cut out circles; one big, 2 small. This makes a hidden mickey... big one for face, use tape for the 2 small ones for ears.... You & kids can decorate them, and put #'s on each one for a countdown.. 14, 13, 12, etc..

Then, everyday I hide one! We don't have children, but my husband loves finding them..If too much of the day goes by and he doesn't find one he says ...in a dissappointed tone... "hey, where's my hidden mickey?"

I've put them on his rearview mirror, in the microwave, in lunchbags, inbetween plates (if he's setting the table), in the shower on the wall, as a bookmark in his reading book, in his money clip, on the remote..(he's sure to find that!), taped to the container of 1/2 & 1/2. heck, I even taped one to the dog and called him into the room... But my all time favorite was taped inside the lid of the toilet... hey.... he almost pee'd on mickey!


We have friends that make a chain out of paper and each ring is numbered, and everyday the kids can take one off....

What a great idea! I don't have any good ideas of my own so I'm going to try yours on my DH.

 

[Alice Sr.]

At K-Mart (of all places) I found some battery-operated LCD clocks that were designed to "Countdown to the Millennium". They gave a running Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds on the display.
Of course, since New Year 2000 had already come and gone, these clocks were useless, right... NOPE.

I found you could RESET them for ANY date, ANY year, and they would count-down from "NOW" until "THEN".

I bought 3 of these for about $2.00 each.

So now, every time we come back home from WDW, I set them for the "projected NEXT TRIP date" and sit them where se can see them.

(Then as we firm-up our plans, I can reset for the "real" date.)

A running reminder that the start of another trip to WDW is just XX days, XX minutes, XX seconds from RIGHT NOW!

That's cool I would love to find one of those.

 

[fancythemouse]

What we are doing is:

we bought a big yellow poster board, the thick ones (like @ walmart) and I cut out an outine of mickey's head and I cut alot of them in different colors and patterns of paper then i taped them on the boards and wrote the descending numbers on them until i reached our last day and I made that a special mickey head and each day my little sister (6 yrs old) pulls one of the mickey heads off and the next corresponding number is how many days are left. I will post a picture if it'll help.

 

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

My kids love those candy advent calendars that are available at Christmas time, so I made one for our last trip to Disney. I drew a map of the MK. Then, I printed out small pictures of 30 different attractions and glued them into place on the map. Finally, I covered each one with a small piece of wrapped chocolate that had the numbers 1-30 on them. Each night, the kids would search for the correct number in the countdown, eat the candy, and then get all excited about the attraction underneath. They are already begging me to make them for our trip in October.

 

[tkafam]

We do something similar to covering up the rides, but we cover up the characters instead. I title the poster "who will we see at Disney?" and then put pictures of characters or stickers on the poster. I then cut out squares, number them, and tape them over the pics. Each day we take off a square and the kids are always excited to see who is under each flap.

 

[Robo]

That's cool I would love to find one of those.

Found these listings on eBay.
The first one is exactly like the little clocks I bought at K-Mart.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Retirement-Coun...712031958QQcategoryZ14950QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Great-Baby-Show...712593268QQcategoryZ73367QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Retirement-Gift...711295326QQcategoryZ14950QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


I know nothing about any of these listings or sellers. I just did a quick search for "countdown clock".

 

[Grumpy23]

We have a yearly calendar hanging in our powder room (yeah I know, strange place), but we start counting down the days anywhere from 2 months ahead of time. Each one of us, Me, DH & DS, take turns putting the number of days till we leave on the calendar and adding our own little blurb, a rhyme, something funny or something witty on each day. We have a Mickey picture stamped for the days we are gone. We have saved each years countdown calendar. It actually ends up being quite warped and humorous. My brother stays at our house while we are gone and dog-sits for us. He always gets a big kick out of reading our 2 months worth of excitement/babble on the calendar, and takes it upon himself to add his own little comments for each day we are gone. This is our 4th year doing and it seems to have become a tradition, without ever meaning to be one.

