Over the years, people have asked my advice about what they should pack for their Walt Disney World vacation. I have lots of tips and suggestions to offer, but the most surprising—and one of the most important—items I encourage people to pack is a box of zip top baggies. Zip top baggies will protect and store your most expensive and least expensive treasures.
When thinking of your more valuable items, like your camera or phone, make sure you have a baggie large enough to accommodate each item. We typically use sandwich size bags for most items, but will have a larger bag for the video camera. When walking around the park, our electronics may be in our backpack, fanny pack, or pocket, but they are always zipped up within their baggie because we never know when we might get wet. In Florida, it rains nearly every day, and there are several water rides and water-spraying cooling stations within the parks.
Because there are so many opportunities for water encounters, we protect our less valuable items with baggies as well. One such item, that many people do not think of packing into the parks, is a dry pair of socks. If you have ever walked a few miles in squishy socks, you know the value of a dry pair. Sometimes you can’t help but get your feet wet. On water rides, we always keep our feet off the floor so that they won’t get soaked, but when you have to walk in the pouring rain, there is no way to keep your feet dry. A baggie with a dry pair of socks will give your feet some relief from the wetness—even it is temporary as the water from your shoes soaks into the dry socks. The baggie will also accommodate your wet socks and protect the other items in your bag from the water in your socks.
One of the other items in our backpack, is our snack bag. We put snacks in a baggie and draw from that throughout the day when we need a pick-me-up. Even with the convenience of the Disney dining plan, it is nice to have a snack bag because children are never hungry when you are walking by a snack stand. Instead, they get hungry while in line for an attraction. It is nice to pull out the snack bag and let them choose fruit snacks, raisins, crackers, candy, or gum to tide them over until the next meal. Keeping all of the snacks in a baggie not only keeps them dry, but it also keeps them all together so we are not scrounging around in the bottom of the bag trying to find the last piece of gum. An extra baggie in the backpack serves as our trash bag until we can get to a garbage receptacle.
While most of the time, we use baggies to keep the water out, sometime we use them to keep the water in. I keep a wet washcloth in a baggie for wiping sticky fingers or re-wetting at water fountains and wiping faces and necks with a cool reprieve from the Florida heat.
Not only are baggies convenient within the parks, but they come in handy in the hotel room as well. A sore muscle can get some relief from a baggie filled with ice. These little homemade icepacks can also be convenient to have in your cooler on the way back home.
Regardless of how you use them, zip top baggies are a must to include in your Disney vacation packing. When it comes to protecting your electronics, baggies are the ounce of prevention worth more than a pound of cure.
Great suggestion!!