Thursday Tip - Keeping Cool!

This post is from 2011....with so many of you planning summer trips and FL heating up I felt it was important to reshare this helpful tip AND update it with some of our experiences after traveling in June twice and September once!!

So you are in Disney and it is HOT!!!  Well several months out of the year it will be very hot down there in sunny Florida!  This tip is something that my mom and I started doing and man oh man do I love it!!

First the ingredients - wash clothes (can be found right in your hotel room), ice cold water, and preferrably a freezer, oh and a cooler that you bring with you to the parks.

Ok now what to do - drench the washcloth in ice water or just regular water if you have a freezer to put them in.  (Freezers are available in the room fridges that you get for free.)  Freeze them over night.  Now pack them in your soft sided cooler and when you are sweating and hot in the parks, pull out one of those great washclothes and use it to cool off!!

Along those same lines - freeze some bottled water!  Use it instead of ice to keep your cooler items cool and it will melt throughout the day for a nice cool drink!!

Edited and Reposted in 2014....more tips!!

We simply put the washcloths in ice water in a gallon ziploc bag now and carry them in our cooler.  It really is refreshing after having been on 3 trips during hot months now.




Something we invested in for our last trip was Frogg Togg Chilly Pads.  We bought them off of Amazon for a very reasonable price.  I did find that they helped and they were nice because they didn't get you wet like the washcloth will.

Two hot kids in Epcot!  June 2013

Cooling off with a smoothie!  Yum!

It really is imperative when you are there on hot days to stay hydrated and cool.  This can make or break your trip.  Take plenty of A/C breaks!  We will sometimes go to an attraction that we may
not have otherwise gone to just to sit in some A/C.  Have a cool drink and sit back and relax on a shady bench!!




Just always remember - a sizzling HOT day in WDW, is better than being home in an air conditioned office any day!!  :-)

Happy travels and Stay Cool!!!

Tuesday Tip

Hey friends!!!

So my tip for today - off site stroller rental!! We rented a stroller on our September 2011 trip for the first time ever. I am the mommy of a 6 and 4 year old. In the past we have always brought our own stroller(s). My son would be in the big travel system and my daughter in the MacLaren. Well our last trip I wanted a double since my son is tall he was too big for our travel system Graco and I knew my daughter would get tired.

I looked at Disney pricing but come one.... $31/day for a hard plastic stroller that the kids couldn't be comfortable in and we would have to leave it in the park for the walk to the buses or our car. S I started researching off site stroller rental companie. There are ALOT out there! For us we LOVE Kingdom Strollers! The pricing and free options are fantastic and the customer service cannot be beat! Most places require the stroller be returned the morning of your last day. Kingdom Strollers let's you have it until 5pm or later (we texted them and they let us have it til 8pm for NO charge!) and they drop it off either super early the day of your rental or the night before. It's waiting at bell services!

They have a wide array of choices in singles and doubles. For our last trip we rented a Bob Duallie. Pushing around nearly 100 lbs of kids should be hard, but nope it glided with ease! Our next trip we are planning to try the City Elite Double. It fits taller kids a bit better. My daughter will be 6 almost 7 when we go and will probably rarely sit in it but it's only a $10 difference to get a double instead of a single and to be able to offer her a seat in the shade in June is worth it to me! And a safe place to put her in a crowded park!

We go full on at the parks. Usually rope drop to closing with maybe a VERY short break so our kids are tired at the end. Our September trip they fell asleep in the stroller on our way out almost every night. We used it to get to our car in the parking lot then transferred them to the car and then back to the stroller to walk to our room.

Here's a shot of the stroller being used well!!

Tuesday Tip

Ok last week I told you about comfortable shoes...this week - prepare yourself and your family.

Many of us are not as active as we should be and if that is you, then you need to prepare yourself for a Disney vacation.  You will be walking an awful lot.  Think miles everyday.  In fact it has been stated on several sites that the average Disney goer walks 5 - 7 miles PER DAY!!!

My suggestion, start a nightly walk with your family and increase the distance.  As the trip gets closer walk in the shoes that you plan to use while down there if possible.  This will show you how well you really enjoy walking in the shoes you think are best. 

Not only will you get fit for your trip and for yourself, but you will be ready for the Disney touring that is awaiting you!!  Funny with all that walking I never lose any weight while there....must be all the food!!  ;-)

Tuesday Tip

So this may seem like a simple enough tip, but hey, it's gotta be said!

