Orlando - what to take into the parks

[netballcrazy]

We are off to DW and Universal next week. What should I be packing to take into the parks? I presume I will need to take a rucksack with some water, snacks, sun tan lotion but any other handy hints from seasoned DW visitors? DC are 11 and 13 and could carry their own stuff but realistically I know it will be me carrying everything and don't want to end up like a pack horse with stuff we won't need!

Thanks

I swear by the spray sun cream. Takes just a minute to fully cover even the most unwilling child! I found I could get factor 50 and I'm pretty sure 80 spray out there. There are lots of water fountains so I took collapsible sports bottles from sports direct. They have a clip so you can just stick them on a belt hoop. Apart from that not much, tickets, passport copies, mobile phones, sunglasses. We were fine with one bumbag on each adult for 5 teens/children. One teen also had a bumbag for epipens and inhalers.

Handwash gel is handy to carry around as well.

Carry as little as possible, take a small water bottle and refill from the water fountains rather than a large one. We always take a single bag and take turns in carrying it, rather than a bag each. If thunderstorms are forecast you might want to carry ponchos, but they do add bulk.

Don't worry about first aid stuff, if you need plasters or painkillers the first aid stations in the park give them out free.

As little as possible! We also take a single bag and take in turns to carry. I also buy the roll on sun cream, it is smaller and doesn't leak everywhere!

All counter service food places will give you cups of iced water for free if you ask

Had a great time at universal. Discovered that if you go on the Popeye raft rude take spare underwear and shorts as you get soaked.

You may want to take ponchos?

Just came back from there on Friday

Definitely take a poncho because there are random thunderstorms when it looks like there won't be ten minutes before - even when they aren't forecast!!

We just took good old fashioned bum bags and stored the ponchos in the pram but the ones we bought are from the poundshop and would easily fit in a small bag.

Have you seen the disney planning thread on here? It's very useful, I used it a lot before our trip.

a chunky pen and autograph books if your children want to meet the characters and collect autographs. I say a chunky pen as this makes it easier for the characters to use

We re not long back and I filled a sandwich bag with a few essentials that stayed in our backpack throughout the holiday. We put plasters, paracetamol, small tube of sun cream and a wee bottle of concentrated juice so the kids could add to the iced water.

We usually just took our ponchos for the evenings out as when it rained during the day, it wasn't too bad.

We always had some bottles of water in a cool bag (just the freezer carry bag from Asda) along with one frozen bottle of water so that we had some cold water when we returned to the car.

I agree about the pen and autograph books for DCs - you can buy them in park shops if you don't bring them with you.

We are used to carrying bags, but just took a small backpack that DH and I alternated carrying. We also had a bag with a spare outfit each in the car in the carpark daily.

Water bottles (full in the morning from apartment, and refilled from drink stations during the day). We also asked for glasses of water (free, iced), in addition to our occasional Coke/fizzy orange, at every meal. DD also loved going into all the various water sprays - and dried off again in minutes. Hydration is vital!

A pack of boiled sweets - in case energies flagged at times (DD has aspergers so we wanted to avoid hitting meltdown territory). A snackpack of raisins, bag of crisps and something like a snackpack of 2 oreos daily, emergency snacking as above (in fact, it was me who hit meltdown one day and needed them most). Some days we brought sandwiches or substantial picnic-y food, most days we got food in the parks - it depends on your budget and tastes.

Suncream. Cream for DH and I, solid stick for DD (hates cream).

Everyone wore their sunglasses.

Money, park tickets, keys, phones etc.

It was so hot that we didn't bother with ponchos - if we got wet, we dried quickly and there were usually plenty of places to duck into.

A couple of slightly cooler days and ones we were staying late, we put a cardigan for DD in the bag.

Pen daily, and park maps if we already had them for today's park(s). We used bring the guide book in the car but not into the parks.

Some good tips I got off the DIBB were to take a little bottle of concentrated squash to add to the freebie water at Disney as it tastes yuck (it did!) And to freeze a wet flannel in a ziploc bag to use to cool down. I bought a cross body bag again on DIBB advice and it was a lot more comfortable than a rucksack or handbag as I had my hands free.