Disney Itinerary Notebook

For our first trip to Disney I kept our park plans in small spiral notebooks. I hand wrote our plans in a tiny little notebook and then checked things off as we did them. I used a second spiral notebook for our ADR information and for my meal selections at various Quick Serve locations.

**This may sound crazy to some, but it was a life-saver to our family...on www.allears.net you can find updated menus for every restaurant at Disney World. I spent the time looking through all of the menus and picking out restaurants in each area of the 4 parks that we would be ok with eating at on any given day. I did have our days planned out pretty well, but if the times were off and we ended up in a different area of the park at meal time, I didn't want to waste time going to another area of the park just for a quickserve meal. So, for each restaurant that I selected, I decided what I and my children were going to eat. And, yes, I did this months before our trip. I know what foods my kids like and I know what I like. It wasn't difficult to pick out our meals. I wrote down what we wanted (we got an entree, side, dessert, and beverage with the meal plan) in the spiral notebook and then when we arrived at a restaurant, I would tear out the piece of paper and hand it to my husband. I would go find a table with the kids and sit down and entertain them, while my husband ordered for us, and was able to get himself whatever sounded good at the moment. This gave him the flexibility to order what he wanted and saved me the stress of having to stand in line with the kids and figure out what we all were going to eat.

For this trip, I didn't want to have to hand write everything and I wanted a notebook that was a little bigger and would allow for changes to be made. I found this index card binder at Target. It was the perfect size and the binder rings allowed me to take out the pages that we didn't need, and I was able to move cards around if needed. After I made our park plans and meal decisions, I typed up all of that information and printed them out so that they were small enough to fit on the index cards. I also made lists of the characters that we wanted to meet and the places that we wanted to get Pressed Pennies. I also included pictures that I wanted to make sure we got. I even made lists of the things we would need for each specific day at the park and included those in the little notebook. For instance, our 2nd day at Epcot we needed to bring the Passports. Some days we were going to be there at dark and I wanted to bring glowsticks. If we were going to be waiting for a parade, I made sure to pack the neat sheet so that we had something to sit on while waiting. As we progressed through each day, I would cross off things that we accomplished or make notes about things that didn't work out as planned. As you can see below, this morning at MK everything worked out as planned except for the Merida M&G. The line was too long and we didn't want to wait. If it had been something important to us, I would have just changed plans around later in the day, or even the next day, and found a way to fit it in. But, we didn't care so we just skipped it. By making notes in the itinerary, I was able to complete a post-trip report so that when I plan our next trip I can take into account what worked and what didn't work. I saved this little notebook and I plan to use it again next time. It even fit perfectly into my mini-hipster Vera Bradley purse.

Disney Planning Binder

Since I spend at least 7 months planning each of our Disney vacations, I needed somewhere to put all of my information. For my first trip, I used a medium sized spiral notebook that had a few dividers in it. This served its purpose for that trip but I wanted something more organized for my 2nd trip. Thanks to Pinterest I found several different styles of Disney Planning Binders that people have used. I adapted the ones that I liked the best and then made my own binder. I bought a 2" 3 ring binder and started filling it. I wanted the dividers to be "Disney colors" so I bought cardstock in black, red, and yellow and attached binder labels to them. I used my label maker for the labels and then attached them in the order I thought was most useful to me. Then anytime I would make reservations or find something useful that I needed to keep, I would print it off and put it in the binder. I also had lined paper (with Disney headers of course) in each section to write down things that I would read on Pinterest boards or the DISboards that I didn't want to forget. I did take the whole binder on vacation with us, but I didn't take it into the parks, I copied info that I needed for the parks into my itinerary notebook. The cover for my binder was made by a great Disigner on the DISboards. Our family dressed up as the Incredibles for Halloween last year so I thought it was a perfect cover for our binder. Since we have 2 Dashes in our family, I had a second Dash added to the picture!

