May 2017 PTR

VandVsmama

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 28, 2011
PTR time! For late May-early June 2017! Woot! Woot!

I've got 2 reservations at the moment:
  • 6 nights @ BWPPI for ~$940 incl. tax & parking, Mon 5/29 - Sun 6/4
  • 2 nights @ Hojo's for $316 incl. tax & free parking, Tues 5/30 - Thurs 6/1
Originally I wanted to do 5 days at DL at the end of this school year, but other plans have cropped up and our itinerary will probably be something like this:

  • Fri 5/26 or Sat 5/27 - drive to DH's aunt & uncle's cabin at Big Bear, CA (~6.5 hr drive from our house)
  • Sat 5/27 - Sun 5/28 - weekend relaxing w/extended family up in Big Bear
  • Mon 5/29 - go to California Science Center museum in downtown LA. We want to show our kids the space shuttle that's parked there. Overnight in Riverside or Fontana w/friends. We have invitations from 2 sets of good friends to stay with them and they are both about an hour's drive from the parks. Costs ~$12 cash to park. Free admission if you don't do the IMAX movie or see any special exhibits (like the Pixar one that's showing right now) and you just see the regular exhibits. Hours are 10am-5pm.
  • Tues 5/30 - drive an hour from Riverside/Fontana to DL. Check in @ Hojo's. Hit the parks! We'd probably leave Riverside/Fontana about 9am, get to Anaheim ~ 10am. Probably would get to the parks by 10:30 am
  • Wed 5/31 - spend the day @ DL/DCA.
  • Thurs 6/1 - spend the day @ DL/DCA. Check out of Hojo's in a.m. @ end of day, drive to Fallbrook to spend the night w/family (~2 hr drive from Anaheim, kids will sleep in the car).
  • Fri 6/2 - do something special w/extended family to celebrate YDD's birthday. Overnight either in Fallbrook or La Mesa (we have other extended family in La Mesa).
  • Sat 6/3 - beach day in San Diego
  • Sun 6/4 - drive home & go back to reality
Because life has sort of gotten in the way, we haven't been able to make as many trips out to San Diego county over the last year to visit with extended family, which is why I'm betting on the using the Hojo's reservation instead of the BWPPI one. I'm just still making up my mind and once we've decided for sure on the above plan, I'm going to cancel the BWPPI reservation to free up the room for somebody else.

I've gone back & forth a bit on the pro's/cons of BWPPI vs Hojo's. For our last 2 family trips to DL, we've stayed at BW Stovall's and BW Pavilions a couple of doors down from Stovall's. We enjoyed our stays at both of those places, but preferred Stovall's to Pavilions because of the free breakfast and slightly shorter walk.

Pro's & Con's of BWPPI:
  • it's SUPER CLOSE to the park entrance!
  • it includes free breakfast! YAY!
  • you can't check in and park until 3-4pm-ish. Boo.
  • on check out day, you have to remove your car from their parking lot by 11am. Boo.
  • Because of the above 2 bullet points, for 2 out of our 3 days at DL, we'd have to park in Toy Story or Mickey & Friends lot...pay $18 each day for DL parking, and then pay the $10-$12/day on top of that to park in the BWPPI motel parking lot and you can't even park in that lot the whole day on check out day.
  • it's SUPER CLOSE!
Pro's & Con's of Hojo's:
  • free parking. Compared to BWPPI, this saves us ~$70 in parking fees. That'll pay for 1 adult's dinner package at Blue Bayou or Carthay Circle. Or 2 kids' dinner packages at Blue Bayou or Carthay Circle. Or part of a character breakfast for the 4 of us at the Plaza Inn!
  • you can check in at any time. They'll store our bags behind the front desk.
  • we can park in their parking lot on check out day through the time that DL closes for the day.
  • only fridge in the room. Meh.
  • no free breakfast - but I think I can live with this. I can bring chocolate donuts from the grocery store, chocolate milks & juices, fruit. DH & I can have instant oatmeal using hot water from the in-room coffee maker.
3-day park hoppers will run us $1104.00 for 3 adults (ODD is 10) & 1 child ticket if I buy them through our local AAA office in person. BTW, there's really no discount to purchasing them online through AAA.
 
