We picked one park per day & I tried not to over plan everything! That was the hardest thing since we were able to partake in the new Disney Magic Bands. The bands are new, each resort guest gets one (tons of colors to choose from too) all of your vacation information is loaded onto them. You use them as your room key, to buy things in the stores, & has all your dining information , so if you have a dining plan you swipe them at the register and it keeps track of your meals & snacks. I was not looking forward to wearing them for a week and a half but they are super comfy & some nights everyone would fall asleep with them. They are water proof & a great keepsakes for the kiddos. Some tips for the band's:
- Decorate them at home or bring along a surprise pack of markers, NAIL polish and little stickers to decorate them. You will thank me when your not in line to buy the sparkly covers or little buttons that cost $12 each!
- Choose your colors! Disney will send you a email that you can log in to choose your band colors, if you don't they will stick ya with grey! While grey might match everything, your kiddos will be not so happy that they have to share the same boring color with the rest of the fam.
- Save them! You can re-use them during your next stay .
We would decide what park, then my mother-in-law & I would go down to the customer service desk where they would set us up with our fast passes for 3 rides per day! We didn't need them all the time since we went during Disney's slow time but the Times we did have them and needed them we were very thankful. You have a hour span that you can use each fast pass, you walk up to the front of the line, swipe your band & your on your way. Super easy and we liked it better than the tickets that they used to print out! (If your just visiting for the day, you use the ticket and visit a FPt booth and they help you setup your times for the day)! Some quick tips I learned this I time around:
- You might not get to a ride during your time frame for one ride, find a FPt booth (there's tons around the park) and you can switch times and/or rides.
- You choose rides with no wait: Again find a FPt booth and change your ride to something that has a wait.
- They offer fast pass to meet characters too! As long as you haven't used up all three for the day, you can switch as many things around as you want. There's a app for this but we couldn't get fit to work :)
If you are staying on Disney property, check out the fun things the hotel has going on. They show movies or play games every night by the pool. They have the best Christmas store located in Down Town, you can take a boat from Hollywood Studios over to Downtown area! Super fun to ride :)
Here are some pictures of the boys on their favorite rides! We rode People mover, Carousel of Progress & the Buzz Light year ride countless times!
I also made our autograph books since they can be so expensive! They are for sale on my Facebook for $12.00. You get 30 pages, which includes some with folders and there are add on kids if you need more pages!! Check them out on my Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/simplytumblers. Here are some pictures of them:
Last but not least : Don't forget about the pin trading! It was AWESOME & so cool to see the boys light up and trade with cast members. I was cheap and bought a lot of pins on eBay. I got 20 pins for $.99 shipped and divided them up among the boys. We did buy lanyards there (so not cheap), I would recommend getting them before stepping on Disney Property! They wore the lanyards and most cast members wear them. They were on the look out for their new favorite pins and traded with over 20 cast members. Mason wanted too find pins with the scecret Mickeys on them and Peyton was all about Toy Story pins. It was so awesome, even my in-laws commented on how much they enjoyed watching them trade. Just remember to ask sellers on eBay that each pin has "official pin trading" Mark on the back of the pins. Even if you get some from Disney Land you can still trade them at Disney World as long as it has the official trade mark on the backs.
I love Disney & sharing the cheaper side of the magical experience! Please message me if you want to chat about it!
Happy Crafting,
Mel <3
