Elsewhere Together

“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”- Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland

Our family loves Disney, but our love is a little different than most. We love the rides, especially the retro classics like Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion. I especially love to nerd out about the aspects of Disney design that intrigue me most, so I love anything that bears the visual fingerprints of visionary Imagineer Mary Blair, like the design of “It’s a Small World”. Nathan got me a copy of Boundless Realm: Deep Explorations Inside Disney’s Haunted Mansion by Foxx Nolte, a room-by-room analysis of every detail of the ride for Christmas 2020, and I devoured it over several days. We are not so into characters, or even movies, although both kids have had their moments over the years.

We travel to Disney for a full week once every three years or so, and this is a time frame that works for our family. We’ve also made special detours to spend time at Disneyland in California, as well as making an extremely weird and memorable foray to Disneyland Paris. Other international Disney Parks are also on our bucket list. Making a rough count in my head, I think we’ve traveled to Disneyworld as a big, stand-alone vacation at least 6 times, now.  Over the years, we have worked our Disney routine into something very specific that works for us, but would probably drive many/most families insane.

There are a few conventional lessons that I consistently fail to learn, despite my best intentions every trip. They would almost certainly make my life easier, and result in less stress for me. But at this point, I have given up on myself.

Pack Light, and Pack Utilitarian. Wear Comfortable Shoes.

Disney is a time to focus on comfort, and utilitarian gear. Shorts, t-shirts, comfortable sneakers. While I think I manage to pack for Delphine in a way that vaguely adheres to this rule (the guys are on their own, they can pack what they want), for myself, I make a small pile for each day that reflects a complete outfit for that day. I choose a dress or skirt/ top combination, and accessories, making sure I have a necklace and earrings for each individual outfit. As far as shoes, I concede to bringing (mostly) flats, but often choose something cute and colorful which I realize by the third or fourth day has little to no support for my actual feet. I have heard that there are space-saving bags and other packing gadgets, but I just cram everything into a carry-on that needs my full body weight to close. My overflow is distributed among my husbands and children’s luggage. Sometimes we arrive at the airport to find (my) carry-on is overweight, so we need to re-pack on the spot to distribute weight! My husband and son takes turns noting any loud thud that we hear while in the airport or on the plane itself (landing gear retracting into the plane, etc.) and saying, “Did you hear that? That was your suitcase being loaded onto the plane.”

Pack Snacks and Drinks and Eat Breakfast in the Room. Save time with Counter Service Meals.

In theory, sometimes we buy cereal to keep in the room or hotel kitchenette space. But we like to plan two nice sit-down meals in themed restaurants for every day we’re in Disney. It does require more than a bit of planning- some restaurants need to be booked 60 days in advance. We hate carrying around a lot of extra stuff, so we’re never really packing additional snacks- maybe an extra water bottle or two. We’re usually so on-the-go at Disney that having two real meals is just fine. We usually schedule one reservation around brunch time, and one quite late- at 8:30 or so, and that’s the final thing we’ll do in the park. When we’re in the parks for the day (which is every day, essentially) we will confine ourselves to lunch at one of the themed park restaurants.

Some of our favorites are the San Angel Inn in the Mexico Pavilion at EPCOT, the 50s Prime Time Café or the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at Hollywood Studios, or the Jungle Skipper Cantina in Magic Kingdom. All these have beautiful, elaborately themed interiors, and interesting food choices. Eating in table service restaurants for most meals is admittedly not the most cost effective strategy, but it’s so nice to plan a break in the day to relax in a comfortable, air-conditioned space for an hour or so.

Have a Rest Day. Don’t Try to Pack Everything In.

Every trip, I swear to my children and spouse that this trip is just going to be relaxing. No pressure to pack everything in. Maybe we’ll sleep in some days, maybe we’ll take advantage of the beautiful hotel we’re staying in and just have a pool day.

I generally make a plan that calls for experiencing no more than 8 rides in a day, and then fitting in whatever else we can at our leisure. But, inevitably, as soon as I enter a Disney Park, I become an inexhaustible ride-seeking monster. The maddening systems for reserving Lightning Lanes with all their variations- Multipass, Individual Lightning Lanes, Virtual Queues with specific (often early!) times that you must reserve your place in the queue have exacerbated my robotic ride-obsessive tendencies. The upside to this is we usually do maximize our days and I don’t think there’s been a virtual queue that we’ve missed out on or an attraction we didn’t get to experience. However, we will force ourselves to stay until park close to wring every possible drop of fun from our day. Often, we won’t realize just how exhausted we are until we’re on the bus back to the hotel or crawling into our beds. We’re also always faced with the dilemma that our two favorite times in any park are the early morning and the late night, which requires both waking up early and staying up late. Also not the greatest for a small child, but Delphine is a trouper and her meltdowns are usually dramatic but short, like a little thunderstorm. We maybe take a break to swim in the hotel pool once over the course of our trip. Maybe. All that said, one of my favorite Disney memories ever took place in the quiet minutes before closing at Disneyland Paris. Asher wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain by himself, a test of his 10- year old bravery. Delphine, then a toddler, was fast asleep in her stroller. Nate said, “Why don’t you go ride on Hyperspace Mountain by yourself? You can go on it a couple of times if you want, we’ll meet you over there when Asher’s done.” I was able to loop around and around on that ride at least five times, back to back, all by myself. And walking through the steampunk, Jules Verne-inspired spaces of Discoveryland, all silent and flooded with jewel-tone lights in the dark was totally worth the feeling of being just slightly sleep-deprived.

For us, a Disney vacation is not a vacation for rest and relaxation. We go into it with eyes open- it’s going to be expensive, it’s going to be harried and busy and we’ll explode our step goals every day. But it’s also become a family tradition that we all look forward to from year to year!