Looking Back, what did you learn?

[Luv Bunnies]

Stay far, far away from the Rivers of America beginning an hour before the first showing of Fantasmic unless you plan to find a spot and watch it. Use up Fastpasses for Indy, BTMRR and Splash well before then so you have no reason to set foot in that area. Stick to Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, DCA or, better yet, your hotel during that time. I vow never to get stuck in that mess again!

 

[Mugglemama]

I've learned not to over-pack when it comes to clothes! After too many times of over-packing, of course. We have 4 children, and I used to bring waaaaay too many clothes for them on our DLR trips.

Now, for EACH child, I bring one outfit per day, enough socks/underwear for each day + 3 extra, 1 bathing suit, clean jammies for each night (this was one area I couldn't cut corners - can't really stand the thought of the kids crawling into bed unless they've just showered and are wearing fresh jammies...) and either one long sleeved shirt or one sweatshirt, a pair of walking shoes and a pair of flip flops. And as far as clothes go, that is IT.

 

[kolohe_lady]

I've got a couple! Sometimes common sense fails . . .

1. Not to eat an entire Monte Cristo sandwich at the Blue Bayou, then go on California Screaming immediately afterward.

Normally, lunch is followed by a break/nap back at the room so I can save half in our mini-fridge,and also digest the half I'd already eaten before going on big rides. One day we had already checked out since it was our last and we were headed home that evening. Seemed a shame to waste the food, so I ate it all! Luckily nothing tragic happened, but I was not a happy camper for about an hour or so after the roller coaster. Took me a couple years before I could eat another Monte Cristo.

2. Leave the Heelys at home.

They're banned now anyway, which is probably a good idea. About 6 years ago I was wearing mine while on a trip with friends. Coming off of Thunder Mountain headed towards Tomorrow Land, I was following my friend who was also wearing her wheels. The ground slopes nicely right through here so we had some good speed going. (Few minutes past closing time, so it was pretty deserted. We never used the wheels if it was crowded.) Just before the bridge, I hit gravel or something so my feet stopped suddenly but the rest of me kept going. Crashed spectacularly. (I'm 5'11" tall, so when I fall it tends to be somewhat dramatic) In front of a family sitting on a bench, who probably thought I was less than sober since I sat there giggling idiotically for a minute until the adrenaline wore off the pain kicked in. Got some good road rash on my hands, tore holes in the knees of my jeans, and totally jacked up my left elbow when I tried to catch myself. It started throbbing and swelling and the muscles would spasm if I tried to straighten my arm. Another friend (daughter of a long time nurse) made me a sling out of ace bandage when we got back to our room. It was a rough night, lots of ice and advil, and loooong drive home the next day. Got checked out by my doc, he didn't see anything in the x-ray but said I had possibly cracked the head of my humerus. Yay me. And no, I didn't think of suing. That was completely all my own dumb fault.

Wish I could blame it on being a young kid, but I was 23 at the time. Never took the Heelys to Disneyland again, even tough its reeeaally fun to have them there. Even if they weren't banned, my income is pretty much dependent on my arms and hands, gotta be responsible and keep them injury-free. Being a grown up isn't always everything it's cracked up to be.

 

[CrazyDuck]

Here's what I've learned:

- Off Season and low crowds does not mean that wait tines for the rides will be less.. You may be able to get from ride to ride faster but the queue times will remain!

- Don't carry drinks when doing meet and greets! My mom carried a full coffee into Mickey's house. We both went to put our hands behind Mickey at the same time and I knocked the coffee out of her hand and it splashed all over Mickey! Luckily they were running more than 1 mickey at the time!

- Wear comfortable shoes, ones that have already been broken in! Nothing worse than blisters after day 1!

- You don't have to be there the entire time from opening til closing! Go back to the room, take a nap, swim in the pool, eat lunch, then head back to the parks.

