Kids 'treats' plane/ resort

[jessienatillie]

I am hoping to put together a little gift bag/ binder/ backpack (open to ideas!) for the kids for the plane ride and downtime at the resort when we FINALLY get to go to DW in September. My daughter is 6 and the boys will be 9 and 12. Any ideas to share? Did you ever try something similar and did it go over well?

 

[happymommy]

When my children were very young, I used to always do that! It's smart to start now to find things!

Often at Target they have little dollar items. I also used to find things at Dollar Tree. I'd get little coloring books, crayons (of course all Disney related), plus glow sticks of course!

I didn't do anything for the plane flight, other than have safe snacks for my DS (he is allergic to milk and eggs). It's only a 2 hour flight for us, so not needed to have anything for that.

I think for a 6 year old you could find some nice princess stuff. 9 and 12 year old boys - that is a bit old for the little things I would get so maybe just snacks for the room (like Disney fruit snacks?). Or for them maybe a Disney gift card to buy a souvenir on the trip. I would say put a practical limit on it, whatever you're comfortable with. I don't know if the Disney Store sells Disney Dollars anymore, but those were SO CUTE! My kids got those a couple of times for their spending money on trips when they were much younger.

Hope this helps!

 

[pigletgirl]

DD will only be 15 (almost 16) months on our trip in September and I plan on getting some fun toys for the plane to distract her. She loves Disney Jr so we'll have Doc McStuffins and Sofia on my iPad but some new crayons and things would be fun for her!

 

[PeanutButterMom]

I am hoping to put together a little gift bag/ binder/ backpack (open to ideas!) for the kids for the plane ride and downtime at the resort when we FINALLY get to go to DW in September. My daughter is 6 and the boys will be 9 and 12. Any ideas to share? Did you ever try something similar and did it go over well?

I got the kids each a mini duffle bag and put Disney candy (gummies and stuff from 5Below), notepads and stickers, Star Wars Pez, I had word finds for PB (7.5) and letter-writing pages for Jelly (4.5). Other things but I forget!

 

[eeyoreali]

I plan on doing this when we go on September 2015. My daughter will be 6 and my son will 2 1/2. I plan on bringing an IPad so the kids can watch movies, some small books, and other little things they'll like then. I hear most people say to bring non- sugary snacks, fruit,veggies, etc.

 

[JillShari]

I did this for our last trip last month. I have 2 boys, almost 5 and now 9. I used their school backpacks to pack in and told them that they couldn't open them until we were on the plane. (and we were going entirely device free)

I collected for awhile. For my 9 year old, I got a small 3 ring binder and got various print outs with disney themed word finds, mazes, crosswords, madlibs etc. I also printed out some pages that he could journal on so that he would remember some things to write about when he got back to school. I also printed out Mandalas and got a more adult-like coloring book like this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762439092/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1 by Roger Burrows. And some markers. I also found at Five Below those magic ink books... a sports theme one and a spy themed one. That kept him busy.

For my 4 year old, I found puzzles (Cars) and the dollar tree, those magic ink books in cars and planes theme in the dollar spot at Target, simple mazes, chunkier markers for coloring blank paper, also Cars and Mickey stickers to decorate paper (that was a hit).

Then I also found "Mickey presents" for them both. These were little things that every morning we said that Mickey left for them and it added "magic". I went to Party City and found necklaces with Mickey head shaped bubbles (they loved those while waiting in line!), and Toy Story and Cars playing cards. It was St Patty's Day while we were there so I bought them necklaces and t-shirts. I also bought at dollar tree a lot of glow items... and even found these cool light up stickers that were big and lit up when pressed on. Target had fans that lit up.

Keep your eyes peeled.... I know I spent some money on this stuff.... but it kept our souvenir buying down quite a bit.

 

[Pesky]

* books -- these will be great for the plane. Kingdom Keepers on down.
* stickers -- great for all ages
* disney motif band-aids
* snacks
* activity books -- these can be coloring books, word finds, sudoku junior, etc.
* a refillable water bottle
* new goggles
* flip flops for the pool
* pencils or pens or crayons
* sunglasses
* disney GC

 

[supergoofy]

I love the Dollar store. On our last trip to Disneyland I stocked up on glow stuff ie braclets, necklaces and they had a sword and fairy wand. So great when the night parade started.


Even better is your kid can share and bring some magic to another child.


This will be our first plane trip with the smaller kids(10 year old) so watching this thread.

 

[cjbcam]

I have taken my 4 kids on a plane a few times now and have tried to do that. I packed coloring books, crayons, markers and books. My 9 and 11 year old took their rainbow looms. We took snacks and bought each a water bottle. They also brought their iPods and iPads. My 3 yo had some Dino figurines. My 6 yo her Marie cat and Rapunzel Barbie.
I really should have left the crayons, markers and coloring books at home. Well maybe not their markers as they colored their Duffy things from Epcot every night before bed.

 

[chrismb22]

Be careful, I did this and way overdid it with my son. He didn't use half the things I brought. For us, it's a two hour plane ride so I might just make sure the iPad is charged and bring one coloring book and crayons. (He will be 5) this trip.

In a perfect world, he will sleep on the plane but somehow I think he will be too excited for that (me too)

 

[lillykat]

We packed last year (kids were turning 4 and 6) crayons and coloring books (less messy than markers), leap pads and games (will pack a kindle and ipad this trip). stickers, journal for my older one, very small friends lego packs we got at 5 below, bagel, fruit, and ring pops and gum for take off and landing. Oh and a book or two.

