I grew up in Los Angeles a good part of my childhood. My parents would take me to different theme parks there. Between Disneyland, Universal Studios and California Adventures, I’ve probably gone at least 100 times. Ok maybe not 100, but definitely more than 25 times. I remember the days when I would go on all the thrilling rides with my father while my mom would be patiently waiting as she didn’t want to get on most rides. But those trips were when I was carefree, and didn’t have anything to think about (except getting lost, which was also mostly my parents concern, and not necessarily mine at that time ). It was supposed to be fun. Going to theme parks is fun, right!
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This year we made a visit to Orlando as my husband had a Conference there. Every year, we try to make a long trip/ vacation out of his conference location. And since we homeschool, we have the luxury of schooling while traveling and extending the stay at different places.
This year we were lucky it was in Orlando. Our older kids have been to Disney parks couple of times but several of our younger ones had not been to Disney parks yet. So we seized the opportunity to make it a Disney year.
We actually got to visit 4 parks there-Disney World Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom as well as Universal Studios; and on the side, Dinosaur World. 4 parks spread over 5 days! Phew!
First of all, I want to give an honorable mention to my 3 year old (1 week short of being 4 years old) who walked all 4 days the whole time, some days as late as 11:00pm, back to back! As the youngest 2 occupied the double stroller, he had no choice but to walk and in fact he was the perkiest of the bunch 😀. While we saw kids as old as 10 years on strollers throughout the park, we only had to carry him for 2 minutes during the whole 4 days! Thanks Abraham, we love you!
We went on a ‘normal school day’, not even during holiday season, on a weekday; and there over 40,000 visitors in the Magic Kingdom park! That sounded quite ridiculous as we were hoping to have a not so crowded park being a school day. We were hoping to take advantage of one of the perks of homeschooling. But we were very wrong!!!
As a kid, going to Disney is a vacation. For a mom, maybe not so. In fact I was telling them I was going to take a vacation after we get back 😅. Even for a mom who gets on all rides, like myself, it is way much more a sacrifice than vacation. But with God’s Grace, and a little planning, it is entirely do-able. And even though you are dead tired by the end of the day that you can’t even move another inch, all the happy memories are entirely worth it. At the end of the day, when you look back, all these sweet memories remain.
I would love to share all the tips that worked for us in managing a herd of kids through the park. I am also including tips I noticed others doing, that I found useful. Although this post is more in lines of a major theme park visit, it can certainly be extended to homeschool field trips as well.
Tips on Child Safety
The first and foremost thing to consider especially in a park that had 40,000 visitors the day we visited, is of course child safety.
(1) Make sure to take a recognizable photo of each child separately, with clothes that they are wearing that day. This will come in very handy if they get lost. Not only it will be helpful to show around, but also for ourselves to remember what they were wearing. It will be much easier to look for something or someone when you know exactly what you are looking for.
(2)It’s a good idea to have all the kids, wear the same shirts or atleast same color. We had all our 5 boys wear the same shirts, and it was so easy when it came to counting them every 5 minutes! We also noted that lots of people were looking at them, which is sometimes a good thing. If one of them was looking lost, it was easy for people to notice that he/she is part of the group with other ‘similar shirted people’.
(3) Have contact info of family, for each child. This is more important for the younger kids who don’t know phone numbers/addresses, or even parents proper name (!) by heart. I wrote out our contact info and laminated it and made into cards . Problem comes when they are wearing something that doesn’t have a pocket. I’ve seen others use wrist ids or custom T-shirt’s with name and other pertinent info, although those might be more expensive options.If you have any generic wrist bands lying around, you can perhaps write in important info with a sharpie marker.Its also good to role play ahead of time, what to do if you get lost.
(4)We also held on to our buddy system, where we pair up an older kid with a younger kid, and they will be making sure the other is with them all times. We preferably had them hold hands together while whizzing through the park to get onto the next ride.
Tips for Extra Convenience:
(1)We took a locker rental especially since we took our own lunch, snacks, and dinner and even few water bottles. (It is way too expensive to buy from the parks, and can cost a fortune for the whole day’s worth of food. I was ok with the fountain water, but most of our kids didn’t like the taste. They did eventually end up drinking it when the bottles ran out). One downside of locker rentals is you have to come out a distance to access it. We adjusted our food bags in a way that we only need to stop by once.
(2) I had a separate 12 can cooler bag to keep all the sippy cups/bottles. As I would be needing to wash the sippy cups often, I had a separate bag attached to my sippy cup bag, with liquid soap, bottle brush and hand sanitizers, for easy access.
(3) I noticed that it was handy to have a set of collapsible travel backpacks, to open up and use as required. I packed up hats and ponchos in a separate backpack.
(4)I had a separate small crossbody handbag which is large enough to hold my wallet, phone, park maps, pen, sippy cup and a few wipes. When you stand in line for the rides, which can be as long as an hour, you will be leaving the stroller behind. So it is good that it is reasonably big enough to carry essential baby stuff, instead of carrying a heavy diaper bag.
(6) Since I take a lot of pics on the phone, I found it useful to have a transparent phone pouch that you can carry around your neck, and take pics through without compromising the quality of the pics. I finally didn’t end up using it much, but something to consider. It is way much easier to lift it up than to take it out from your bag or pocket each time you want to snap a pic.
(7) We prepacked into snack bags, an assortment of snacks, and dumped them all into 2 cooler bags, which we rotated taking out from the locker.
What are your favorite field trip hacks? I would love to hear from you!