- Don't plan every ride and show for your entire trip... You are only setting yourself up for disappointment..... "NO! Put that souvenier down! There is no time to shop we have to be in line for Space Mountain in 3 minutes or our schedule will be all off!

- Photopass... You don't have to bring your (wannabe pro, i can't take it on the ride it might get wet) Canon super deluxo SLR camera with a monster 14-120mm IFS, (I don't know how to use it but it looks nice,) lense. You can leave it back in the room, and be in front of the camera once in a while. Besides, time in disneyland is best spent with 2 eyes wide open rather than with 1 eye through a viewfinder!

 

[usschmidt]

I need to spend more time enjoying the "night music" of the park and porch time at the hotel. I do not need to do everything in a commando mode. Spend more time listening to my family and less time giving marching orders.

Jack

That's one I need to heed!

 

[bumbershoot]

Make sure your husband and son are well fed with REAL food all throughout the day. Don't want for an argument or snarkiness to break out before feeding them! Also, feed yourself, but feed the super-cranky ones first if you have to make a choice there.

Make sure ALL of you have access to lots of water throughout the day. Trips are much more fun when no one is courting dehydration.

Solo trips make me happy, and they make the family trips better for hubby and son, too. If anyone has a "commando" type in their family, send them on a guilt-free solo trip (if the commando is a mother, make sure there are no mama-dependent babies at home of course...I had to wait until DS was 3.5l y.o.), so they can run wild to their heart's content, which should then make them, for example, fine just sitting on a bench while "the boys" shoot targets in Frontierland.

If you bring enough one dollar bills, tipping isn't as annoying, AND it makes it so much easier to get those quarters for the Frontierland shooting thing.

Taking too many pictures. Sounds crazy, but I feel like on our first trip I spent too much time behind the camera and not enough time actually being there and having fun. For example, I barely remember the parades because I was so busy taking pictures of them.

I recently learned, while at WDW, that even though I don't like "the look" of people holding their cameras out while they look through the big screen, it actually keeps me "in the moment" more. When I have to peer through my small viewfinder (which is just the same image that's shown in the bigger screen on my Powershot S3), it takes up all of my concentration.

We tried doing the big breakfast and then snacks until supper...did not work for our kids...they needed to sit down and eat lunch a real meal and a physical reminder to stop and take a breather.

For us, the trick is you eat the breakfast food at the very last seating for breakfast, which basically makes it your lunch. IN the morning, you've had granola/protein bars (which is about what we eat for b'fast anyway), which gets you through to that later breakfast. That's what works for us.

 

[chrissiecutie]

Make sure your husband and son are well fed with REAL food all throughout the day. Don't want for an argument or snarkiness to break out before feeding them! Also, feed yourself, but feed the super-cranky ones first if you have to make a choice there.

Bumbershoot...I'm with you on this one!

Both my "boys" need to eat every few hours, otherwise heads will roll....

And for us, since we eat a mostly organic, local, fresh/non processed diet, Disney food can wreak havoc on our body!

Luckily I've found a few places in the park where we can all eat and be satisfied and not feel "icky" afterwards.

But yes, I too learned on our first trip, the value in keeping DH and DS well fed and hydrated!

And to all of you that were at Disney in late August of 2008, I'm apologize profusely for my boys and vow to never let it happen again...

 

[BELLEDOZER]

Taking more pics of the family instead of the attractions. Now that I've got my photo fix satisfied with my solo trip to DL in Oct, am going to take the time to get some quality pics of the family. And hand over the camera to DH (reluctantly as I'm the photo geek in the family), so that I'm in some pics.

Let the family go commando, and watch them enjoy the parks.
I also agree with Bumbershoot, the solo trip I went on in Oct/10, is making me alot more laid back and am willing to go with the flow more. I also want to show the family the neat things I found when I went in Oct.

 

[CrazyDuck]

Let the family go commando, and watch them enjoy the parks.

Ohh... I'd be worried about chafing!