Jake and the Neverland Pirates Vest

I scheduled my 5 year old boys to get Jake and the Neverland Pirates Makeovers at the Pirates League. They were going to get a wig and some face paint, but it didn't include an outfit. I wanted them to have the whole look, so I decided to make them vests that they could put on over their white tshirts that we were going to wear that day. I can't really sew (yet) so I wanted to make a no-sew vest. I found blue tshirts at Walmart (super cheap) and cut the shirts up the middle of the front and then cut off the sleeves. I found yellow ribbon from Michaels and attached it to the edges using Stitch Witch. All I had to do was iron it on. I first folded the ribbon and ironed it so that I would have a good seam down the middle, and then I just folded it over the edges of the shirt and ironed it on with Stitch Witch. It was pretty simple. I cut out 4 circles from yellow felt and attached them using the Tacky Spray that I got for my felt Mickey Head shirts. I was very happy with how the vests turned out and so were the boys!

Magic Kingdom Shirts

For our 2 days at Magic Kingdom I made 2 different kinds of shirts. For the first day our twins were going to get pirate make-overs at the Pirates League so I decided to get iron-ons that had Mickey Pirate Heads on them. I found an etsy seller (tnmomof2) who designed them and would email the designs, so that I could print them on my own iron-on paper. It was quick, easy, and cheap to print them myself. But, I didn't really like the quality of the iron-ons and felt that they didn't look nearly as good as the ones that I got from Miss Morgan. They still looked cute and I did want to try various types of shirts, but I won't be going this route for future trips. Also, at dinner our little guy got his shirt quite wet and the ink on the designs smeared and looked horrible. I ended up throwing all of these shirts away at the end of our trip. But, they served their purpose.

For our 2nd day at Magic Kingdom I decided to make shirts by sewing on felt Mickey Heads. I bought the felt and Tacky spray (I originally wasn't going to sew them, but the tacky spray didn't work all that well) at Michael's. I used templates from the Easter shirts to get the right size Mickey heads for each of our shirts. I cut out the Mickey head on paper and then pinned it to the felt so that I could cut the felt out. I then sprayed the felt with the tacky spray and stuck it to the shirt. I made sure to put a piece of cardboard inside the shirt so that the spray didn't bleed through. Once the tacky spray was dry, it seemed to stick pretty well, but a few of the edges were pulling up and I didn't trust my kids not to pick at them in the park, so I decided to sew them. In the future, I will not spray them before sewing because the spray made the felt very hard and was difficult to sew by hand. But, I got them finished and thought they turned out great. I also bought black bows for the girls' shirts and sewed them onto the top of the heads so that they could be Minnie heads.

Hollywood Studios Shirts

For Hollywood Studios day I decided to make shirts using the Freezer Paper technique. I found the idea on Pinterest and thought it was something that I'd give a try. It turned out to be the hardest and most time-consuimg but was also the one that got the most compliments. These shirts have also held up better than any of the other ones that I made and my kids have been able to wear them over and over.

I started out by letting the kids each pick out a Toy Story character. Then I found their coloring pages on the internet and printed them out. I had to choose pictures that didn't have a lot of detail. For the littlest shirt I had to shrink the design down, and for my husband's shirt I had to enlarge it a bit. Next I traced the design onto Freezer Paper. (I had trouble finding freezer paper and couldn't find it at Target or Walmart. I finally found it at a local grocery store.) I didn't trace every single detail, only the major ones. After tracing the design I had to spend some time figuring out which parts of the design would be white and which parts would be blue. I had to add some details to the picture that weren't there, in order for the outline to show up on the shirt. For instance, the alien doesn't have eyelids. But I had to add eyelids so that you would be able to see the outline of the design. I also had to add an outline around the outside of the hands. Once I had the parts that I wanted white and blue figured out, I had to cut out the designs with an exacto knife. This took forever! I used pieces of cardboard under the freezer paper and sat cutting the designs out for a few hours. Once the designs were all cut out and I regained the feeling in my hand, I ironed on the designs to the shirt. Then, I used white fabric paint and painted over the designs. I put a piece of cardboard inside each shirt before painting to make sure the paint didn't bleed through to the back of the shirt. Once the paint was dry, I peeled off the designs and I was done!

Epcot Shirts

Our first day at Epcot was Easter Sunday. I wanted our shirts to have an Easter theme. I was so excited when I found these cute Mickey and Minnie heads with bunny ears from Miss Morgans Designs. I used blue bunny ears for the boys' shirts and purple bunny ears for the girls' shirts.

