Disney Week- Planning a Perfect Trip

It is officially summer!  

School is out and a lot of families are going on vacation (or wishing they were!). Of course, one of the most popular family vacation destinations is Walt Disney World in Orlando. My girls and I are big Disney fans.  In fact, we are all convinced that we are long lost Disney Princesses who will one day take up our rightful home in Cinderella’s castle!  

In the meantime though, we love to visit Disney World. We were fortunate enough to go last December and hope to go again next year.  There are plenty of websites and books with tips and recommendations for Disney trips, but I thought I would add one more list to the collection and share My Top Disney Planning and Preparation Tips. 

PLAN IN ADVANCE- I mean waaaaaay in advance.  I went a few years ago, not having not been in years, thinking that we could just get plane tickets and hotel reservations  a couple of months in advance and decide what to do when we got down there.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time, but we missed out on a lot of opportunities that we may have had with a little advance research and planning.  We have already decided to start planning our trip for fall of 2016 this November in order to make sure that we do not miss out on anything we would like to do. I have heard about people planning their trips a year and a half in advance!  Remember, you can make your dining reservations 180 days in advance and some dates and times book that far out! 

Begin by researching hotels, restaurants, dining plans, activities, etc.  Here are some websites to get you started:

The Disney Parks Blog: provides current information on a variety of topics about the parks and cruise line. 

TheMouseforLess.com: this link includes information on the parks, cruise line and even includes a pop-up calculator to let you know when you can make your dining reservations, Fast Past Reservations, customize your Magic Bands and even tells you when your last payment is due. 

The Disney Food Blog: Anything you ever want to know about the wonderful food at Disney Parks and Resorts. 

WDW Prep School: A website, blog and podcasts for learning anything you need to know about the park.  Includes a comprehensive guide to planning your visit. 

ORGANIZE- I put together a notebook to keep all of our plans together for our last trip.  It had all of the pertinent information about flights, hotel, park tickets, etc. in plastic sleeves. During the trip it was a convenient place to put all of those little things that will eventually be scrap-booked.  Here is the new version for our trip next year. 

I made the cover sheet using Disney scrap book paper from Michaels.  The font is “Taffy Script” on my Cricut.  I used my Mickey Punch from Amazon.com to make the little Mickey Mouse heads.  This would be a great project for the kids to get involved in, but if you are not feeling creative or inspired you might want to try The Lovely Commotion Blog which has free printables for a cover sheet, reservations page, etc. 

SAVE- Once you have decided to go on a trip, or even if you are still in the “just dreaming” phase, put those loose pennies and other change in a special jar. You will be surprised how quickly those pennies add up! 

This is a recycled plastic peanut jar. To remove the label I sprayed a little WD-40 on the label and scraped gently with a glass scraper.  Once the label was off I washed the jar with Dawn dish detergent to remove the residual WD-40 and dried it. I would not use this method of removal if I planned to use the jar for food, but it is the easiest way I have found for getting rid of a label.  

I made the new label with my Cricut and Taffy Script font. It is not exactly the Disney font, but close enough for this project.  I spray painted the jar top and glued (with E-6000 glue) a plastic Mickey on the top.  If you prefer, there are a lot of Disney stickers and letters at craft stores like Michaels which would be fun to use.  

This would also be a great project for kids to do. It would also be a great way to start a conversation about the value of money and saving.  

There are lots of these banks all over the internet, some are called Mickey Money, some, like this one are called Disney Dollars, but what about Princess Pennies?  I thought of that one this morning, when I had already finished my jar. Regardless of what it is called, hopefully it will inspire my family to drop their spare change in the jar and not all over the house! 

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you will join me next time when I will share some more crafts and some Mickey snacks for you to enjoy while dreaming of your next Disney vacation! 

Cynthia