Ep 5: Disney Must-Do Tips and Tricks for a Family Vacation

In this episode of Rope Drop and Run, we start in that quiet, electric moment before a race begins and take time to honour the incredible legacy of Jeff Galloway—the coach whose run-walk-run philosophy gave so many of us the confidence to believe we belonged at the start line. From there, we shift from race courses to castle views as we share our favourite Disney family vacation tips. We also chat about the importance of rest days, buddy systems in busy parks, and those unexpected moments that become the best memories—plus a fun science tidbit and some runDisney history in our Magic Minute. It’s a heartfelt, practical, and magical conversation about making the most of every moment.

Transcript

Jenny 0:00

Hey Disney friends. Welcome back to the Rope Drop and Run podcast. I'm Jenny. And I'm Emily. Imagine if you will. It's 4.27 a.m. Most of the world is asleep. But not this crowd. Not the runners adjusting their bibs. Not the ones double knotting their shoes. Not the ones staring towards a start line. Wondering if today's the day they do something they once thought was impossible. There's something sacred about this moment. The hush before the fireworks, the deep breath before the first step. And that quiet question, can I really do this? And the steady answer, yes. One interval at a time. This week, our running community lost someone who shaped that wisdom for so many of us. Jeff Galloway passed away just a few days before this recording. And it's hard to imagine a start line without feeling his presence. He was an Olympian, a coach, a mentor, but more than that, he was a believer. When distance running felt intimidating, exclusive, reserved for the naturally fast, he opened the gates. His run-walk-run method wasn't just a training plan. It was permission. Permission to start. Permission to walk. Permission to try again. Because of him, thousands of runners stopped saying, I'm not a runner. And started saying, What's my interval? From first 5Ks to running full marathons, from hometown races to run Disney weekends. His fingerprints are everywhere. Every time a runner confidently takes a walk break without shame. Every time someone crosses a finish line they once thought was out of reach. That is his legacy. So today, as we drop the rope on this episode, we do it with gratitude. For the miles he gave us, for the courage he taught us, for the reminder that forward is forward, no matter how you get there. If you're listening right now on a run, maybe dedicate this one to him. Take your intervals, trust your training, and know that you belong at that start line. You always have. This is Rope Drop and Run. Place up, lean in, and let's make some magic miles in Jeff's honor. We are two Canadian sisters who love every Disney adventure from travel with family to running marathons. On today's show, we're talking about our Disney must-do tips and tricks for a family vacation. For a change today, we don't have any definitions to explain. So let's get right into it. We each have prepared our top five must-do tips for traveling with family. So let's each say one and we can go back and forth. How about that? Okay, that sounds good. Okay, Emily, why don't you go first? I'm actually really curious to see what tips if we have any that are the same. But we'll see. I think they're all gonna be the same those. Okay, well, I have one and I have a feeling I'm gonna check this off the bingo card first. Okay. When you go to the parks, like when on park day and on those crowded days, I totally recommend that you wear team shirts. So what is a team shirt? Matching shirts. So if we're you're there with a whole group of people, eight, 10, 12 people. If everybody is in the same colored shirt, preferably a bright-colored shirt, like red or bright blue or a lime green, it makes it so much easier to spot your group in a crowd. And also you don't have to remember what everybody was wearing that day because, well, you just look down, you're like, right, I have my red shirt on today. So I'm looking for a group of red people. It's really easy for cast members to see that you're a group, you know. So if you're at an attraction, you're waiting in the lineup, they can look and go, Oh, this group of red t-shirt people are all together, right? Or even just like random people, like just other guests. They also know, okay, clearly these people are a group because they're all wearing the same t-shirt. So I mean, it it could be Disney themed. We have Disney themed ones, and of course, that's way more fun, but you don't have to. You could just go and get like a cheap, you know, shirt, a five-dollar shirt somewhere that everybody has the same matching t-shirt. Yeah, and I like, you know what? I didn't even have that on my list. Are you serious? I totally thought I thought, oh, I'm gonna get her with the team shirts. I didn't actually. I had all the all these other things. That's a great idea. That's a great one, though. It really is. And also that it's a colored shirt, like red. We have the lime green ones. I've seen people with yellow, like things that really stand out will help you keep your group together, even if it's a family of four or five, you know, like everybody with the same shirt