Magic Kingdom tips

-download and keep an eye on the My Disney Experience app. It gives you wait times and links your tickets and any dinner/character/dress up reservations you have.  We booked our fast passes based around the wait times.

-Pull up the rides on YouTube and let your child watch them. There is a video for every ride on there from start to finish. This will tell you how silly/cheesy/scary a ride may be and whether your kids will enjoy it or not.

-Book Fast Passes! Dumbo has a play area. They will give you pagers if you want to play and it will buzz when it's your turn in line! I wouldn't waste a pass for this.

-take a picture of the sign/the row number where you parked. The lots are Disney characters and the parking lots look the same. The tram stops at each character and depending on your character/row, it may be a shorter walk to get off at the previous stop..

-Winnie the Pooh is very strange. Not worth the stand by wait time of an hour or more. If you insist on this ride, I would use a Fast Pass for this.

-Madison's favorite ride was Under the Sea. It's a great ride with great detail to everything. Inside in the cool air and very colorful. Lots of sensory. With wait times of an hour or more, worth the fast pass!

-Take empty water bottles/sippy cups and drink flavor packs. There are water fountains all over the park but the water isn't great so it needs some flavoring. Drinks at $3 a pop, you can spend a small fortune on drinks alone. It gets HOT walking around. Also take some snacks. I kept Puffs poured in the cup holders in the stroller and the girls snacked on them as they wanted. Puffs, Goldfish, Teddy Grahams. Loose, not sticky snacks will be best.

-Be aware of stand by wait times, even if you have fast passes. We had a fast pass for Under the Sea but needed 15 minutes to waste but the stand by time was only 15 minutes according to the sign. We decided to go ahead and go through the line and actually walked right in. All of the time spent was weaving through the line to get to the ride. All of the rides have a super long, weaving way to get to the actual ride. Some rides have interactive things for the kids to do if the line is long.

-After our first day at MK, we marked off all rides that we had already rode or rides we couldn't or wouldn't ride, plus any restaurants or shops that we weren't interested in, had ate at or wouldn't go to. This gave us a visual of what we actually needed to do and we found that we had completed the whole right side the first day, so the 2nd day was mostly spent at the left side of the park.

-Carry a stroller. As much of a pain as it is and as little time as they use it in between rides, back packs and kids get heavy. Between cameras, change, water bottles, snacks, hats and autograph pictures then add a 35lb kid and a 17lb kid.. By the end of the day, Madison wanted to be carried... It was a lot. You can take the stroller on either the Ferry or the Monorail. You can also fold the stroller up and ride the tram.

-Attach a balloon or a big bow or ribbon to your stroller. Stroller parking is insane and most strollers are black. Some rides have 50+ strollers and a few of them a cast member continuously moves the strollers down to make more room. Attaching a balloon will help you spot it quicker.

-Take cash! Those balloons are $10 and $12, cash only. We forgot to get cash out. Glad Madison didn't want a balloon.

-The Big Top Souvenirs store in Fantasyland is the best deal in the park. They have snack and all kinds of souvenirs at pretty good prices.

-Stay for the Electrical Parade. It's really great. I hate Madison fell asleep during it but we stuck around to see most of it.

-Don't hesitate to leave the park for a couple of hours for naps or rest time. Book your fast passes around a time that you think will be good for you. We left the first day around 2. The kids were okay from snacks until then. We stopped after we left the park and got something quick to eat to take back to the room. It is a lot of work leaving the park because you don't just walk out of the gates into the parking lot. You have to take a Ferry or the monorail to the tram and then the tram to the lot(unless you parked very close to the gate-close being a relative term since you still have to walk a ways) Don't let that hinder you from leaving. It was worth leaving for a bit to let Riley take a nap. She can not make it through the day happily without a nap. Madison can. Just make sure to allow for around 30 minutes time to get to your car/to the park from your car.

I also came across these great tips today!  Click HERE

Have anything to add? Leave a comment!

Tips to save you time AND money!

Anybody that knows me knows I'm frugal. I say you're right. I don't like spending money on things I don't have to and if I can buy something on sale or clearance, I'm all about it! I hardly buy anything full price. Most of Madison's clothes come from consignment sales. I do buy her shoes and all but a couple of toys new.

While working in the kitchen I realized I do a few things that save me time and money that may be helpful to a few of you!

Tired of spilling food all over the place when trying to pour it into a zipper bag? Just stick the bag down in a big cup and fold the top over the sides of the cup. Voila.

I needed to marinate some chicken tenderloins for supper the other night. I put my marinade down in the bag and an entire pack of tenderloins fit on top of it without spilling out of the cup. No chicken juice on the counter or the top of the bag!

Want dry beans for supper but don't want to go through the hassle(or have the time) of soaking them for hours and hours and then cooking them for another 2?!

After picking out the pebbles and rinsing them under cold water, for every 1 lb of beans, add 6 cups of water to a crock pot.  Cook on HIGH 4-6 hours. Mine were done around 5 hours so just watch them. I added a beef boullion cube to the water. This was the first time I'd done this and they turned out pretty good!

Buy a batch of green onions every week? Cut off the roots and stick them in a container with water. They will grow new green part(the part you eat). This picture was taken when I put them in water and the next day about 1/4" of green had already grown and I needed to add water. It's now been a week and the green part is now about 4" long! I have done this before and did it twice before throwing them away. I'm not sure if you can do this over and over all the time but it's worth doing it a few times!

Now that you have a constant supply of green onions, chop them up and put them in an old drink bottle and stick them in the freezer. As you need them, just pour them out. They thaw instantly and you aren't wasting any of them! :)

Same thing with herbs. I bought parsley only to forget to use it in the recipe that I was supposed to. Oops. I didn't want to throw it away so I blanched it(dip in boiling water until it turns bright green-15-20secs. This step retains the color and flavor), let it cool then chop it and lay on a baking sheet. Freeze. I froze mine overnight. Then put the frozen pieces in a zipper bag. You can also freeze fresh(non-blanched) herbs by putting the herb in a blender with just enough water to make a paste. Pour the paste in ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, pop the cubes into a freezer bag. When a recipe calls for it, just pop the cube into the dish.

I will try to continue to do this as I think of things. What are some tricks you have?