After spending three days at Disneyland, I was able to identify three hacks that made our fun more memorable. There are three “must haves” that we discovered to be irreplaceable.
1. Sharpies: The first must have is rather simple, but makes a big difference in your experience. At Disneyland, there are many different opportunities to meet characters—Mickey Mouse, Minnie, Goofy, Princesses, and Super Heroes. We enjoy filling up our kids’ autograph books with the many different characters they meet. The first year we visited, we used the ball point pen that came with the autograph books. This year, I had several Sharpie pens in my backpack from sermon preparation. We took those to the park and the signatures are wonderful! They are clear and dark and if the character drew pictures—these showed up very well!
2. Buttons: One sure way to add life to your visit is to stop by the customer service for a button. If you are celebrating a birthday, anniversary, or your first visit—the customer service desk will give you a button to wear. On Tuesday, we celebrated our twins birthday. All day when cast members saw them they greeted them with “Happy Birthday”. The most fun was during the Pixar Play Parade as the performers would see the girls during the parade and wish them a Happy Birthday. It was a nice addition to the trip.
3. Photo Pass:
Disney’s Photo Pass Plus is a great way to capture and retain some of the great memories from your trip to Disneyland. This pass is a wonderful way to access all of the Disney photographers throughout the parks and get all of their photos downloaded into a special online account for you. The photographers are professionals and are even happy to take the pictures with your camera as well. The good thing is that they take the photos and you get to be in them. We have taken plenty of professional quality photos through this service. I cannot stress enough how much we love it and use it.
These are our lessons learned from our trip. If you desire more family specific details about our trip, check out www.dailydwelling.com for my wife’s pictures and some from the Photo Pass Plus in the future.