on just helps keep everybody together. And it's also super fun, and you can take some fun pictures. And yeah, it's true. I just find like, you know, if somebody has to make a pit stop at a washroom somewhere, and then you're you know, you come out of the washroom, you're looking for your group. It's just, oh, there's all the lime green t-shirts that everybody has, and and so it just makes it so much easier to spot people or spot your group in the crowd. So that's that's my first tip. Okay, here's my first one is to make dining reservations 60 days out. If you're staying on property, you can make them 60 days ahead of your first day of your trip. And then I would build my park days around it. So there's actually maybe two tips within that one. One is to make the dining reservations when you're there with a family waiting around what am I trying to say? If when people get hungry, you there's no going to a restaurant and seeing if you can get a table. It it can't wait for it. You can wait a long time to get a table. They generally you need to have reservations, and there's a lot of places you wouldn't be able to get in because they've already filled up with reservations. So I would take the time to do some research and pick the restaurants you think your family's going to enjoy and make those reservations for lunch or dinner and then build your park days around that. That's a good one, especially if it is a bigger group of people, because I imagine it's harder to get a table if you're a group of 10 people. So you really do need to have that reservation. I mean, it maybe if you're two people, you're still gonna have to wait, but it might be easier to sneak in a per a group of two. I don't know actually, because we typically go, it's a big group. No, like totally. If you're two people, you could much easier walk up and try to get a seat at the bar or something. If you're a group of 10, good luck. Right. You can't, I mean, you can't it's nothing's impossible, but you might wait for two hours before it and they might have to split you up into smaller groups or something. Like, I really just think you should make your dining reservations. If you're planning on having sit-down meals, make your dining reservations 60 days out. And when you do it 60 days out, you have lots of choices for times. I think the place is a tip. Yeah, but so I'm gonna jump down. This was a little bit further down. Oh, we're not doing tips in order of like this is my top number one. We're just these these are tips. So this was a little bit later down on my list, but I'm gonna put it in here because you're talking about people getting hungry. Well, okay, Auntie M, that's me. I always would go in the morning and I'd go to the quick service or like to the snack bar or whatever, and I would pick up crackers or cookies or chocolates or something, or like apple slices and carrot sticks, and I would shove them in my bag. I would pack snacks. So my tip is pack snacks because it can really help ward off the grumpy hunger attacks when people in your group start to get hangry and you're in a lineup that you for Toy Story and you've already been in the lineup for 40 minutes, you don't want to leave to go get a snack, and somebody starts to get a little bit hangry, you can just shove a chocolate in their mouth at work. Just kidding. But you give a little treat, and then all of a sudden you're doling out little snacks for everybody, and a minute later, that those hangry pains are gone and everybody's happy again. Yeah, so snacks are critical. Yeah, packs of easy snacks. Yes, water too, along with the snacks. True, that's true, or something, juice boxes or something, but water, yeah. But yes, that would that's a good one. It made it it made my day happier because as soon as somebody started to get hungry, I'd be like, Great, here, have your snack. Well, I was gonna say, especially when you have little kids, when the kids were toddlers and like in those like early elementary school age years, and they would get hangry, and you know, kids need to be fed or they melt down, and then there goes the rest of your day. So keep them your right. Oh, sure. I mean, young kids, but let's be honest, uh, we were also we also needed them as adults, too. Yes, I was just about to say that too. Or was like, yes, when they're kids, but the adults need the snacks too. So I mean, right. I packed the snacks for the kids, but definitely everybody needed it. Or even though it's a good one. And then you can also like look if you're into doing some research, which overall I recommend doing a bit of research before you do a trip. You can really go down that rabbit hole of like what snacks can you actually get at Disney? Like it bring your own, it's cheaper, probably healthier. You can bring carrot sticks and things like that, but you can also research and see what snacks are there out there to get. And if you're on a dining plan to have an idea of what kind of snacks you could get with your dining plan too. Well, that was like that's not just a Mickey ice cream or something. Yeah, that was just it because I was using, we were on on some of those trips. We had the Disney dining plan and we had all of these snacks and things, things that we weren't using. So I would use up my snack