I am not the mom who always has bandaids in her bag if someone scrapes a knee. I generally interpret, “pack a lunch” to mean, “toss some Clif bars and string cheese in the car.” The day I was able to stop hauling a diaper bag around with me was one of the happiest of my life.
Perhaps I should have thought more about all of this before I went and had four kids.
When you have tiny children, it’s hard to avoid bringing massive amounts of stuff into Disney parks with you. You need a stroller, and a baby carrier, and diapers, and snacks, and…..it’s exhausting just to think about.
But I don’t have tiny children anymore, so I was determined to travel as lightly as possible on this trip. We did bring a stroller one day, but aside from that I was able to fit everything we needed for all six of us into one small bag. And here’s a quick post in which I tell you about pretty much everything I had with me.
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This is what I put all my stuff in. I have raccoons, but maybe you would like vintage campers or Sasquatches. So what I like about these bags for Disney is that they’re very comfortable and easy on your back, they’re mostly backpacks but can swing around to the front easily if you need them to for a ride or whatever, they have a very convenient assortment of pockets and compartments, and they hold a surprising amount of stuff for how small they are. I fit all the stuff I’m going to talk about here in mine, plus a couple of granola bar type snacks for each person, a small tube of sunscreen (we put sunscreen on before we left for the day and then I had a small thing with me to redo faces as needed), and my phone and wallet.
So this one’s a little weird, perhaps. I didn’t even think to bring this specifically for Disney; I just happen to leave it in my bag all the time, but I was surprised at how useful it proved. This is a little microfiber cleaning cloth that comes with its own storage pouch to keep it from getting all cruddy floating around in your bag. Mine actually came as part of an accessory kit that was bundled in with a camera lens I bought awhile back. So I use it for my camera lenses and phone, but we also did stuff like pull it out to wipe down our glasses after water rides. It’s not like your trip will be ruined without one, but it weighs almost nothing and takes up almost no space, so it definitely earns its keep.
We didn’t actually end up using ours on this trip, but these pack up so tiny and it rains so much in Florida that it’s worth having them along in case you need them. I know from experience that you can be roasting in the sun at Disney one minute only to find yourself surprisingly cold a few minutes later when you’ve been caught in a downpour. You can also wear these on water rides if you want, but you’ll look pretty silly.
I was probably the last person to find out about these awhile back, but in case I wasn’t….a smartphone is nearly a necessity at Disney World these days, what with fast past plus and all that sort of thing. It’s much better to bring along a very compact back up charger like this one (this is what I have; there are lots of choices) than to feel a creeping sense of panic as you watch your battery drain knowing that you still want to try to grab fast passes for the Jungle Cruise later on in the evening.
I LOVE these! I actually found three at Target on clearance for $5 each a couple of days before our trip, but they’re well worth the $12 or so they cost on Amazon. You could even bring these along easily if you didn’t want to carry a bag at all, since they have a handy belt clip thing on them. But they also roll up to a really small size, so we pulled them out when we need them to fill them up, carried them until they were empty, then rolled them back up and shoved them in the bag. I’m still using them as my main water bottles now that we’re back home, too. Important tip: you can get free ice water at Disney anywhere that sells fountain drinks; you just have to ask–but sometimes there’s a line or you don’t want to look for a place and just want to be able to fill up at the closest water fountain.
Goodness–how did THIS post get so long?! It was supposed to be fast! Well. Anyway–there you go!
maybe you would like to pin this?
So glad to finally see a minimal list. I don’t have little ones either so I wanted to figure out a way to avoid the bag check line. However I am the mom that everyone knows will have everything . I’ve read so many lists of crazy stuff to pack I the parks but I wanted to just pack our pockets. Thanks
Our very last day we managed no bag check on this trip….but we were only staying for a couple of hours that morning. I think it’s the kids constantly asking for snacks that keeps me from going totally bagless!