 

[maxiesmom]

If they each have an electronic toy of any type, make sure they also have headphones. The airlines do require them. Also pack an extra charger, just in case. Those batteries seem to drain awful fast when you are traveling!

 

[puffkin]

We have always found LESS is more. We usually had the ipad for movies (which we were taking anyway), the 3DS when they got older, and paper with markers. They like to draw, play tic tac toe, hangman, etc. They also liked sticker books and few match box cars when smaller.

They were usually pretty good with looking at pictures on the phone/camera, looking out the window, flipping throught the sky mall catalog (seriously, this buys us a good 1/2 hour every flight), etc on the plane. We also got a lot of mileage out of the emergency procedures card (my one tends to be a bit of a doomsday junkie). In the room they usually entertained himself with the few small things we bought for souvenirs. The thought of bags and bags of stuff just stresses me out though on a plane. I have enough trouble keeping track of the few bags/things we do bring so worrying about kids stuff is not something I would want to do.

 

[chrismb22]

If they each have an electronic toy of any type, make sure they also have headphones. The airlines do require them. Also pack an extra charger, just in case. Those batteries seem to drain awful fast when you are traveling!

I never knew that!! Wow, we always have his headphones anyway but I never knew that one! Learn something new every day.

 

[cjbcam]

I never knew that!! Wow, we always have his headphones anyway but I never knew that one! Learn something new every day.

I'm not sure they enforce that. I make my kids play theirs with the sound off or use headphones but no one around us was using them.

 

[blackpearl77]

We used the iPad and the stewardess told us to turn it down. It was on so low I couldn't even hear it! I had no idea you had to have headphones! Oops! So make sure to pack some. Btw, does anyone know some good kid headphones? I don't like the ones you have to stick inside your ear for a 3 year old. Thanks!!

 

[dancermommy1]

I am hoping to put together a little gift bag/ binder/ backpack (open to ideas!) for the kids for the plane ride and downtime at the resort when we FINALLY get to go to DW in September. My daughter is 6 and the boys will be 9 and 12. Any ideas to share? Did you ever try something similar and did it go over well?

For plane trips I have packed little paper bags for every hour or so in the plane. I put a couple of dollars store goodies in each bag and DS opens them every hour. We also liberally use the iPad.

I have also taken dollar store disney stuff to the resort and had hubby take DS out to the pool and I arrange it in the room " from mickey". That might be harder to do with older kids, but my son still is convinced that mickey came to our room

 

[glk2009]

We used the iPad and the stewardess told us to turn it down. It was on so low I couldn't even hear it! I had no idea you had to have headphones! Oops! So make sure to pack some. Btw, does anyone know some good kid headphones? I don't like the ones you have to stick inside your ear for a 3 year old. Thanks!!

We use the Kidz Gear wired headphones (easy to find on Amazon) for both DD6 and DD2. It has an extra cable that dampens the volume, but you probably won't need that on the plane. They seem pretty comfortable and they are easy to adjust size-wise and volume-wise (it has its own separate control). And the most important part is that they stay on!!!

As for what fun things to pack for the airplane, I pack one or two post-it note pads... when DD6 was younger, she loved to peel them off and stick them everywhere and DD2 is showing the same tendency. Now, DD6 likes to use them to write little notes to us.

For our upcoming trip to CA, for DD2, I'm bringing a "book" of stickers from Michaels and paper... this will keep her busy for awhile.

For DD6, we pack a book, an activity book, a special pen and snacks and lollipops. DD6 loves the anticipation of finding out if I've snuck a surprise into her backpack. Another great thing to include is the travel sized book of Where's Waldo... it's a collection of the Waldo books and it's smaller sized so it fits into the backpack. DD6 keeps herself busy with that one.

Another fun thing we sometimes do (if there is time), we let DD6 browse at the airport shops after we've gone through security and let her pick out a book or something similar.

We travel on flights between 3-6 hours at least twice a year and our most popular plane activities have been movies/apps on the iPad and coloring (love triangle crayons!). I try to find different coloring pages online and make my own coloring books. Another fun coloring option are the mini coloring sets that Crayola makes that are either princess themed or Cars or Toy Story themed (at least those are the ones I've seen) and it comes with small coloring pages (fits great on the tray) and four mini markers.

HTH!

 

[chrismb22]

another thing we used to do on long car rides is hold back on happy meal toys. (He is onto us now and wants them when his food comes lol). When we went to McDonalds I would get a happy meal and save the toy (whether it was for him or me). I would keep them in the glove compartment and then pull them out. Those stupid toys kept him more occupied than anything I could have spent good money on!

 

[amym2]

I agree with the poster who said that less is more. We prefer to save our money to take more vacations than to buy "stuff." When the kids were younger, we would bring some paper and crayons (they've never been into coloring books) and snacks they don't normally get to have. Now that they are 10 and 12, they pack their own bags. I usually get them a new book or puzzle book (DD was really into Sudoku on our last trip, word finds, dot game). Otherwise they bring paper, pencils, candy (they love to pack their own from their candy stash), and snacks like granola bars or fruit leathers. On our trip to Hawaii last fall (9 hours on a plane) we brought the iPad (good thing since the movies were NOT kid appropriate). They used to bring their DS's but they seem to be aging out of those. Yes, we have always brought headphones. They make some foldable ones for kids... try doing a google search. Now they like to use our nicer noise cancelling headphones.