I'm also hoping that our friends in Fontana will be able to join us at DL for 1 of the days we'll be there. They got a pair of 1-day 1-park tickets gifted to them. In the case of these friends, the husband is legally blind...as in, he can't see anything. And because of a disability he has from a bad car accident he was in years ago, he may need a DAS card. I'm hoping that I can find someone here on the boards who has gone to WDW or DL with a member of their travel party who is blind. I'm not sure what to expect and I want the experience to be enjoyable for him.

On top of all that, his wife (who is really good friends from way back w/my DH; she's an awesome person, I just love her) has celiac disease, so she can't eat anything with gluten in it. If they do join us for 1 of the days, I plan on scheduling a sit-down table service meal either for lunch or dinner.
 
We're going around that time too! When did you book the BWPPI? I can't seem to find it for less than $1400 for 6 nights around then... :(

Thanks! Looking forward to following along!
 
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Ok, we've had a slight change of plans. Same hotel, but changed it to 4 nights @ Hojo's for about $600. So our updated itinerary tentatively looks like this:
  • Fri 5/26 or Sat 5/27 - drive to San Diego, stay w/relatives
  • Sat 5/27 - Sun 5/28 - spend time with relatives. Maybe go to San Diego Zoo. I'd like to avoid the beach this weekend due to crowds. YDD has requested a visit to the zoo.
  • Mon 5/29 - go to California Science Center museum in downtown LA. Overnight in Riverside w/friends.
  • Tues 5/30 - drive an hour from Riverside/Fontana to DL. Check in @ Hojo's. Hit the parks!
  • Wed 5/31 - spend the day @ DL/DCA.
  • Thurs 6/1 - spend the day @ DL/DCA. Check out of Hojo's in a.m. @ end of day, drive to Fallbrook to spend the night w/family (~2 hr drive from Anaheim, kids will sleep in the car).
  • Fri 6/2 - DL/DCA
  • Sat 6/3 - DL/DCA. Check out of Hojo's. Overnight in San Diego
  • Sun 6/4 - drive home & go back to reality
 
I have some pictures!

First, here's our route for the drive out west! As you can see from Google Maps, it's supposed to take ~ 5.5 hours if you drive straight through, but we always have to make bathroom stops & such, so it usually takes us 6 hours in total. It's usually about 3 Disney DVD's for us to make it to So Cal from Arizona. In the coming months, I'm going to buy a few new Disney DVDs for the kids to watch on the trip out and for our return journey.
AZ-to-CA.PNG


Then the drive from La Mesa to the California Sciences Center in LA. Bleh! 2 hours one way! But why am I complaining? That's nothing compared to 6 hours on day 1 of our trip! La Mesa to CSC LA.PNG


Thankfully, the drive from the California Sciences Center to Riverside isn't that bad. Just a smidge over an hour. I plan on using the Waze app on my smart phone while we're driving through So Cal. I've used it before and have found it to be pretty accurate. Whoever isn't driving will be the navigator. :-)

CSC LA to Riverside.PNG
 


Then on Tuesday 5/30, we'll depart our friends' house in Riverside. I'm an eager beaver when it comes to getting to DL at park opening. But getting there at park opening would probably entail us getting up at some insane hour like 5am...so DH & I could pack up all of our stuff in the car, feed everybody breakfast, & then get in the middle of rush hour traffic for 2 hours. No thanks!

I went to DL a couple of months ago on a week day, leaving Riverside at 9am and got to the Toy Story parking lot about an hour later and there weren't any backups or rush hour traffic by that point at all. It was pretty much smooth sailing. And since DH & my kids can sometimes be slow going in the morning, I think that we will target to leave by 8:30 am, knowing, of course, that it will mean we'll probably be on the freeway at 9 am.

Which gets us to Hojo's at about 10am. 30 min to check in, unload our luggage and store it at the front desk, and walk to Disneyland, which gets us to the front gate at 10:30 am. Meh. Ok, it's ~ 2.5 hours after park opening, which I'm not thrilled about. But it's ok because we'll be at DISNEYLAND! I'm expecting Tuesday to be a likely evening for Grad Night. So I'm not sure if we should start the day at DCA or at DL. Does anyone have any thoughts?

