Travel Plan Tuesday

Last week I discussed ways to save money on food while you are at Disney if you are not using the Disney Dining Plan. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

This week I wanted to talk about souvenirs and a few ways that you can save some money and not have to buy everything that your children see! And believe me, there is a lot they are going to want!

When at Disney, it can be really overwhelming all of the toys and merchandise that is available everywhere you turn! Most rides and attractions dump you into a gift shop, enticing your children to want even more. But there are easy ways to help you out and keep your children from asking to get every toy they see.

My first tip is to look at your local dollar store for Disney items. I know at ours, they sell a ton of different small Disney toys that I stock up on throughout the year. You can also keep an eye out for sales or clearance items at your local Disney store or online.

My second tip is to start shopping early and buy a few things here and there throughout the year. This way you can really have a stockpile by the time your trip rolls around!

Now, once you have this great little stockpile you can create "Mickey" or "Tinkerbelle" or "insert your child's favorite character" gifts for each day you will be on vacation. You can put 1 or 2 of the small toys in a bag and set it out either in the mornings before your children wake up so it looks like they visited through the night and left them a gift. An alternative to that would be to have someone run up to the room a little ahead of your group and set it out so it looks like the character visited while you were out playing. This is great because your children will be getting fun gifts, especially from their favorite character and you aren't having to spend a fortune on knick-knacks at the parks.

Small gift bags for toys.

If you give your children the gifts in the morning, then they can bring them and play with them throughout their day. If they start asking to buy other toys, you can just remind them that "Mickey" brought them a special gift that morning already.

Another idea, which is especially good for older children, is to give them an allowance to use for their souvenirs. You can purchase Disney gift cards before your trip, personalized for each child in their favorite character and put a certain amount on them. That way, they are in charge of what and when they buy their souvenirs and if they spend it all on one thing the first day, they aren't able to get anything else. This would be great for teaching children the value of a dollar and helping them to budget accordingly.

Although I have given you several tips on how to save money on souvenirs I do have to add that we always get our son 1 or 2 special gifts each trip - he always gets a t-shirt and one other toy that he really likes. It's important for us to save money, but also have wonderful memories and those things last for a while after we get home from our trip!

What ways do you save on souvenirs at Disney?

Amanda