Monthly Archives: November 2017

Disney, Travel

Park Bag Essentials!

You can get away with carrying nothing on you for a park day at WDW, since your Magicband acts as your hotel room key, your park tickets (combined with your fingerprint), and you can add a credit card/password to it so you just need to scan it and enter your pin to make a purchase. However, we are not those people.

We always carry a bag with us into the park – and we typically take turns carrying it since we only ever take one bag for the two of us. Lately, we’ve been using our Disney Vans backpacks that I found super cheap at Winners:

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But you can use any bag you’re comfortable carrying around!

Now – what could we possibly need a giant bag for? What do we keep in it? That all depends on the time of year we’re at Disney, what we have planned for the day, etc.

This list is not inclusive, and you don’t have to carry all of it (or any of it – just make your list based on your own personal needs)

  • Sweater/jacket – it cools off once the sun sets
  • Raincoat/poncho – Florida weather is unpredictable! We like having those small ponchos from the Dollarstore which we just throw away once we’ve used them.
  • Sunglasses/glasses and case – I’m blind, and need to switch back and forth between the two during the day
  • Passports – Disney has a rule where you can not purchase alcohol without a passport (unless you are an American citizen, then any government-issued ID will work). If my jacket has a zipper pocket, I like to keep the passport there for protection.
  • FuelRod – these are portable chargers that will work on basically any phone (they come with a few different adapters). The great thing about this brand is that they have vending machine-type things in every Disney park that let you swap out your charger for a new, fully-charged one as many times as you’d like (Luke and I only own one between us – my phone will be low so I’ll use the FuelRod, get my phone back up to almost a full charge, then we’ll swap it out for a new charger for Luke to use. On the day we got engaged, our phones were going crazy from all the text messages and Facebook notifications, so we ended up swapping out our FuelRod at least 5 times in one day).
  • Brita water bottle – we like this one since it has a built-in filter. Florida water is gross.
  • Sharpies – for character signatures
  • Pen/notepad – I like to keep notes of what we do during the day
  • Snacks – granola bars, fruit snacks, etc – you are allowed to bring food into the parks with you, some people bring sandwiches to save money (I like Disney food way too much to do that haha)
  • Gum – Disney does not sell gum on property – but you are allowed to have it/chew it
  • Camera/phone – If I have pockets in my pants/sweater I just hold onto these things myself, but it’s nice to have a place to put them while on rides.
  • Ziplock bags – Come in handy for water rides to stick our phones/electronics into
  • Tylenol – the parks are loud and can be quite crowded, which leads to headaches.

This seems like a long list, but most things are very light or don’t take up much space in our backpack.  I like to be prepared for anything!

Disney, Travel

January 28, 2017 – Part Two

As we were walking through Downtown Disney, we realized we were feeling a bit hungry, so we decided to go see if we could get in to the Rainforest Cafe.

After we left Rainforest, we still didn’t feel like going back to the parks just yet. Instead, we headed into the Grand Californian Hotel, and found some comfy chairs in a hallway to sit in. We were right by some large windows, so there was lots of natural light streaming in, and people were coming and going, but somehow Luke fell asleep and napped for about an hour while sitting up haha. I spent the time people-watching and checking in on social media (since the parks did not have Wi-fi at the time, but the Grand did).

Once Luke woke up, we decided it was time to go back to the park, so we entered DCA through the Grand – so convenient! I understand why people love staying there!

We walked around a for a bit, before it was time for our World of Colour dining package at Wine Country Trattoria. If you like negative reviews, you can check it out here...

After our not-so-great meal, I wasn’t feeling great (it was a pretty early morning that day, and unlike Luke, I hadn’t taken a nap). It was also a bit cold, so we decided to go to the Animation Academy building in Hollywood Land. We just sat on a bench in there watching the video on the screens surrounding the room for awhile. We could see the line to meet Anna and Elsa, and as it got shorter we decided to jump into line and meet them. I do like that you can get both of them in a picture together in California, but I thought the pair we met in Florida were a little  better (more in character, and more wiling to joke around with us).

We had never gone into the Sorcerer’s Workshop (located in the same building), so we headed there. It was kind of neat, but I find it weird how it just comes to a dead end, and then you need to back-track in order to get out.

We headed out of the Animation Building, and went to buy some matching Star Wars shirts I had seen earlier in the day (I finally convinced Luke to wear matching shirts with me, I was very excited haha). We made our purchase (and saved 15% with my annual pass!),  then continued looking around in the shops. After a few minutes, Luke realized that his FitBit was missing, and couldn’t remember the last time he saw it 🙁 We retraced our steps, and went back to ask the cast members in the stores we were just in, but no sign of it anywhere. We even walked out to Lost and Found to file an official report, but we have never heard back – it is lost forever (or someone found it, picked it up and got themselves a barely used FitBit Flex…). It ended up working out in the end – my company introduced an initiative where they subsidized the cost of purchasing a FitBit – so I was able to upgrade to a Charge for under $60, and I gave Luke my FitBit flex which was only a month old.

Once we re-entered the park we still had some time before we needed to head over to watch World of Colour, so we headed into A Bug’s Life Land and went to watch it’s Tough to Be A Bug – and no, I still didn’t sit back in the seat for the poke in the back part haha. Of course we had to go on Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train afterwards to help him search for candy corn – it’s the simplest most little kid ride in the entire park, but we find a way to go on it every single trip.

We headed over to the Preferred Viewing area for WOC, but made a stop at the Little Mermaid ride when we saw that it was practically a walk-on 🙂

We had an amazing spot to watch World of Colour thanks to the dining package. The show itself was as fantastic as always, It’s a show I never take pictures of, I just put my phone/camera away and enjoy it to it’s fullest. Of course I did snap a few pics of the Mickey wheel before the show started though 🙂

After WOC was over, we headed out of the park, caught an Uber back to our hotel and called it a night.