What Disney Tip Are you really glad you listened to?

[jusero]

If you are on a ride and the CM tell you to stow your bags in the provided pouch or container on the ride DO IT! I made the mistake of thinking I could hold onto it tight enough. We this bag had all our things in it including our park passes. We were at AK in Dino land. We had to go back to the ride at the end of the day at when the park closed. This had to be when they shut down the ride for the day. I walked threw the place with the CM. They turned on the lights for this. We found it right at the foot of the stegasourus.

I'm sorry you lost your bag, but that must have been very cool to be able to walk through there with the lights on. I am assuming they didn't allow you to take pics.

 

[mickey&minniealways]

No, unfortunatley I couldn't take any pictures but I did notice a lot of stuff I didn't before. It was kind of neat to see what the CMs do.

 

[MamaJessie]

Pad lock from your suit case to hold you towel, bag and whatever to the chair at the water parks. WORKS wonders, and no one ever kicks you out of your seat...
Huggs

Oooohh! I like that idea!! Thanks!

 

[JacksLilWench]

The Hall of Presidents is a great place to take a nap!

The secret's out!!

One year when I went, the family in front of me on HM had a little girl, probably around 7 or 8, and she fell asleep in the middle of the ride!

 

[CathieArms]

Biggest question...park Hopper, or not. Will add $250 to trip...probably will avoid EMH, but what if we get to a crowded park...is it worth that much $ to be able to change??!!

I couldn't imagine going without a parkhopper. Here's how we've used them:

We start out at, say, MK at 9:00 a.m. We stay there until about lunchtime, and then go back to the resort to rest during the worst heat of the day. Then, around 4 or 5, we go back out, this time to a different park (usually Epcot) where we'll have dinner.

 

[Janell]

Lockers are easy to get and not that expensive. You can even empty your locker, return your key, and get a slip to get a locker at another park if you're park hopping.

The only hassle is that the lockers are at the entrance to the parks, so you do have to go back there to get your stuff, but that's not too bad. We don't use them for the stuff that we need to access a lot (sunscreen, diapers, camera, etc.), but more for things like costumes (when the kids do princess dining or we go to MNSSHP in the evening), larger purchases if we're outside of the window to send them back to the room, photographs
that we don't want to get bent or wet, etc.

If you start off your day at AK with a locker. And then you spend the afternoon at BB and get a locker. Are you paying for two lockers? Or is it like park hopping?

 

[scarlet_ibis]

I can't speak for the water parks, but for the main parks, I think it's like park hopping. You may get a $5 deposit back for returning your key and a slip that you take to the next park, where you pay the $5 key deposit again (and get it back when you return the key). I just asked DH and he couldn't remember, as we didn't use the lockers this trip.

 

[nocomment711]

Thank you for all the mamazing advice. It's been nearly six years since the last time I ventured down to Disney (and there's a big difference between 15 and 21). I never new so much planning had to go into a Disney vacation... then again we would always go two weeks after Thanksgiving and walk on all the rides (the last time I recall going on ToT 14 times and RnR 13 times in one day).

I wish I had more to add to this thread, but I'm sure that I'll come up with something on my trip.

Thanks again! (=

 

[SpacedOut]

This must have been mentioned many, many times in the past 68 pages, but I hadn't seen it in a while...

When planning a trip, buy new sneakers and break them in long before arriving at Disney World. Broken-in sneakers, sandals, Crocs, etc cannot be bought at WDW (or any other park). I did it for a week-long trip in 2008 and it worked great!

Plus, it gives you something to do NOW while waiting for your trip.

Additionally, I like to start taking long walks and runs to build up my stamina for my trip. And it helps break in those sneakers...

Enjoy!

 

[happycamps]

If flying, use garden grocer to order bottled water, milk, chips.... and have delivered to room

Spray deo. for feet, misc.....

laundry hamper that collapses

park hoppers

plastic accordion-style coupon sorter used for fastpasses, room keys, cash, receipts.....

ohana breakfast

boat between DHS & Epcot

Rent a surrey at the Boardwalk

Pick one thing from each member of your family and aim to do that, everything else is icing on the cake!

treat cast members with respect

dole whips

 

[jcrisp26]

I am glad I listened to someone on here when they said to bring your own glow sticks.. I packed enough for each child, each night of the trip and they loved them...got them at the Dollar store 3 to a pack for a $1..opposed to high prices at the park!!! Boys got to enjoy the glow each night and were much easier to keep track of...also they took up very little room in the suitcase!