quotas to get everybody snacks just to have those emergency snacks in my bag. Yeah. So just as a side note, a dining plan is there are a couple of different dining plans that Disney offers where you pay one price per person, and it allows you certain meals or snacks during the day. So the dining plan that we always did was one sit-down meal, one quick service meal, and one snack per day. And that was more than enough food for a person to do. So days where you could get the dining plan as part of a package. Sometimes we still can. Yeah, I think that depending on the season. Yeah, but you can use your snack your snack credits for some pretty good snacks too. So that is my second tip. Pack some easy snacks. Okay, my second tip is gonna go along kind of with my first tip, which was which I left with building your park days around your dining reservations. So then I would say have a park plan. That means I I think planning like three solid things that you want to do at the park that you want to go to and map it out. So include ideas for places where you could maybe grab a quick service meal if you aren't dining, you know, it sort of depends on where you chose your dining reservations and at what time of day, but there are going to be other times of the day where you're hungry too. And I always find it helpful to have an idea of what quick service places are around. Like if I'm thinking in the Magic Kingdom, one of my favorite quick service places in the Magic Kingdom is Columbia Harbor House. They make a lobster roll that is so yummy. But anyway, I would look around the park that I'm in and just take a look at what quick service options there are and see if there's a few that uh appeal to you and that can kind of guide your day as well. And again, we're like avoiding that hunger emergency that happens when we're all spent and super hungry and we want to eat now. Maybe we're just a really grumpy group without low we suffer from low blood sugar or something. So I have a feeling this is gonna come up a lot. Yeah, but having a plan for that, but also just having a plan for like the things that you want to do at the park. Three things, three solid things, plan, map them out what in terms of like where they geographically lie in the park, where you might eat, and then whatever else happens happens. Okay, so I guess our tips aren't exactly the same, but they're very they're similar because again, the jumping off point for that, you say have a plan of your top three things. If you're going as a group before we okay, definitely have a plan. Plan it out. We believe that you want to maximize your time there. And if you have a time, if you have a plan, then that that works. But okay, that's not really my tip. My tip was to survey everybody before you go, the whole group, and see what their must-dos are for the whole trip. Now it can depend on are you going for a day? Are you going for three days? Are you going for a week? So, however many, you know, what is their their top one thing that they want to do for that day? Or if you're going for a week, maybe you do, okay, what is your top must-do, your your top attraction that you must do, or maybe restaurant, or a character that you might want to meet. Survey your group, find the th maybe two or three things per person, again, depending on the length of time that you're going for, and and also how many people you have, because there's so much to do at Walt Disney World. You you simply can't do everything. So if you know ahead of time what everybody's things are, then you can plan for it. I think that's a good piece of advice too, and can also seem overwhelming because there are so many things to choose from. And if you've never been before, I wonder if you would even think of where to start, you know. Like maybe maybe you start at something broad like do you want to focus on the attractions? Do you want to focus on the shows? Do you want to focus on the fireworks or the parades or the character meet and greets? Like, and then maybe hone it down to like, what are your favorite characters, or do you want to do roller coasters or boat rides, or you know, I don't know. It's a lot. It's a lot, but if you can pick a few things, then it gives you a bit of structure to your day. And I always say that time is money at Disney, and uh just kind of going with the flow and seeing what will happen next is one approach to going to Disney. You also may not experience as much of it as you could. There's that, but I hope but kind of refocusing it, it's really looking back at what your family or whatever group you're going with, everybody is gonna feel a little bit more valued perhaps, or they'll enjoy their experience more if they at least, you know, get to do something. If we're if you're always doing what I don't know, Johnny from the group wants to do every single time, and the quiet person of the group doesn't speak up, they might kind of come away from it. I mean, it's gonna be hard to come away from Disney going, oh, that wasn't as much fun as I hoped, but but maybe they might come away from it feeling dissatisfied because there was that one thing they wanted and didn't get to, you know. So at least, at least you're tailoring your your day. And the thing is, even though it might be an