*Tent on Wheels at DISNEY* The Bare Necessities: Tips and Tricks

RDB and I are no strangers to camping and being prepared for things like poison ivy (my nemesis), or traveling with our pup (missed him this trip!), even taking some time away from the campgrounds and cruising, we were prepared for just about anything, but going to Disney, to a set of theme parks for two weeks, that was new.  So I scoured the internet, talked with my vacation planner, Heather, asked friends and colleagues who had gone before, and came up with a list of things that would be 'should haves' for our first visit to Disney. 

Here are a few thoughts on what you might want to have with you when you head to the most Magical Place on Earth!

The most useful "must have" for any Disney trip is a really great vacation planner ;-) I am so grateful that I've known Heather since high school and that she is so passionate about planning amazing trips for her clients (and friends!).  She was incredible in everything from answering the (tons of) questions that I had before we booked, to making advanced dinning reservations on our behalf (OMG, y'all, Le Celleir!) and not just in advance, but while we were there and decided we wanted to have it a second time (which is unheard of! But she was able to snag us another reservation just the day before!)  The level of service by way of her communication is second to none!  Not only is she on the spot whenever you're in the park (I can't tell you how many times I texted her on our trip to ask a random question, or thank her for a suggestion she made that was spot on!) she also sends you off with an extensive pre-trip package of information the week before the trip, including a play-by-play touring plan of your trip via an Excel file (Heather, you are my spreadsheet-soul-sister!) I'm a planner at heart, but Heather? Her whole heart is planning!! 

Thank you Heather! You made our trip magical! 

Items for use in the parks:

I'll start with the most obvious thing: Mickey Ears.  You'll have every opportunity under the sun to pick some up while you're in the parks, but you'll pay top dollar Disney price for them. I found fun pairs on both Amazon and Etsy for reasonable prices.   The hard part is going to be to narrow the number of them you bring to the number of days you have in the park!

So, it's Florida and you'll be outside in the parks having fun and it. Will. Rain.  Which means you should consider packing ponchos for everyone in your group (or again, pay the Disney prices; though I saw theirs, and they are definitely a thicker, reusable plastic - but then you have to refold and carry around a wet poncho.  Your choice!) 

Along the same lines of rain and wetness, be sure to take extra socks and shoes.  We walked thru a solid 3-4 inches of water during the worst of the downpour after stepping off the boat from Fort Wilderness at the boat launches of Magic Kingdom. Took all night with fans pointed at our shoes to dry them out. And trust me, with as much walking as you'll do, you're going to want good, dry shoes. (I'm a HUGE fan of going to a dedicated runner's shoe store (like Fleet Feet) to get fitted for shoes.  RDB and I both purchased new shoes for this trip and were so very glad that we did!)

Along with having a great pair of shoes since you'll be doing so much walking, consider bringing more socks that you would normally need. There is definitely something magical about coming home for your mid day break and changing socks.  I'm a big fan of this brand. Trust me, with good shoes and new socks, your feet will thank you!

But even with the best shoes and new socks, you might still find yourself with a blister starting on your foot somewhere.  Moleskin to the rescue!  I had one sheet in my backpack for the parks, precut into 1" squares, and was grateful I had it when (after our almost 7 mile EPCOT day) I started to develop a blister on my heel.  By simply covering the spot with a square of moleskin I was able to enjoy the rest of the day and the blister never turned into something painful that would have put a damper on the trip.  And one final thought - a bottle of BioFreeze can be your best friend to rub down those tired toes (or other aches and pains) after a long day walking in the parks!

Disney has really brought the magic of technology into the experience that you can have in the parks.  When you purchase your tickets, you receive a digital copy of them in your My Disney Experience App, but can also (for a nominal fee) buy a set of Magic Bands. A few weeks before our trip I purchased the least expensive bands ($10 each) and they arrived in the box above.  But, knowing that RDB and I both already wear our AppleWatches on a regular basis, I also purchased a set of Magic Band puck holders. 

Since you use the Magic Band (or really, the puck inside that band) for entrance into the parks, tapping in for your Lightening Lanes if you use Genie+, and can link your credit card to it for purchases at Disney properties, this was a few dollars well spent.  And? The 'magic' in the Magic Bands lasts for years, so this is a purchase that you can benefit from on several trips!

Like I mentioned, you'll use those Magic Bands (pucks) to 'tap in' for your Genie+ and Individual Lightening Lane rides, if you choose to buy the service for your park days.  I won't go into all the various strategies for trying to get the most out of Genie+, but I will say that the 2-hour rule was not that big of a deal for us, I just booked our first LLs later in the day, then set a timer for park opening, and every two hours after that.  Being able to 'buy' that time we would have spent in lines was worth the $15/pp to us.  Also, I found that being flexible on where and what we wanted to ride helped, too, but it meant we were back and forth to different sides of the park sometimes (especially at EPCOT).  We bought it for our first park day in each park, except for Animal Kingdom, which we rope-dropped. 

I wrote a full post on my thoughts about Disney's PhotoPass and Memory Maker service - you can find that over here.  Short story, it was definitely worth the money spent for us, I'm still sorting thru the hundreds of photos we have and loving them all! 

The last thing I bought specifically for our Disney trips was a Waterfly crossbody backpack.  We have several different backpacks at home, including a nice one I use when I travel with my laptops (one for blogging, one for work) but I didn't really want to be burdened with a full sized pack during our parks day, yet I knew we'd want something to carry around the necessities in.  So the crossbody Waterfly came highly recommended. I liked that we had multiple pockets,  the front flap with space to hold my ear headbands without them getting crushed, spaces for two water bottles, a key-keeper trap in the main pocket, and the over the shoulder strap that could be unhooked and rehooked to either side, making it convertible to your preferred shoulder (and easier to get off stepping onto a ride without having to but the straps over your head, often catching those Mickey Ears you're wearing!) It was a GREAT purchase. 

Items for the trip: 

It wouldn't be a Disney trip without fully immersing yourself in Disney decor - if you're staying at one of the hotel resorts, then you're already have that experience, but, much like door decorating on a cruise ship, it could be fun to add a little of your own.  I wrote up a post with links about how we decorated inside and outside the camper and our rented golf cart - you can read that over here. 

And you'll notice in that decor post that I talked about decorating the golf cart we rented, this was another item that I went back-and-forth on whether we should get it for our trip, and I'm so glad that we did! If you're staying at the campground at Fort Wilderness, having a golf cart to get around is perhaps not a must-have, but is certainly a fun splurge if you can budget it in! The campground has an internal bus system that will take you to the depots to catch a boat or bus to the parks, but its really nice to be able to get home from a long day in the park, jump on your golf cart, and head right back to your site.  It's also a lot of fun to have to play around on your non-park days. 

Definitely not a 'fun' thing about going to Disney World, but a useful item if you're traveling across by car - it was recommended in the Facebook camping pages I'd joined to stop in at the first Travel/Welcome center in Florida and get a Florida Toll Tag called the SunPass.  It was certainly worth it because it meant we didn't need to try to avoid the toll roads, and could simply let our GPS take us the most efficient routes to and from the Most Magical Place on Earth! 

I'm sure there are lots of other things I could list, but if I were going back to Disney again tomorrow, these are the "bare necessities" I'd want to have with me.  And though we aren't going back in the near future (boo!), we have reached out to Heather to look at another camping trip in the next two years!

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Be sure to check out our other posts from Tent On Wheels at DISNEY!