Tips about Air Travel, Food & Beverage and Kids

Instead of signing up for each airline's weekly fare specials, visit www.smarterliving.com and subscribe to their weekly email. It gives you weekly fare specials from most airlines, including Southwest, in a single email. You can even customize your emails by choosing up to three departure cities in which you are interested -- then you'll only be notified of the fares departing from those particular cities. - Timeless Tip o' the Week brought to you by www.themouseforless.com and Jackie

Save money by ordering water instead of sodas when you dine. It's better for you, and the savings can allow you to purchase one or more desserts to split. Everyone knows Disney has great desserts! - Jane

Bring a soft-sided cooler for your room and fill it with ice from the ice machines to keep beverages and food cold. If you use large zip-top bags to hold the ice, you will keep the contents dry and make it easier to change the ice. This is a way you can keep the fixings for a quick, inexpensive breakfast in the room, and beer or wine for the evening. - Daisimae

For younger first timers, get a recording of the music from "dark rides" (Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.) and have them get used to it. This worked great with my son, who was very apprehensive of the dark. When we got to the ride and he heard the songs, the familiarity made it a lot easier for him to be brave for that first ride. Most of those rides he "knew" from the music became his favorites. - Timeless Tip o' the Week brought to you by www.themouseforless.com and Annie

We like to do the character meals not only for the characters, but for the food as well. Many of the meals are buffet style, and that's great for children (and hungry men!). You know up front what it's going to cost. You're not limited to choosing one entree, and you don't need to wait to be served. The entertainment is just the "icing on the cake"! To me, these are plenty of reasons to do more than one character meal. It really makes you feel like you're in Disney!- Angela

Advice for avoiding late and delayed flights:

1) Try to book early in the day. You are less likely to run into delays in the morning.
2) Try to take a direct flight. Connecting flights offer more opportunities for delays and missed flights.
3) Check in early. This decreases your chances of getting "bumped".
4) Do not fly on the hour or half hour. If you have a choice between a 9:30 flight and a 9:23 flight, take the 9:23 (this has to do with too many airlines scheduling flights on the hour and half hour). Pam Forrester

We like to order snacks from www.netgrocer.com and have them delivered. It's cheaper than buying them there, and as we are not big breakfast eaters, a cereal bar works for us and saves us money. - Jess

If you have young children and are going to a late parade or fireworks, bring a pair of pajamas with you. Or, if you are going back to your hotel beforehand, you can change there. Have the kids put on their pajamas before the parade. Most kids (mine anyway) fall asleep before we return to the hotel. This way, you can just put the kids into bed and not have to worry about waking them up to change into sleepwear. It has saved me from many nights of "I've had my 'nap', now I want to play!" -Michele

My husband and I are big postcard senders. Not only do we send them to family and friends, but love to have them sent to us! We have a postcard collection up on the wall in our TV room like a border. They wrap around almost three times! We started sending our almost 3-year-old daughter a postcard about our trips even if she is with us. During my last little bit of shopping I found an Alice, Mad Hatter, and White Rabbit in a Tea Cup ride postcard to send to our daughter. I wrote on it what a wonderful time we had with her, that this was her favorite ride, and a few other trip memories. I sent it out on our last day and when she received it, she went bananas! It was like reliving the whole trip! - Jane

EPCOT - Get a Kids' Guide to Epcot. It's a small, square, blue booklet, found near the turnstiles or at Guest Relations. There's a place for the child to write his/her name, date of trip, and a list of the people they traveled with. For each ride/attraction, the booklet describes in a sentence or two what to expect at the attraction. There's a small box next to each attraction listing, so that kids can put a checkmark when they visited an attraction. Or, they could use these boxes to check off what they wish to see.

EPCOT - Get a Kids' Guide to Epcot. It's a small, square, blue booklet, found near the turnstiles or at Guest Relations. There's a place for the child to write his/her name, date of trip, and a list of the people they traveled with. For each ride/attraction, the booklet describes in a sentence or two what to expect at the attraction. There's a small box next to each attraction listing, so that kids can put a checkmark when they visited an attraction. Or, they could use these boxes to check off what they wish to see.

My kids are always begging me to buy them those giant hats at WDW. You know which ones I mean -- the Goofy, Dwarf, Donald Duck, Sorcerer Mickey, etc. hats. Well, whenever we go, we only budget $10 per park/per child for a souvenir. Not to mention, I just can't see buying that hat just so it can sit and collect dust at home or wait for "Silly Hat Day" at school to be worn again. So, I came up with a definite $$-less solution to the problem. I take a picture of my kids in their "silly" hats. They have the memory of the hat for always and the hat doesn't come home with us. Problem solved. - Jen

Trail's End Buffet at Fort Wilderness was fabulous! My son is a picky breakfast eater, but they had donuts with sprinkles, which he loves. They only charged us $0.60 per donut he ate and for his drink, instead of charging us for the whole buffet. It is a big difference in price, and nice for people with little money. - Jennifer Smith

When we went through security at the Orlando airport, my carryon bag was thoroughly checked. It turned out that my can of Mickey's Hot Cocoa mix was the culprit. The security officer said that powders show up as gels in the security scanner. Fortunately he was very nice about it and I didn't lose my Mickey's Hot Cocoa. - Sherri

Costco has an amazing backpack by Baby Innovations for around $25 that was fabulous. It has a zippered thermal side pocket that accommodated 4 juice boxes and a removable lunch container (thermal) that held a few more juice boxes, sandwiches and fruit snacks. It was well worth it, especially if you have kids who are young and/or picky eaters. - Lisa Cappabianca