Am I guilty of sometimes bringing too much with me on trips?
Absolutely.
But that is the OLD me. The new me is all about packing smarter so that I don’t wind up carting a bunch of stuff I don’t need across the country. I call that “growth”.
If you too would like to be smarter about what you’re tossing in your bag, you’ll want to stick around and keep reading because we’ve got just the (FREE!) thing to help.
Use the tool below to build a list around your actual trip: how long, what season, which parks, and whether there will be Epcot drinking. (There will be Epcot drinking.) After it’s built, you’ll be able to save it or email it to yourself so you cut down on the overpacking AND the stressing over forgetting something you might actually need.
Don’t Bring These Things to Disney World
- A giant backpack: The single most consistent adult Disney packing mistake. You aren’t summiting Everest; you’re walking past a fake castle. A small sling bag, or Loungefly-size bag is typically plenty.
- Tons of Cash: Disney is entirely card, Apple Pay, and MagicMobile. Bring some cash to tip Bell Services & Mousekeeping, but leave the bulk of your paper money at home unless you enjoy the sensation of bills turning into a damp, sad wad in your pocket from the humidity.
- A cooling mist spray bottle: Messy, heavy, and the effect lasts about ninety seconds before turning into warm body-slime. Ewwwww!
- Bug spray: Disney manages its grounds aggressively for a place literally built on a primordial Florida swamp.
- A selfie stick: Disney security prohibits them.
What Your Disney World Packing List Actually Needs
Shoes (broken-in, not new), portable charger, rain ponchos, SPF 50, a reusable water bottle with a filter. Pack those without thinking. Disney fountains are free, but the tap water tastes like the pipes have sulfur-forward opinions about it.
A Brita filter bottle is worth the luggage space (or better yet, have bottled water in the gallon size delivered to your resort so you refill your bottle to take into the parks).
The portable charger needs to be minimum 10,000mAh. My Disney Experience drains batteries like a crypto-mining rig. Florida afternoon thunderstorms are a structural feature of the ecosystem, not a weather event, so the ponchos are not optional.
Although we used to be really anti-umbrella, they can come in handy when the sun is beating down on you; but keep in mind they are also a hazard to everyone around you, so use with care.
The rest of this section is where it gets adult-specific.
Anti-Chafe. Specifically…
Body Glide For Her, the one in the pink bottle. On your feet, on your thighs, anywhere you know you rub. If you run, you already know this product. The logic is identical: you are covering long distances on foot in heat, and friction is the enemy.
The critical detail is that you carry it in your park bag, not just apply it in the hotel room at 8:00 AM. One application does not cover twelve miles. It just doesn’t.
If you run hot and the stick tends to get soft in your bag by August, Monistat Anti-Chafing Gel and Megababe Thigh Rescue are both good alternatives that hold up better in heat.
Someone on Reddit documented losing a whole jacket to a melted Body Glide stick, which is a tragedy that did not need to happen and can be avoided by either product-swapping or just keeping it in a small zipper pocket away from direct sun. Bike shorts under a dress or skirt are another smart choice, and one we always do.
Hydration You’ll Actually Use
Liquid IV, Nuun tablets, Gatorade, or generic electrolyte powder. Pack several. Dumping one into a water bottle around 2:00 PM extends the rest of your day. The Florida humidity qualifies as an Olympic-level physical challenge on its ownand what you’re doing to your liver at Epcot is a separate and additional challenge.
The Bag
I switched to a belt bag a few summers ago and have not looked back. The lack of back sweat alone is worth it. A backpack creates a warm, damp seal between the bag and your shirt for eight straight hours that no amount of wicking fabric fully resolves. A belt bag distributes the weight differently (so it doesn’t hurt your back as much) and, more importantly, is not fused to your spine like a hot, sweaty barnacle by noon.
We are team hip pack or small crossbody…at the most, a Loungefly. But that’s IT.
The Going-Out Outfit
One. Not options. One going-out outfit, with shoes that can still cover Disney distances.
Keep in mind: it’s signature dining, but it’s still Disney World. You are not expected to be formal. Elevated theme park wear works everywhere — a cute dress, a nice skirt and top, a put-together outfit that reads as “I tried today.”
Comfortable shoes that can handle pavement are not a compromise, either. Trust us. Unless you are going to Victoria and Albert’s (and if you’re reading this blog, the likelihood that you’ll be dining there is pretty low), you will more than likely stand out (and be judged by the themepark savy groups) if you go for shoes that are cute but impractical.
And if you do that and then decide after dinner that a monorail bar crawl sounds reasonable (because it always does), your feet will be toast before you even hit stop 2.
The Layer Situation
This is specifically for two groups of people: anyone who runs cold, and anyone traveling outside of peak summer.
Disney’s AC is aggressive. Buses, restaurants, and lounges are often cold enough to be actively unpleasant if you’re in a tank top after a long, sweaty park day. A light layer in your bag or something tied around your waist may be necessary.
Outdoors in October at park close it can also be genuinely chilly; 68 degrees after hours of standing in the heat hits differently than 68 degrees on a normal day.
If you run warm and you’re traveling in June, July, or August, skip it. You will not need it outside and you will deeply not care about the restaurant AC after the temperature you just spent ten hours in.
Motion Sickness
Bonine (meclizine, available generic) over standard Dramamine. In our experience, the non-drowsy factor matters a TON when you have a full park day ahead of you and you’ve paid hundreds of dollars to be awake for it.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind launched me into a completely new personal category of motion sick. It launches backward in complete darkness with a ride vehicle that rotates 360 degrees, and it found every vulnerability I had. I held on for dear life and barely made it off the ride with my dignity intact.
Arya sat next to me and found it charming.
Take the Bonine. Take it before the ride. Not while you’re staring at the exit trash can.
(TRON Lightcycle / Run is also fast. Just take it in the morning and don’t think about it.)
The Other Meds Worth Packing
OTC antacids and stomach meds. You will eat fried things and drink sugary things in quantities deeply offensive to your normal routine. Prepare for the fallout. And, if you’re sharing a bathroom, you may want some Poo-Pourri, too.
Melatonin. Rope drop is early. Night shows run late. The gap between those two facts is melatonin’s job.
Tech to Load Before You Leave
My Disney Experience for Lightning Lane bookings and mobile ordering. Disney’s park wifi has the reliability of a service provider that knows you have no alternatives, so if there is anything important you want to be able to reference (like Lightning Lane infographics), you’ll want to screenshot those instead of relying on being able to get a website to open.
One alternative worth knowing about: Fuel Rods are Disney’s in-park charger rental kiosks. Buy one, use it, swap it for a fresh one when it’s dead. A 2-pack on Amazon runs about $60; single rods are $40 in-park. You can also get the Max10 FuelRods from Amazon for $65 or in the parks for…gulp $86.
Buy them ahead of time.
Seasonal Additions
The base list covers most trips, but here are a few things you might want to consider if traveling during these specific times.
- Summer (June-August): A neck fan and cooling towel. These aren’t my jam, but lots of people swear by them. I can’t handle having something around my neck, but you’ll see tons of people with them in the parks; they are clearly popular. Instead, I like to get disposable field shower wipe things. Some even have a little mint in them, so it cools you off and let’s you wipe off a layer of salty sweat.
- Fall/Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party: Don’t forget party gear! Costumes, etc.
- Holiday season: A real jacket, not a light one. AirPods for queue time because holiday crowds are historic and the lines will give you time to finish an entire podcast.
Final Thoughts
The tool at the top of this page builds the personalized version: summer vs. December, solo vs. couples, three days vs. seven. Use it, edit it down, and cut anything that doesn’t earn its space in the bag.
