Hello again!

I know it’s been a while since I last posted – I had a certification exam (which I passed!) recently so all of my free time was going to studying (or doing some stress-induced shopping at Target) over the last month.  Unfortunately, I have another certification exam the week of Thanksgiving, so we’ll see how posting goes over the next few months.  I’ve already started studying for it and it’s rough (but hey, if anyone wants to know anything about insurance accounting and regulation, let me know).

This post will make a little more sense if you go back and read the last one first; today I’m going over the remaining items that Dom and I brought to the parks when we returned to WDW for first time after its COVID-19 closure.  The last post went over the more obvious park bag items; these are some of the less typical ones (and some that didn’t really apply to Dom, so those will only have my thoughts).

This will be in the same format as the last post – I’ll tell you what both Dom and my opinions were on the usefulness of each item we brought.  We both used the scale below:

1	Not useful; won’t bring again
2	Not very useful; might bring sometimes
3	Can live with or without it
4	Useful; will probably bring again
5	Must bring every time

Again, as an extreme example, if an item has a (J5/D1) next to it, it was something I found incredibly useful while Dom found it useless.

As a reminder, on this trip we only spent two days in the parks; we only visited Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Disney Springs; and the high temperatures for our two park days were 91 and 93, respectively.

Drawstring bags

Avg Score: 5 – Must bring every time (J5/D5)

The biggest reason I started using a drawstring bag as my park bag is because it is incredibly lightweight and is easy to pack in my carry-on since we always fly to Orlando.  In a perfect world I would bring my Mickey Mouse Loungefly bag, but I usually don’t have enough room to pack that – so, my Disney Parks drawstring is a good substitute.  Dom brought a heavy duty drawstring bag as well and between the two of us, we easily carried everything we brought, as well as the small souvenirs we picked up throughout the day.

While drawstring bags work well for us, they obviously don’t work for everyone.  If you have more to bring because you have kids or you do outfit changes to get photos for the ‘gram, then you’ll probably need something bigger.  But if your park packing list is similar to ours, you should be more than fine with just a drawstring bag.

The one downside to bringing a drawstring bag is there usually aren’t pockets, so everything ends up tossed in and it can be annoying to pull out what you need.  So, I find it nice to have small zipper pouches to organize everything inside my bag, so that’s what’s next on this list:

Zipper pouches for bag organization

Avg Score: 5 – Must bring every time (J5/D5)

I bought these Cinderella Disney Baby pouches from Amazon after seeing the Ariel ones in the “Shop” links that one of my favorite Instagram accounts – @bbbrooke__ – has in her highlights.  They do say “Disney baby” on the tags so I guess they are intended to organize diaper bags, but they will obviously work for anything – they’re literally just zipper pouches.  One thing I really like about them is that they are clear on one side with the princess pattern on the other, so it’s easy to pick out what I’m looking for.

The packaging also did say that they are TSA approved which is convenient – it came in a set of three sizes so I used the middle size (approx. a quart by my measurements) to hold my liquids for the plane.

Wristlet

Avg Score: 4 – Useful; will probably bring again (J4/D-na)

I’m not going to lie – I bought this Loungefly Toy Story Alien wristlet because it was cute, and then it also happened to be really functional.  It was pretty much an impulse buy when I was in line to pay at World of Disney –  I had thought about getting it when it showed up on shopDisney a few months before, so when I saw it in person I ended up going for it. Now that I’m back home, I keep my credit cards glasses, keys, hand sanitizer, and an extra mask in it.

The wristlet actually turned out to be perfect for the parks too – I brought it with me to Hollywood Studios and it was really nice to have something small to carry around outside of my actual bag with my credit cards, phone (it fit my iPhone 11 but it’s a bit of a squeeze), gum, and hand sanitizer.  It made those necessities easily accessible while we walked around, shopped, and waited in lines; I would just slide the alien in my actual bag as I got on each ride and it worked out really well.  I think going forward, I’ll always try to bring a wristlet (probably always the Alien) just because of the convenience, so I wanted to include it here.