The timeline here in this Google Map says 40 min, but realistically, it'll probably be more like 60 min based on where our friends live and what I know traffic like is on a weekday morning. Plus, I didn't want to list their actual address online. :-)

Riverside to Hojos.PNG

Then at the end of our stay at Disneyland, we'll drive our very tired rear ends at the end of Saturday, 6/3, back down to La Mesa. Either that or Fallbrook. I haven't decided which yet. Drive to La Mesa looks like this. I've found this to be pretty accurate at about an hour and a half. If there's accidents or heavy traffic, it can get up to 2 hours, but even 2 hours isn't too bad.

Hojos to La Mesa.PNG

Or if we stay in Fallbrook on Saturday night, it's about an hour and 15 min drive. Ironically, it doesn't take very much time off of the drive based on where Fallbrook is situated. And normally it takes us about 45 min to get from Fallbrook to La Mesa. Fallbrook is a nice little town situated on the north end of Camp Pendleton. We have some other relatives who live in Fallbrook and they live a couple of blocks from the border with the Marine base.
Hojos to Fallbrook.PNG


In the past, I've explored and considered flying into LAX instead of driving. But it's kind of cost prohibitive and doesn't make much financial sense since we'd still need to rent a car when we got to So Cal. Since we have friends and family all over So Cal, we usually end up driving out to Disneyland since it gives us a lot of options.

Plus, I'm interested in trying out a ramen noodle joint in Orange County and having a vehicle makes it cheaper & easier to get there! Like Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai in Buena Park (http://www.ramenbannai.com/). Here's where they are located and here's how we'd get there. It's only 15 min from Hojo's! Our family loves ramen. There's a place in Tucson that makes the noodles from scratch every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and all 4 of us just love it. It's comfort food. And from what I've read online, Orange County has quite a few awesome ramen restaurants, so it made sense to add it to our itinerary! Plus, DH love love LOVES to drive around So Cal (he grew up in So Cal) and it will give him a little break from all of the theme park-ing that we'll be doing. I am thinking of maybe having us do a late lunch at Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai on Wed or Thurs the week that we'll be there.

Hojos to Kitakata Ramen.PNG
 
I'm also hoping to eat at Pizza Press a couple of times while we're in Anaheim. Probably for lunch on our walk back to Hojo's for an afternoon break at our hotel. From everybody's reviews online of this place, it looks like good eating! It's probably more like <5 min to walk there, though, because the stupid Google Map has you walk all the way to the back of Hojo's before going back to S. Harbor Blvd. LOL. I like their menu options and their prices are reasonable. I'm hoping that they'll still be around in June and won't be affected by the DL parking garage construction.

Hojos to Pizza Press.PNG
 
What's NOT on the agenda for this trip?

Several things did not make it onto the "must do" list for this trip. For example:
  1. Legoland - our kids will be almost 11 and turning 9 on this trip. I've looked at videos and seen pictures of Legoland and realistically, only ODD enjoys playing with Legos. And it seems like an awful lot of extra money to spend on a theme park that only 1 of us might enjoy. I think that my kids might have passed the window of the target age group of children who would most enjoy Legoland.
  2. Universal Studios Hollywood - We are big time Harry Potter fans. But again, cost was a deciding factor here. The 1-day price of USH tickets is basically as much as 1-day tickets to DL. ODD & DH hate roller coasters and attractions where things jump out at you. All of us detest stuff that goes upside down. And our kids haven't seen most of the movies that the non-Harry Potter attractions feature. They've never seen The Simpsons. DH & I love the Simpsons, but not enough to spend $400 in tickets alone. And ODD would probably chicken out of riding the Harry Potter rides, which means that we'd be spending $400 to go shopping in Harry Potter-land. I think we'll skip it for now.
  3. San Diego Zoo AND San Diego safari park in Escondido - We won't have time to do both. We'll probably do 1. I'm inclined to do the animal safari in Escondido instead of the zoo since the kids have never been there and it's been decades since DH or I have gone. However, YDD is begging to go back to the San Diego Zoo. We really would like SIL & BIL and their 2 kids to join us for this, so a trip to either the zoo or the safari park will have to happen on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend since their kids' school year doesn't finish until 2nd week of June.
Plus, we also want our kids to have a bit of time to just hang out and play with their cousins. Our everyday lives are so busy and super scheduled that when we go on vacation, I don't like to have every single day packed with a Clipboard Of Fun a la Kimmy Gibbler (from Full House) style. Vacation shouldn't feel like work, ya know?
 