 

[Mickeyorbust]

Absolutely agree with that! We always buy the dollar store ones - lots. That way we just throw them away when were finished. No trying to deal with putting wet ponchos away. We have used ponchos on the ground/chairs when they were wet to! Very handy and light.

And they're great for covering the stroller while you're on a ride during rain storms.

 

[savs]

And they're great for covering the stroller while you're on a ride during rain storms.

We had bought a couple of cheap ones from Walmart and one day in Epcot while it started pouring, we put a poncho over my sons stroller and clipped it down while we went into the Mexico pavilion. When we returned to our stroller.....the poncho was gone and the stroller was soaked!

That whole day my husband kept looking at everyone that had on a cheap blue poncho, thinking "I wonder if that was ours".

I'm giving everyone the benifit of the doubt and I hope that it just happened to blow off and someone found it on the ground and picked it up not knowing where it came from.

 

[scarlet_ibis]

We had bought a couple of cheap ones from Walmart and one day in Epcot while it started pouring, we put a poncho over my sons stroller and clipped it down while we went into the Mexico pavilion. When we returned to our stroller.....the poncho was gone and the stroller was soaked!

That whole day my husband kept looking at everyone that had on a cheap blue poncho, thinking "I wonder if that was ours".

I'm giving everyone the benifit of the doubt and I hope that it just happened to blow off and someone found it on the ground and picked it up not knowing where it came from.

Next time, have him decorate them with a Sharpie. Then he'll know!

(I feel your pain on the soaked stroller. We stowed ours in a covered place while we ate once, and someone moved it to right under a finial on a building where water was just streaming down. It took ALL WEEK for it to dry. Thankfully, we had a second stroller with us.)

 

[willful]

I too can feel your pain! Our stroller got caught in a WDW rain storm last summer on our last day of the trip. We thought we had it covered with poncho/bags/etc. But guess not. For next trip, we got a stroller rain cover. Excellent! Highly recommend it. She (and everything on & under the stroller) remained perfectly dry while my wife and I got wet (poncho can only protect so much LOL).



This is fully closed. It does have air vents on the side. We didn't always have it fully closed, but I think the wind picked up or something.

 

[Mickeyorbust]

We had bought a couple of cheap ones from Walmart and one day in Epcot while it started pouring, we put a poncho over my sons stroller and clipped it down while we went into the Mexico pavilion. When we returned to our stroller.....the poncho was gone and the stroller was soaked!

That whole day my husband kept looking at everyone that had on a cheap blue poncho, thinking "I wonder if that was ours".

I'm giving everyone the benifit of the doubt and I hope that it just happened to blow off and someone found it on the ground and picked it up not knowing where it came from.

How Awful, I'm sorry that happened to you.

I should add though that we've only used them to cover compact strollers, maclaren volo.

 

[pmdeve]

We leave in 17 days, keep the post comming!

 

[Fam of 4]

subbing- we leave in 46 days and I am looking for all the tips, since we haven't been in 2 years i feel like I forgot all the good ideas!

keep them coming!

 

[Queenofspoons]

Proably to not ignore the smallest details, because my family is very suprised at what hidden things I can show them on our trips.

 

[Jessica14]

Great AK tip. We have saved this park for the last day before and we were just too worn out to stay as long as we wanted to. DHS is a better last day park.

This is now the best tip I got! We had planned to do DHS the first day and AK on our last and then head home late. ADRs were made and everything. I just switched the whole thing around, got new ADRs and can see how this is definately better. More walking early on, more sitting at shows at the end. Thanks!

Also a few pages back about rider swap: My DD7 is very reluctant to ride anything with water but my DS 5 will do anything. I was hoping we could ride Kali River Rapids and then swap off and DS could ride again with DH, but I wasn't sure. It's just fast pass rides though, correct? And you have to go altogether and then tell the CM that you are swapping when they get back?
Thanks again!
Jessica