Small Camera

Avg Score: 4 – Useful; will probably bring again (J4/D-na)

I bought a small Sony a5000 camera freshman year of college before a trip to Germany and have used it off and on over since then when I get on a random photography kick – usually in the fall when all of the leaves start to change.  As a disclaimer, I am completely not a photographer so I don’t really know what I’m doing with it, but I do feel that (despite my lack of photography skills) I still take better photos on my camera than I take on my phone.  I actually just bought a photography book though, so I’m hoping to get better before my next Disney trip.

I brought my camera with me on this trip and was able to get some really great photos at the parks since the crowds were so low.  I probably won’t bring it on every trip, but I’ll bring it if I feel like I’ll be taking a lot of photos.

Disney Gift Cards

Avg Score: 5 – Must bring every time (J5/D5)

This is something that we just started taking advantage of and I’m honestly disappointed that we didn’t do it before.  There are a few places that you can pick up discounted Disney gift cards and then you can use them virtually anywhere on Disney property, when buying tickets online, or when booking a Disney resort.

The top contenders for where to get the discounted gift cards seem to be Sam’s Club and Target.  You can read more about them here.  Essentially, we’ve decided from now on we’re just going to go to Sam’s Club and buy the full amount we expect to spend at the parks and on tickets because those savings really do add up.  This is something that I would recommend everyone look into, and if you don’t have a Sam’s Club membership definitely take advantage of the Target deal – from what I can tell, you can get the deal for free as long as you link your debit card to their discount program.

AirPods

Avg Score: 1 – Not useful; won’t bring again (J1/D1)

This one is one of the only examples of something really pointless that we brought – Dom and I both brought our AirPods to the parks but never used them.   I think I brought them because occasionally in the past I’ve been in line behind some people I don’t want to hear, but with the social distancing markers this isn’t really an issue anymore so they ended up just taking up space and being one more thing to worry about.

Notebook and Pens

Avg Score: 3 – Can live with or without it (J3/D3)

I’m really big on writing things down, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I 1) had a written out plan for our whole day at Magic Kingdom in my favorite Moleskine and 2) proceeded to write down the actual order we ended up doing the rides in.  So, this is something that I like to bring to the parks but not something that’s super necessary – it just depends on what you like.  I do think it’s a good idea to bring your own pens for signing the check if you’re going to a Table Service restaurant, but that’s really the only place you might need it unless you’re bringing a notebook.  (Also, linking my favorite pens here just because I like to think of myself as a pen expert and these are hands down the best ones in any pen aisle; but also if you disagree, let me know what your favorite is!)

Hats

Avg Score: 5 – Must bring every time (J5/D5)

I know this is a pretty unpopular opinion, but while I love looking at all of the different Mouse Ears that exist (especially the new Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror ones), I don’t actually like wearing them that much.  I think they’re super cute, but they just aren’t that practical so I’d just rather wear a hat to try and escape the heat a bit. 

Dom wore his favorite Nike Dri-Fit Mickey hat that he bought last year (I tried to talk him into getting this year’s but he never did) so he wore that both days at the parks.  I wore a Rose Gold hat with a Mickey outline that I bought with my birthday coupon this year on one day, and I wore my Samantha? hat from Frozen 2 on the other day (which if you’re interested, is a great buy because the proceeds go to No Kid Hungry and Color of Change.  I also like to add a pin to my hat while I’m at the parks, so I put a pin of the rose from Beauty and the Beast on my Rose Gold one and an Olaf (of course) to the Samantha? hat.

Extra hair ties

Avg Score: 5 – Must bring every time (J5/D-na)

This is a must for me because one of my biggest fears is to be somewhere, try to re-do my ponytail, and end up with a snapped hair tie.  I didn’t end up needing them, but kind of like an extra mask, these don’t take up much room but give a lot of piece of mind, so I always try to pack some.

Let me know what we missed in our park bags that you never leave behind, or if you found any of this especially useful!