Wear COMFORTABLE shoes!!!  I know, I know, not much of a tip.  But let me tell you a little story....

We went to Disney one year.  I get there thinking ok, I am ready to go.  Open my suit case and realize...uh oh, I forgot my sneakers!!  So a trip was made and I got a new pair of sneakers at a local store.  I would have been better off in dollar store flip flops!  My feet hurt so bad, not because the sneakers were bad, they just weren't broken in.  I learned my lesson big time!

I have to say no matter, what the shoes are, be sure to break them in and make sure they are super comfy to walk in since you will be walking...A LOT!

My personal favorite Disney touring shoes...Crocs!  Yup I wear 'em and I love 'em!  I got my first pair when I was down in Disney as a matter of fact.  We got there and I got out my sneakers.  I am not a fan of closed in shoes.  I live for warm weather and flip flop wearing summer days!  So when I am in warm sunny FL the last thing I want is to walk in sneakers all day.  My feet ache at the end of it all.  Well the answer to that problem, for me, has been Crocs.  When we were down there, my mom already had the Crocs and she said try them.  I didn't want to...I thought like many that they were ugly.  But I tried and man alive are the COMFORTABLE!!

Ever since I have not gone back, I am a crocs convert and I LOVE them!!  But that is not what this post as about, at least not completely.  It was about a tip for comfortable shoes.  You will walk MILES every day, so be sure to keep those feet comfy cozy or it will be a LONG painful vacation!

Happy walking Disney friends!!!

Tuesday Tip - Simple Princess Packing!

Now this may not help all of you, but for those of you with Princesses out there that are HUGE fans of the Princesses and have their Princess dresses, this tip is for you!

If your Princess is like mine, we can't just bring ONE Princess dress.  We have to bring the whole wardrobe.  Emma has - Rapunzel, Belle, Cinderella, and Minnie.  She has an occasion to wear them all - in her mind anyway - so she just can't choose.  And when I am packing for a vacation we are all super excited for the last thing I feel like is a fight over which one to leave behind.  So I searched for answers online.  I don't remember where I saw it, but someone had this AWESOME idea!

Fold them up and put them in a freezer bag - one or two per bag and then take a straw and suck out all the air.  Now they will take up much less space!  When you get there take them out immediately and hang them up.  They will pretty much be wrinkle free and they won't take up a ton of space in your bags!!  Everyone is happy....especially your little Princess!!

My son doesn't really have any outfits that are must haves for WDW, but he does have a Buzz outfit that if he wanted to bring I bet this would work too!!

Happy packing!!!

Tuesday Tip - The Importance of ADRs

Hello there Disney people!

I posted recently about how to book your ADRs online and some of you may wonder why this is even something you should concern yourself with.  I will tell you why - if you don't book ADRs be prepared to not eat at any of the top restaurants or to sit and wait if that is even an option.

Recently I was talking to some friends about ADRs and how important they are.  Disney has some incredible restaurants to eat at.  Some are higher end, some are buffets, some include characters, etc.  Pretty much all of them will be impossible to get the day of if they are any good and most are!

I can't tell you how many times I have been down in Disney and heard people yelling at Cast Members (aka CMs - disney lingo!) at the reservation desks because there are no openings.  They walk up to the Crystal Palace - where you can eat with Pooh and friends - at 6pm thinking they will just get to sit down and eat.  I like to equate it to the best restaurant in NYC - would you ever think you could just walk up and sit down there?  No.  Well guess what pretty much every restaurant in Disney is this way!  Especially at peak times of year.

Does this mean that without ADRs you won't be able to sit down to eat?  No, not at all.  BUT your chances of getting to eat all the places you want go down, way down.  You can ALWAYS walk up and try, never hurts to try, right?  But be prepared to hear no and to walk away knowing that...well I told you so - LOL!  I have walked up and asked and been seated, but when that has happened I have also sat for 45 minutes waiting.  So be prepared for that as well - with little ones that are hungry this is not always a good time.

If you booked way in advance as I have this time, you get to book at 180 days out from your arrival for your whole trip.   In this case you will pretty much get your choice of where you want to eat.  If you book later and the options have become more limited book what you can and as I said above try once you get there, never hurts.  But my suggestion is to have the ADRs booked as a back up.

I will gladly help you with booking your ADRs, part of my FREE services!