 

[Suzanne74]

It depends on when we go. When we did our Fall trip last year, I made a tree out of poster board and put leaves on it with each number counting down. Once the last leaf was gone - onto Disney!! For dd's birthday trip, I did little cakes with numbers on a big minnie platter and she took one off everyday. I also did spring flowers for our May trip. It was much easier for a little one (4yrs old) just how far away the trip is this way. We just found out we are going in August and I am sorta stumped for that month. I like the Hidden Mickey ideas thoug. DD is CRAZY about Hidden Mickey's!!!

 

[Alice Sr.]

Found these listings on eBay.
The first one is exactly like the little clocks I bought at K-Mart.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Retirement-Coun...712031958QQcategoryZ14950QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Great-Baby-Show...712593268QQcategoryZ73367QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Retirement-Gift...711295326QQcategoryZ14950QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


I know nothing about any of these listings or sellers. I just did a quick search for "countdown clock".

Thank you, that was so nice of you to look into that. I was trying to figure out a way to do a search online. I never shop on e-bay, so I would never have thought of looking there. I really need to start checking it out more.

 

[sanapunk]

I once saw someone on here had a poster board with a bunch of mickey heads, and everytime you pulled one off, there was a number under it, so I fashioned one myself for my last trip. It was a lot of fun to make but cutting out 30 mickey heads sure can get annoying!

 

[WillCAD]

Geez, all I have is a countdown timer in my signature (not on the DIS because HTML is disabled), and a screensaver at work that counts down.

 

[savs]

We have done several different things.

We have the the paper chain (we had 4-5 month until our trip, so the chain went from one son's room to the other...it was so long)

I have cut out many different things (Disney train- each car on the train was a day)another one was (waves and suns for our Disney cruise).

My Favorite was last year, we were going to Disney and Universal and they had never been to Universal. So I cut out Mickey heads to represent Disney and Stars to represent Universal. Then on the back I pasted a picture of something they would see at each park. They learned so much about each place before they went there to visit.

I really like the Hidden Mickey idea. I bought my boys a hidden Mickey book so we could find hidden mickeys on this vacation. This would be a great thing to get them some practice at finding them. Thanks!

 

[2Princes2Princesses]

We did a paper chain, since Gainey is so young. I made small links, each one has the date and using my Mickey head # stamps, the # of days left.

On the last one, I wrote TIME TO GO! in red marker and have a sticker of the castle on there.

When we started it was 130 links. Took me forever and hung all around the ceiling of our kitchen. My sister decided I have too much time on my hands!!

Gainey is excited to rip down the castle ring and even my 1 yr old likes to rip them down. We take turns each night before bed. I am actually going to miss this little ritual when we get back.

 

[Anna114]

I've done and am doing a couple of different things.

1. Construction paper chains. 2 of them one for the livingroom (so we can all see it) and one for my DS10's room.

2. I have a widget on my Mac that has a to the second a countdown currently? 2 weeks 6 hours 8 minutes and 7 seconds

3. Write it down on the family calendar about every 20 days or so.

4. When DS was 6 I put the days on small pieces of paper and each day he threw one out.

Have a magical day,
Anna

 

[Quinn222]

At work I have multiple windows open at all times on my computer and one of them is the persoanlised homepage on Google. I have a countdown clock on there. So many times a day I see "13 days (OMG yeah!) until Vacation" or whatever.

 

[justplaingoofy]

I saw the great idea for the countdown clock that someone posted..retirement, etc.. Can't believe Disney has not made one of these yet... they would really sell..
Anyway, found some that said for a due baby, retirement, birthday,etc. but they had one that was blank you could order and it includes a template to make your own covers so they are interchangeable. So of course, I ordered #3, ..why not??? Figured I'd decorate one with Disney stuff from scrapbooking supplies, then it can be changed to other vacations, holidays, etc.