attraction or a show or a food that you might not have on your list, just because it wasn't part of your radar doesn't mean you're not going to enjoy it. It just maybe wasn't your top thing to check off your list. So you you might actually realize because of doing something else, you get to do an attraction that somebody else wanted to do, and and you think, hey, actually that was my favorite part of the whole trip. And you didn't even know it. Pleasant surprises are waiting for you. This kind of goes with my next one, which is to take time to slow down and smell the smell of tisers because Disney parks can be frenetic, not can be. Well, yeah, they it's frenetic. A Disney vacation can be frenetic. It's memory making at the like at the ultimate, you know. That's I don't know how I'm trying to articulate that, but it it is also important to take it all in where we get in there and we're like, let's go straight to the fantasy land, straight to Peter Pan, let's go, let's go, let's go, and try to keep your group together. And that's you know, that's a thing. But I think there's times that we can also just sort of sit back and sit on a bench for a minute, eat a snack on the top of a garbage can, and okay, enjoy the view of the castles. You are basically taking one of my tips. Well, I said it a different way, but my way my way of saying it was, but that is that is the thing, is to slow down and smell the roses. Yeah. Yeah. But my sorry, I kind of cut you off, are you? Well, I guess I was just gonna say what uh what the heck is a smelletizer. Oh because there are scents that are pumped out into the air at Disney in the hotels on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom and various locations that smell delicious or floral or they just add to this four-dimensional experience that you are enveloped in in a Disney, not just in the parks, but in a Disney on Disney property. And I literally think like just walk up Main Street USA and breathe it in, listen to the music that's being played, do some people watching, sit just stand there, take a look at the castle. No, I totally agree, and that that is one of my tips. And it really was when it comes down to like, should I go, should we go on this vacation from all our generations, from toddlers to grandparents or and everything in between teenagers? And can you can you really do a trip where everybody will enjoy it together? And a hundred percent yes. Yes, you can. And so along those same lines, I just think it's such a great vacation, such a great experience that all of the generations in your family can enjoy together. And then you're creating family memories that everybody was involved with. And Disney such does such a great job of accommodating all of those ages, and there's always something for everybody. So I think everybody will, you know, have something that they will like. But like what you said, don't just look at the big things, and of course, they are big things, and take pictures of everything, like get your picture taken in front of the castle for sure, but also it's those little things that you were talking about, like just enjoying the moment. So also take pictures of those candid shots. The you know, some of just to give an example, some of my favorite pictures, our family photos, are of me piggybacking Abby and Molly, who are my nieces when they were little, and it was the end of the day after fireworks, and everybody was dead tired, and here we are carrying them, and yet we're still having so much fun, but it was just sort of, it's not even the best. It's a blurry shot, but it it's just a great photo to kind of represent the day. Or one of the other you were talking about the garbage cans, you know, meals. One of my favorite candid photos is mom with all of her maps taking a little pause on on one of the garbage can. I'll do little air quotes, garbage can tables to check the overall plan, you know, to and it's just representative of what the day is. So it's not all just posing in front of the castle or shots with Mickey or like those things are amazing, but it's the little things. And even taking pictures of the riding the bus, we have, you know, memories are made everywhere. So don't feel like don't have FOMO if you have to take a break and go back to the hotel or take a little pause to have a sit down. You're still making these fantastic experiences and these memories together that the little things, whether it's finding a hidden Mickey in the carpet or just having a snooze, you know, laughing at the youngest because they were snoring on the bus. You know, that there's there's something magical about everywhere you go. Yeah. I think I'm glad that you said FOMO because I have that pretty badly when I go to Disney because I feel like, oh my God, I want to do it all, I want to do everything, and I Have learned that if I have certain things mapped out for the day, and I will map out every day, as you know, I create a plan so I know that on this day we're gonna be eating at this restaurant, we're gonna be going to this park, and here are three things that I want to be able to do at that park. Then I feel like I have made this plan that satisfies that FOMO feeling, and I'm like, okay, I knocked off all those things, and anything else is a