In case anybody's curious, while my DH enjoys DL, I am definitely the bigger DL nut than he is. And DH tends to get grumpy if we do 2+ days in a row at DL where we are there all day without any breaks. He gets Theme Park Fatigue. TPF is a real condition! :rotfl2:Luckily, I've had these DIS Boards to help me plan our trips because y'all are full of sage advice and I have learned to follow some of Hydroguy's sacred Disneyland trip rules. They've become our family's DL trip rules, too! And of course, I'll share them with you here for your reading enjoyment. :-)

How to avoid long lines: This link brought to you by Hydroguy, because he's the one who came up with these rules!
  1. Get to the park early. This means 30 min before park opening.
  2. Get a nearby hotel and take a break in the afternoon for several hours –and sleep.
  3. Learn how to use Fast Pass.
  4. Do not go to DL on weekends. We always follow this rule, but we will likely break it this one time so So Cal friends can join us on our last day.
Make sure you get on your favorite ride rule:
  1. Ride your favorite rides as early in the trip as possible.
  2. Why? Because if your favorite ride breaks down on Day 1 of your trip and you're there for 3-4 days, then you still have 2-3 additional days to try to get on the ride.
  3. And because it would really stink if you were dying to go on Indiana Jones but you waited until day 4 of a 4-day trip to get on IJ and IJ was off line because of ride problems all day.
Have each person in your party pick THE #1 ATTRACTION that they ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY WANT TO GO ON.
  1. This goes hand-in-hand with the "make sure you get on your favorite ride rule" listed above.
  2. I used to have each of us pick just 1 ride between the 2 parks.
  3. This time, we're doing 1 favorite ride per person for each park.
  4. Since I like talking about DL stuff a lot, we chatted about it as a family this past weekend. For DCA, we've picked: DH - Toy Story, ODD - GRR, YDD - Soarin', me - RSR. For DL, we've selected: DH - IJ, ODD - Hyperspace Mountain, YDD - meeting Chewbacca & Darth Vader, me - Peter Pan. I'm actually pretty excited that ODD wants to go on Space Mountain because the last time, she chickened out. This time, she wants to experience the Star Wars version. :banana:
  5. For our family, we agree to have the following expectation: we will all try to make sure that for our FIRST day at DL or DCA, that every body gets to ride on their #1 favorite attraction for that park. Anything else we do at the park on that day and for the rest of the trip is icing on the cake. And if we can manage to go on a favorite ride more than once? Even better!
THE FIREWORKS RULE
See fireworks as early in your trip as possible.
  • Why? Because fireworks in Anaheim are often cancelled because of high winds. So if fireworks are cancelled on day 1 of your trip, it's not a big deal because you still have a couple more nights to see them.
  • But this really only applies if you're going to DL at a time of year when there are nightly fireworks. If you go during a time of year when there's only fireworks on the weekends, then you have to plan a weekend as part of your stay if fireworks are a priority.
And last, but certainly not least (actually, this is the most important rule of all for our family)....
THE HOTEL RULE: STAY WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE
So far, we've stayed at the DLH, BW Pavilions on Katella and BW Stovalls on Katella. All 3 of those felt like long walks (took 10 min in the morning, but more like 15-20 at the end of a tiring day). And with the recent changes in the DTD security screening locations, where you can no longer cut through the GCH, we are crossing BW Pavilions and BW Stovalls off of our lists. However, they are nice motels and were very clean and I would totally stay there again were it not for the "no cutting through GCH" rule now.

Why do we stay within walking distance?
To keep Theme Park Fatigue-plagued DH happy. To keep his grumpy pants at bay. So DH will have a nice time. And to keep the grumpy pants off of ODD & YDD.