During our second day at Epcot we were going to be eating breakfast with the princesses at Akershus Castle in Norway. So, I decided to go the princess route and get Princess Protection Agency and Minnie heads with Tiaras. I got these designs from Miss Morgan too.  They were a big hit!

Animal Kingdom Shirts

I decided that I wanted our family to wear matching shirts this year for our trip. Thankfully, my husband was willing to wear matching shirts since I didn't want it to just be the kids wearing the cute shirts. I bought our t-shirts from some company I found on the internet. I needed 36 shirts (6 days x 6 people) and I didn't want to pay a fortune. I think I ended up getting all of our shirts for under $100.

For our Animal Kingdom day I got iron-on ties for the 4 boys from a seller on etsy (Sweet Bella Baby). They were very simple and looked great.

For my shirt I got an iron-on Minnie Head from Miss Morgan's Designs (http://www.missmorgandesigns.com). Her designs are great and very easy to use. Unfortunately, when I ironed it on to my green shirt, there weren't any white lines on it and it didn't look right. So, I fixed it by painting inside the lines with white fabric paint.

I didn't need to make my daughter a shirt since my sister-in-law wanted to make her a special outfit to wear. Her shirt was adorable and my daughter loved wearing it and showing off all day. My SIL has a facebook page for her creations https://www.facebook.com/AnnieBsCreations

Epcot Passports

At Epcot you can buy these very cool Epcot Passports for kids. They are around $10 each and come with stickers and a button that the kids can wear. We bought those passports for our first trip. The kids enjoyed collecting stamps in all of the countries around the World Showcase and we also had the Cast Members in each Kidcot Station write a message in their own native language. Since it was Christmas Day, we asked them to write Merry Christmas! Then, on the next day when we weren't at the parks, we let the kids put the stickers on the corresponding pages in their Passports. Here are the Passports that you can buy at Disney...

Since we had so much fun doing the Passports on our first trip, I wanted the kids to do something similar this time but didn't want to do the same exact Passports. On the DIS boards there is a Disigner who created his own pages for a DIY Passport. I got the pages from his site and then uploaded them to Shutterfly and bought an 8x8 book for each kid. I waited until I had coupons for free books and coupon codes for free shipping so that it didn't cost me very much. I didn't want to have to pay much more than what the $10 books would have cost at Disney. The books were a big hit with everyone who saw them.

Disney Money Boxes and Disney Dollars

Several months before our Disney trip, we let the kids start earning "Disney Dollars". This was going to be their spending money on our trip. They were able to earn money by doing things like chores around the house, reading books, and staying in their beds the whole night! We went to Michael's and bought plain white boxes and some stickers. I let the kids help me decorate the boxes. And then I found some Disney money online (probably the DIS boards) and printed it out.

Here is the money that I used in case you want to print it and use it too...

Most of the chores they did earned them one dollar. Then, when they'd get 5 dollars, they'd trade their 5 $1 bills in for a $5 bill and so on. When it came time for the trip, I went to Target and bought Disney gift cards for the amounts that they had earned. I got them with my Target Redcard because I get 5% off and I doubled it with a pharmacy rewards 5% off card and ended up getting my Disney giftcards for 10% off. I also used this method to buy spending money for the whole trip and was able to save ourselves quite a bit of money!

Disney Tinkerbell Gifts

On our first Disney trip I decided to give the kids "Tinkerbell Gifts" each morning. I wanted to get the kids souvenirs, but I didn't want to have to spend time shopping while in the parks, and I didn't want to deal with the "Mom, can I have this?" "Mom, will you buy me this?". So, I bought most of their souvenirs ahead of time. (We did buy a couple things while at Disney). I shopped online, at the Disney store, and on ebay. I also tried to have each day's gifts correspond with something we were doing that day. I made cards from the characters that we were going to meet that day and the kids actually believed that those characters came into our rooms during the night and left the notes and gifts! They thought it was really magical! 

When we arrived on our first day, I sneaked into the resort room before anyone else and left the bags along with Mickey Ear Hats and autograph books. They had a note welcoming them to Disney World and telling them to wear their Ear Hats and bring their autograph books to dinner at Chef Mickey's that night. Each day the gifts were something they could use that day or were a stuffed animal of one of the day's characters.

