Tips about Food & Beverage, Magic Kingdom, Resorts and Travel

After reading your column for several years now, I have never seen you mention good ol' "Febreze". The stuff is a God send after being in the car for hours, upon hours, upon hours..... Remember in the movie 'Vacation', Clarke mentioned the "smell from the backset" ? It never fails, the car STINKS after long car rides.... Spritzing Febreze, or even the new fabric refresher 'All' on pit-stops, alleviate this stinky odor! And, it can be spritzed in your hotel room, and on clothes you've only worn a few hours for dinner, etc. I always, always pack a mini-Febreze, and think a lot of readers will benefit from this anti-stinky-spray! :o) - Cathryn Augustine

And with parents who have 2 kids and only one back seat, create a barrier, like a pillow or a stuffed animal and make it clear who's side is who's to help alleviate the crankiness and fighting of a long road trip. If you keep the kids occupied with games, singalongs, etc... they will have little time to fight. Happy road tripping! - Rebekah

For our drive from New Jersey to WDW, we get a few of those glow sticks/neclaces for when it gets dark. It's not too much light so it won't disturb the driver and the kids seem mesmorized by them. - Susan R.

I checked a wonderful book out of the library that we took along, called Along the I-75. It is hard to describe the book, but we found it full of information and it was fun to follow along page by page, mile by mile. I-75 runs from Detroit to Florida. We were able to have lunch at Colonel Sander's very first restaurant in Kentucky (home of the famous Kentucky Fried Chicken) because of this book. We never would have known about it otherwise. If you are going to be traveling on I-75, I would say this book is just as important as your WDW guidebooks! - T-Nina Hermann

I always prepare a "goody" bag for the drive for each kid. I start with a gallon zip lock bag & put their name on each one. Inside put in colored pencils (I do not use crayons as they melt in the hot sun on to your car seats) coloring book, stickers, a spiral notebook which they can use for coloring pictures & also as a "journal" for the trip recording each days events. I also add some mcdonalds happy meal toys with a Disney theme. - Anne Marie Cronin

I have found that having a EZ Pass on your car is very useful if you are traveling from the north. All toll roads bridges and tunnels south of Conn. accept EZ Pass and you just zip through only slowing down not stopping. They keep adding new roads bridges and tunnels, ie. Summner Tunnel and Ted Williams Tunnel and also the Tobin Bridge all in Boston. - Frank Groom

I have a road trip tip that we have used on several vacations - Books On Tape. We happened on to this a couple of years ago when someone loaned us a Harry Potter book on tape for our vacation. We have two boys 5 and 9. We have found that this is something the entire family enjoys. We actually look forward to getting back into the car! For this most recent trip I checked out several books on tape at our local library. It made the two day drive pass more quickly and it was absolutely free. If your library can't provide, check out the books on tape program at the Cracker Barrel Restaurants or visit your local Blockbuster. - M.Archer

My suggestion is to have each person bring a pillow to rest their head on and to get a little more comfortable during the ride. Teenagers, too, like to nap along the way! And we always make sure the digital camera is nearby. We've recorded many funny moments in the car and it's always enjoyable recalling them once we're back home! - Dolly King

We have driven to WDW 7 times from Indiana, a little over 950 miles. The most recent trip our son was 2 and to keep him occupied I purchased sticker books and coloring books that he received as "presents" throughout the drive. For the adults (there were 5 adults) I made travel Bingo games, license plate games, and make/model of the car games. We also played Disney trivia, name that Disney song, and where at WDW would you find...(restaurant, shop, attraction). This made the ride more fun and it seemed to go quicker. - Angie Grimes

For all those heading up or down the I-95 corridor. Georgia closes their Welcome Center and rest stops on Christmas. We learned the hard way--no rest areas, no open gas stations or restaurants (not even fast food) in the entire state! So if your are traveling Christmas Day, stop BEFORE you enter the state. - Linda Clark from Virginia

For the car cooler, I fill up 2 Tropicana 96 ounce plastic orange juice bottles with water and freeze them before the trip. This way, they serve as ice blocks, they don't melt in the cooler, and we pour the cold water out of the bottles on the way down to Florida to use as drinking water. - Jane Vander Loop

For the car cooler, I freeze bottles of drinking water & juice boxes and use these in my cooler in place of ice. You have your drinking water and no ice mess to contend with and more space in your cooler. - Charlotte from Ohio

Recently on a vacation to Walt Disney World, we noticed several refillable mugs left unattended and presumably left behind by mistake. Oftentimes cast members just tossed them in the trash. We brought address labels and added our cell phone numbers to the labels. We attached the labels not only to our refillable mugs, but also our camera and other valuable items just in case something got left behind. - Becky from Oshkosh

I am an 11-year-old girl who has visited WDW at least 35 times, and I found the best Disney World product for us Disney nuts. It is the Walt Disney World Resort Scavenger Hunt. It is only $4.00 in the Magic Kingdom Emporium on Main Street. It has questions like: What is the name of the mill on Tom Sawyer Island? What are they auctioning in Frontierland? If you WANT to know everything about Disney, or think you DO know everything, then this is for you. My family and I thought that we knew Disney, but we were so wrong! I thought you would like to know about this awesome product. - Chris B.

Did you ever go for breakfast or dinner and find out your Priority Seating cannot be found, and you don't have the PS number with you? Well, this happened to me a couple of times. The cast members were very nice, but also sorry because the wait for dinner at Cinderella Castle would be at least one hour and Chef Mickey had no openings at all. So this past May I made a printout of our restaurants, times and Priority Seatings, shrank it to the size of a credit card, had it laminated and put it in my wallet next to my credit card. It worked wonders because for dinner at San Angel in Mexico they could not find our seating -- I gave them my PS card and within seconds it came up on the computer. By the way, dinner at San Angel was just too delicious, you must give it a try! - Fran Giambalvo