To be honest, it's the mid-afternoon break that has DH continually agreeing to go back to DL for future family vacations. He AND the kids both really need a break from the DL sensory overload. DH will usually take a nap or lay on the bed and watch TV. The kids will watch TV quietly for awhile, but then they want to go swimming in the hotel/motel pool (and they don't care about fancy pools; as long as it's a concrete hole in the ground with clean water, they're happy). After about 3-4 hours, our proverbial batteries are recharged and we are ready to head back for a fun evening.

If we had to get on ART in order to do all this? Forget it. Then we wouldn't take breaks at all. Which would mean shorter & less frequent DL trips.

Use RIDEMAX
A friend of mine 5 years ago recommended this online subscription service and after using it 1 time, I was hooked. I've used it every trip since then. Here's how it works:
  1. you pay the subscription fee - for either a year or 90 days.
  2. you plug in the date that you'll be at DL or DCA.
  3. Select which park you're going to.
  4. Enter the time you'll be at the TURNSTILES. Note that this is for turnstiles, NOT just getting in line at Security.
  5. Enter the time you'll leave the park.
  6. Pick up to 13 attractions you want to go on that day.
  7. You can also select normal or fast walking pace, whether or not you'll use a FP runner, and you can also put in scheduled breaks (but I've found that it works best if you don't use scheduled breaks).
Then Ridemax will run its calculations and give you an itinerary that minimizes wait times. Usually I have to play around with stuff a bit in order to get it how I want it. It will often give you a break of several hours in the afternoon and it's during that time slot that you'd take your afternoon hotel break. Or go see Mickey & The Magical Map. Or watch the Jedi Training Academy show in Tomorrowland....stuff like that.

We don't always follow the itinerary to the letter. We improvise a lot. But it helps us to keep wait times <20 min each. And this results in happy DH and happy children...which makes ME happy and we all have a great time!
 
Other rules/guidelines/traditions for our family trips to DL:
The following have all worked out pretty well for us in the past, so we try to repeat them on every visit.
  1. Each of us gets a set amount of $$ to spend on souvenirs. Once your souvenir money is spent, there's no more. So figure out your budget and don't do something dumb like blowing it all on $7 pens & pencils (like my kids did on our 1st visit).
  2. Bring a water bottle & refill it at CS locations with ice water.
  3. Stay hydrated throughout the day in order to keep your energy levels up.
  4. Eat when you're hungry.
  5. Make sure that Mama (that's me!) packs grab & go snacks in her purse/park bag. Hungry kids in line = grumpy kids = grumpy DH & Mama = everybody's MISERABLE! And miserable is BAD.
  6. We do not have to spend every waking moment with each other the whole entire time. So if DH wants to stay back at the hotel room for awhile longer in order to watch a Star Trek rerun or whatever, that's totally fine. Daddy needs some down time. Same thing for Mama, only MY downtime involves browsing through cool DL shops without husband & kids in tow (think: Adventureland Bazaar, Pieces of Eight store in NOS).
  7. Make sure each parent goes by him/herself with just ONE child on 1 ride for each trip. It works like this: ODD picks a ride she'd like to go on with JUST Daddy. While DH & ODD do that, I do the same with YDD. Then we swap children. ODD picks a different ride that she'd like to do with JUST me and YDD picks a ride she'd like to do with JUST Daddy. This has resulted in some of our kids' favorite memories - those times when they didn't have to "share" Mommy or Daddy with the sibling. Often, going on the ride is accompanied by getting a treat like an ice cream or the parent buying the kid a cool pin (we collect pins) in a pin shop to commemorate our visit.
  8. Each person picks out 1 new pin in a pin shop to add to their lanyard.
  9. if the budget allows, 1 sit-down meal per day.
 
Also on this trip, we'll be celebrating both kids' birthdays because they have June birthdays. DH also has a birthday in June, so we'll be celebrating for him as well. Yesterday evening, ODD (age 10) had a good suggestion. On prior June DL trips, we've done the kids' b-day celebration for the whole entire trip and as it turns out, ODD doesn't like having to "share" that with her little sister.