This trip I didn't want to deal with all the notes and quite as many souvenirs. Plus we now had a 4th child so that added to the expense of buying lots of gifts. So I decided that things like their autograph books, travel journals, epcot passports, and pin lanyards would be "Tinkerbell Gifts". I threw in a few stuffed animals that I got from the Disney store and I was set for the week. I only made a note for the arrival day, and the rest of the week there was no note to accompany the gift. I made bags for their gifts of course. The white bags and stickers were purchased at Michael's. The cute name labels were made by a talented Disigner on the DIS boards, which I printed off on label paper. I saved the bags and will hopefully be able to use them again for our next trip.

Disney Pressed Pennies

My kids have collected Pressed Pennies for years. We started it when my daughter was little and we were looking for a way to do inexpensive souvenirs. Pressed Pennies are great! They cost 51 cents, there are usually a few options to choose from, and you can get Pressed Penny Passports to keep them all organized. When we were getting ready for our first Disney trip, I found a site that listed the hundreds of locations of the Pressed Penny machines at Disney World. Since I knew we would be collecting a lot of them, we decided to get the kids Disney Pressed Penny Passports so that they wouldn't fill up their other Penny Passports with just Disney ones. The Disney Passports were about $10 each. I had also found a tip about using Mini M&M tubes to keep the quarters and pennies in so that they were organized and ready to go when we needed them. The tubes are the perfect size for quarters. In the tubes I put 2 quarters and 1 penny, 2 quarters and 1 penny, and so on until the whole tube was filled. I had enough room for about 15 sets of quarters and pennies. I also found a Disigner on the DIS boards who makes labels for the M&M tubes. I printed the labels on a sheet of label paper, cut them out, and attached them to our tubes.

The Disigner who made the labels for the Mini M&M tubes also made labels for Mentos tubes. I didn't even know that Mentos gum came in tubes. I went to the store and found Mentos tubes in the check out aisle, and they happen to be the perfect shape to hold the Pennies once they were pressed. So, I couldn't resist making tubes for the Pressed Pennies. I decided not to haul both sets of tubes to the parks each day. I left the Pressed Penny tubes in the resort and just kept the Pressed Pennies in the M&M tubes or in a pocket until we got back to the resort.

Now, because I didn't want to be doing nothing but looking for pennies to press in the parks, I printed off the Pressed Penny list (http://www.presscoins.com) and decided ahead of time which machines we were going to visit. Since I didn't write them down after our first trip, I had to go through the kids' passports from the first trip and check off the ones we already had. Then I wrote down the locations of the machines we were going to hit this time and kept it in my itinerary notebook. I also didn't want the kids to get duplicates so I would not let the kids pick the same penny from the same machine. They all had to get different ones. This worked out perfectly because each machine usually had 3 choices. They each picked a different penny from the machine and we were all set. I haven't figured out what to do for next time when Drake will be old enough to collect them and the machines will still only have 3 choices!

Disney Travel Journals

I love to keep a travel journal for all of our vacations. I include all the info from what we did each day. On travel days I keep track of how far we drove, where we stopped to eat, and where we stayed the night. (I even keep info about what exits on the highway had great playplaces for the kids to burn off some energy.) And for the rest of the days of vacation I keep track of all the activities of the day and especially where we ate. This is helpful for when I am doing my scrapbooking and for when I am planning future vacations. My travel journals are done for my sake, but I want my kids to begin keeping travel journals as well. I love to hear about the things that they think are memorable about each day. The places that they enjoy and things they liked to eat are sometimes not what I thought they would enjoy. I couldn't find a travel journal that I liked anywhere so I set off to make my own.

I found a design on the DIS boards and used it as a template. The Disigner had completed her book on Microsoft PowerPoint so that is what I used for my book. I changed the book quite a bit to make it match up exactly to our trip. I had to duplicate some of the pages since we spent 2 days at Epcot and 2 days at Magic Kingdom. And it helped since I knew where we were going to eat each day and what things we would do at the parks. I didn't give the kids their books until the end of the trip, so I had to keep track of their favorites each night so that I could help them fill in their books at the end of the week. On the bus ride back to the resort each night I would interview the kids about their favorite rides, snacks, foods, characters, and attractions. I recorded their answers in my phone and then we completed their books together when we got home from vacation. I will make Travel Journals for our next vacation too, but I will probably design them differently and will most likely use Microsoft Publisher.