If you go to a particular destination often enough, you’re bound to have certain things that you do every time you’re there. For our family, we travel to Disney World often, so we tend to have our favorites that we generally try to hit during a trip. But, there are a few things that we must do on every trip. Check out the list below for my family’s must-do’s in each park.
Magic Kingdom
This one isn’t really so much of a thing, but is the actual park itself. We always go to the Magic Kingdom first on every trip. For us, it feels the most “Disney” and the most “magical,” so we love to start our trip with a walk down Main Street USA and photos in front of the castle. There has been one trip that we went to Epcot first, but there were special circumstances. The kids and I flew down in the morning and my husband came late that night, so we didn’t want to go to the Magic Kingdom without him. The next morning, once we were all together, we headed to the Magic Kingdom to start our trip like we always do.
Epcot
We always make a stop at Club Cool while we’re at Epcot. This shop is sponsored by Coca-Cola and gives guests the chance to try complimentary samples of flavored sodas from around the world. It is also home to the “World-famous” Beverly soda. WDW vets know that Beverly has an awful flavor, so it’s really fun to stand by and watch unsuspecting people fill up a glass and take a big gulp. Their faces immediately change to a look of disgust and then they often try to talk another family member into tasting the “delicious soda.” It’s a chance for a free soda, plus some free entertainment.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
For some reason, Hollywood Studios has become our place to shop for Disney art. There are art stores available in other locations property, but we rarely go in them. I’m not sure how it started, but this is now “our” art store. Located in the Magic of Disney Animation building, we make sure we take a walk through there every time at least once on every trip. You can find a variety of art available, from small prints all the way up to larger paintings and figurines. Many days there is an artist drawing character sketches and it can be fun to watch them work. We’ve only bought a few pieces from the store, but browsing can be a fun way to spend some time and can lead to bigger dreams about which pieces you would love to add to your collection.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Our must-do at the Animal Kingdom is “Finding Nemo: The Musical.” If you haven’t seen this show yet, you definitely need to add it to your park touring plans. It is a Broadway-style musical that tells the story of the Finding Nemo film in 45 minutes. It is done in the style of the popular “Lion King” show on Broadway, with actors carrying large puppets. We think this show is phenomenal and has always kept the interest of our kids, even when they were babies. The songs are catchy (they’re actually written by the people who wrote the songs for Frozen!) and we always find ourselves singing “Big Blue World” for the rest of the day. We even bought the soundtrack so we can sing along at home!
So, that’s our list! We obviously have lots of rides and restaurants that we love to do while at the parks, but this list showcases our top things that we never miss. What would be on your list?