So at ODD's request, what we're going to do is this:
  • each birthday kid (DH included) gets 1 day of the trip to be THEIR birthday celebration.
  • If the birthday kid wants a DL birthday button, we'll get said kid the bday button. ODD & YDD both love this because they get all sorts of extra attention all day long from CM's. However, DH doesn't like the birthday button and won't wear one.
  • Birthday kid gets to pick 1 restaurant he/she wants to eat at that day. Doesn't matter if it's CS or TS. And it can be in DCA, DL, or DTD. But no Napa Rose.
  • If our Club 33 plans work out (DH has a connection), his b-day meal will be at Club 33! Otherwise, his b-day meal will probably be at Blue Bayou.
 
Because our kids are getting older & bigger, for this trip, we have to graduate from 1 suitcase for both kids to 1 suitcase per child. :sad: My babies are growing up! When did this happen?

However, Santa is smart and he thinks ahead, so ODD got a new suitcase for Christmas. YDD got a small rolling suitcase for her birthday this past year.

What do I bring into the parks each day?
On prior trips, I was almost a pack animal. 1 sweatshirt per person. 1 heavy water bottle per person. full changes of clothes for each kid. A ton of first aid supplies. It was kind of ridiculous. This time around, here's what I'll carry with me in the morning:
  • wallet
  • cell phone, charger, + battery pack - the battery pack has 2 USB ports, so we can charge both my phone & DH's phone at the same time and it'll charge both phones 2x before you have to recharge the battery pack.
  • small container of sunscreen - the kind that's meant to go in your pocket or something like that.
  • 2 blister band aids + 2 reg band aids
  • sunglasses
  • 2 purse packs of ibuprofen - for sore muscles or headaches
  • park tickets
  • pin lanyard (but I usually wear mine)
  • a print out of our Ridemax itinerary for the day
  • a pen
  • 2 disposable plastic water bottles - 1 for DH & I to share and 1 for the kids to share. Why not 1 per person? It's too many to keep track of. Why doesn't each person carry their own? Doesn't make sense for us. And besides, we all share germs with each other anyway. Heck, my kids lick each other on a regular basis to gross each other (and their mother) out. :lmao:
  • a sarong - it's super lightweight. It folds down to a really small size. And I can use it to save our spots for a parade. The girls & I will wear it if 1 of us is cold. Doubles as sort of a towel to dry off after Splash Mtn.
  • 1 spare pr of shorts & undies for YDD - only because even at age 8, she sometimes still tends to wait until the last possible minute to go to the bathroom. Mostly because she doesn't want to miss out on anything. This is really lightweight, though, and I can fit it inside a quart-sized ziploc bag.
  • If we're going to go on GRR, 1 Dollar Store poncho per person.
Usually when we've gone to DL in late May/early June, we are not cold at all, so IF we need sweatshirts, it's not until the evening, so we bring those with us when we head back to the parks after our afternoon break.
 
What to use as my park bag?
I'm not sure what to do here yet. On 2 trips, I've used ODD's school backpack which, at the time, was a little on the small side. However, it was super comfortable to carry. DH complained that it didn't hold enough stuff. But he is always inclined to pack like a mule as if we are going to Mt Everest or something. DH's motto tends to be "let's bring this 'just in case.'"

I've also used a larger purse as my park bag. But the purse I used, when it's empty, is kind of heavy. So after lugging that around all day with 2 water bottles and other nonsense, it was a real drag.

This time around, since ODD will be almost 11, I'm going to put her in charge of holding onto her own spending money (aka Disney gift card), so she's going to use a small cross-body wallet/purse thingy that I purchased for cheap last year.

I will likely end up using my regular every day purse, which is lightweight and it can fit 2 water bottles in it and all of my other "bring to the park" stuff and still have a little extra room.

How MUCH stuff to pack?
I must admit, I'm a minimalist when it comes to packing clothes for vacation. When I was a kid, we'd each pack a full week's worth of clothes and our suitcases were enormous. However, I've kind of converted to a modified version of the Rick Steves method, which involves bringing about 3 days' worth of clothing (but I usually bring 4) & you just PLAN on doing laundry somewhere on your trip.