 

[JadeDarkstar]

1 get in more pics stop being behind cam an worried what i look like
2 have fun
3 dont skip the brakes
4 try not to over pack
5 drink water an make the kid drink more water then soda.
6 dont let rude ppl bother me (got to agree with that one)
7 dont care what ppl think bout us or me if im in ECV or anything.

 

[Dizzy4DL]

Ohh... I'd be worried about chafing!

ROFL!!!

 

[Funball]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I learned really quickly that having a locker is better then carrying everything plus the kitchen sink around..
[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I also learned to ride the train to and from each land instead of walking as it would tire me out more and use the monorail to exit the park when it gets to busy on main st.[/FONT]

 

[mystic_path]

Ohh... I'd be worried about chafing!

Funny, Funny!!!!

 

[bumbershoot]

And for us, since we eat a mostly organic, local, fresh/non processed diet, Disney food can wreak havoc on our body!

Luckily I've found a few places in the park where we can all eat and be satisfied and not feel "icky" afterwards.


And to all of you that were at Disney in late August of 2008, I'm apologize profusely for my boys and vow to never let it happen again...

Same here about diet, and where do you like? We really like the penne pasta at Plaza, and for DS the bean and cheese burrito at either Mexican place really helps him. I personally love the veggie burgers at the parks (at least a year ago...2+ years ago I kept getting the spicy bean burgers with cumin etc, and while those are delish when you WANT that taste, they aren't "normal" veggie burgers) but DS couldn't deal with how it looked (he likes broccoli, but not in his veggie burger!). There are other places where we eat, but those are the lightest types of places for us.

Ohh... I'd be worried about chafing!

Ha!

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I learned really quickly that having a locker is better then carrying everything plus the kitchen sink around..
[/FONT]

After our trip to WDW, I have learned that for the future, too. I always think it would be a pain to go to the locker..but I'm thinking about walking with the heavy backpack on my back. If I didn't have the backpack, I'd hop and skip to the locker, not trudge. There will definitely be a line item for "daily locker rental" in our future trip budgets!

 

[chrissiecutie]

Bumbershoot- we really like the pasta at Red Rocketts too! We usually end up splitting a pasta and a salad between the 3 of us. And Rancho is probably our other fav too! Again, we split 2 plates between the 3 of us. Did you know that you can buy just a flour tortilla and "make" your own kids bean burrito? My DS is weird in that he likes to assemble his own burrito. He's very particular about what goes into his food...hmm, wonder where he could have gotten that from...

Surprisingly we also really like the corn dogs from the cart on Main St. We always get them with the apples instead of chips and since I always carry Pepto in my bag, we are set if we have any "issues". Although usually we are fine.

I will have to give the veggie burgers a try! We strive really hard to only eat local, organic meats and so frankly, the meat in the parks is a bit terrifying! However, I'm pretty picky on my veggie burgers. Any idiot can make a real burger, it takes talent to make a good veggie burger, IMO.


I always bake muffins for our breakfasts, so we will have muffins, fruit and organic OJ before leaving for the parks. That way I know at least we are off to a good start!

This year I'm excited to try the delivery from Vons (free with the online code!) and have been looking over their website at the organic options. Limited but at least they are there...

 

[coaches24]

Also we should have taken longer mid day breaks and enforced a nap policy because by 7-8pm the kids where spent and many nights it was not a happy place.

Yea I wish we would have had a nap time as well. My DD (2) fought all day to stay awake and then crashed hard right before F! and WOC and then slept through both shows. I know she would have been amazed had she been able to stay awake and see them. The shows also ended our night. Partly because my DD was sleeping in the stroller and partly because my DW and father in law were done walking by that point. If we would have taken more breaks and a nap in the after noon I think we would have lasted into the night alot better. I was the only one who wanted to keep going so I got out voted.

On a side note what we did right was schedule our character breakfast for the first day at the park so our DD's first experience would be with Minnie and friends. That was a huge success.