Thankfully, EVERY hotel pretty much has washer/dryer facilities on site. I've used online resources like http://www.onebag.com/ and http://1bag1world.com/ to get packing list ideas and I've tried some of them out. So here's what goes into MY suitcase (doesn't include the stuff that goes into the 'bring into DL park' bag):
  • meds & vitamins
  • spray-on sunscreen
  • flip flops
  • sneakers - I pack the sneakers for the trip out to CA. I wear the flip flops on the drive out, but wear the sneakers in the parks.
  • 3-4 pr of pants or shorts
  • 4 shirts
  • undergarments for ~4-5 days
  • socks for 4-5 days
  • sweatshirt
  • comb & hair products
  • container of LUSH shampoo (it's a solid bar of shampoo, so you can bring it in carry-on luggage and it won't count toward your 3-1-1 ziplock bag of liquids)
  • bathing suit
  • Light My Fire spork - super light weight and we ALWAYS use it!
  • 1 container of kids' toothpaste - we all share it. DH & I suck it up and use the kids' weird fruity-tasting toothpaste during the trip
  • ladies' razor & nail scissors
  • makeup
  • a couple of quart-sized ziplock bags and a couple of gallon-sized ziplock bags - these come in handy for a variety of reasons
I **USED** to also include (but don't anymore):
  • a clothing line w/suction cups
  • one of those flat rubbery sink stopper thingy's
  • 1 of those travel sleep sack things that you can use to sleep in if you're at a hostel. Never used it and it just takes up room
  • ear plugs
  • travel alarm clock- no need. Just use the alarm clock app on the smart phone instead.
  • flashlight - no need. Just use the flashlight feature on smart phone
  • 1 container of toothpaste per person
  • something like a PackTowl - we never have used it.
  • a few bottles of nail polish - I always end up thinking that ODD, YDD & I will have a do-it-yourself nail session in the hotel room when we arrive, but it never happens, so I end up never using these. On this trip, they're staying at home and we'll paint our nails before we leave home.
  • umbrella - rain in So Cal in May/June? Forget it.
 
The KIDS, meanwhile, will be packing the following in THEIR suitcases:
  • toothbrush
  • hairbrush
  • small bottle of SwimSpray (https://www.swimspray.com/). We discovered this wonderful stuff thanks to the kids' swim team activities. It totally works. When you're done swimming, you rinse your hair, then spray on the SwimSpray all over your hair, then wash your hair normally with your regular shampoo. It neutralizes the chlorine on your hair so it doesn't get totally fried. I can also report from YDD's experience that it works on skin that is sensitive to chlorine as well. A couple of times after swim practice, YDD has had a chlorine sort of rash on her legs and I've sprayed this stuff on it and then 10 min later, noticed that the rash had totally disappeared. It's worth every cent! ~$12/bottle on their website, but you can buy it for cheaper on Amazon.
  • bathing suit & goggles
  • something to wear to bed
  • teddy bear
  • flip flops & sneakers
  • 5 pr undies & socks
  • 5 pr shorts
  • 5 shirts
  • 1 pr pants - although they won't wear the pants at all, it's useful to have a pair on hand anyway.
  • 1 sweatshirt
  • tablet
In the car, they also have 1 pillowpet each and a few toys to occupy themselves with. ODD will probably bring her sketch pad with her since she likes to draw.
 
Fun report so far!

And because of a disability he has from a bad car accident he was in years ago, he may need a DAS card. I'm hoping that I can find someone here on the boards who has gone to WDW or DL with a member of their travel party who is blind. I'm not sure what to expect and I want the experience to be enjoyable for him.

The DISUnplugged podcast did an episode titled "Help! Jimm's Holiday Vacation" on October 24, 2016 that was a planning episode for Jimm and his brother who both have visual impairments. There was a follow up podcast on December 5, 2016 that discussed how their trip turned out. You might listen to these two episodes to see if there's anything helpful for your friend.
 
Fun report so far!



The DISUnplugged podcast did an episode titled "Help! Jimm's Holiday Vacation" on October 24, 2016 that was a planning episode for Jimm and his brother who both have visual impairments. There was a follow up podcast on December 5, 2016 that discussed how their trip turned out. You might listen to these two episodes to see if there's anything helpful for your friend.
Thanks! I did, in fact, listen to both of those episodes and I thought of our blind friend who might join us at DL. It's really cool that DL offers such services for the disabled!
 

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