bonus. And all those extras can be just sitting in the grass in the hub at the Magic Kingdom or grabbing a snack at Morocco and going in behind where the main stuff is, and there's this nice little quiet space with benches, and you can sit and eat your snack in actual peace, you know, like out of the crowds and these quiet moments that you can still take it all in because you're still surrounded by the art and the magic of Disney. Well, and then there's the unexpected things that happen. Maybe a little family of ducks walks in front of you, or or swims in the swimming pool. Or swims in the swimming pool, or you know, who knows? There's charm and and random pixie dust that happens all over the place. But you also have to be open-minded and open-eyed to realize that that's happening. And maybe sometimes because you're tired or what have you, maybe it takes after going home and going, Oh, remember when you know this happened, or just remember all those little things, those little moments that are also pretty magical too. The crowds can be something at some times of the year, they're less than they are at others. I think right now the crowds are pretty big at sort of spring break time of year. And so taking time to pause can be harder when you're surrounded by the energy of all those people, when you're walking through the shops and there's sort of merchandise at you coming at you from every angle. But yeah, I think we've sort of hammered this one in as like taking time to enjoy all the little things. So along the same lines, I think it's important to take a rest in the middle of the day. That feeling of like wanting to like do it all, get up, rope drop the morning, go, go, go. We're gonna stay until the fireworks and beyond at the end of the night. If you've got kids, they are going to lose their minds, and some adults will too. That's a long day. It's a lot of energy, it's a long time on your feet. So take a break in the middle of the day. If you want to try to do both ends of the day, take a break in the middle. Like I mean hours. Go home before, like at lunchtime. If you go over to the park for the morning, great. Go back to the hotel for lunch, take a few hours, go swimming, have a nap, watch a movie, go back out in the evening, have your dinner, do the whatever it is you want to do at night, but make sure everybody's rested and fed. That's one way to do the parks is take a rest in the middle of the day if you want to try to hit the whole day. And we always, if we were there for a week, we would also take a rest day. A full like we would call it a rest day. That would be my last tip. Was like take a rest in the middle of the day, but also take a rest in the middle of the week. Yeah. Yeah. What's your last one? Um okay, this is going back to having like the kind of the crowds if you're park days. So not so much the rest days, but once you get to the parks and things get crowded, uh, my tip is to have a buddy system. And again, for the crowd control part, so especially like in those like pinch points, but we would pair up one adult with one child, and that was your person. So you you only had to not that you had like there wasn't one. So our sister Sarah has three girls, for example. Instead of her having to look after the three girls, she would have to look after one, I had another, and her husband had another. Now I should say, of course, instead of both mom and dad having to look after three girls. It's just that you had your one person that you were looking after. So I was always holding Molly's hand, and I knew that was the person for me. You always had George, George's hand or what have you, right? And so that's just like if you're when you're going through, for example, like at the entrance, when you're going through the gates and there's a huge crowd of people and people are getting jostled around a little bit, you have your one buddy system, or you're leaving at the end of the night and it's the fireworks crowds and everybody's trying to jostle out again. You've got your one buddy system. Because if you're a group of a large group of 10 people or whatever your group size might be, it can be harder to stay together. Again, the colored shirts really help out here. Yeah. But it's just easier to have that one person. And then you have your maybe like your meeting point as well after after the fact. So you can kind of group back in in together. If we get separated meet here. It's good to have that plan too. So yeah, I guess you already said my last one, rest in the middle of the week. But what I meant by that was like if you're going for a if you're going for a whole week or if you're going for like four or more days, like have a day that's a rest day so that you're not the parks every single day. And that rest day is delicious. There's no having to get up and rope drop anything or stay up until the fireworks. You can do what you like. You can spend the whole day at the hotel pool or go to Disney Springs and wander around, or yeah, just lie in bed and watch movies all day. Do whatever. Explore some part of the property that you've never thought of before. I always wanted to do the mini golfing. I yeah, that would be fun. But never made it there yet. There's just walking the grounds, like there's there's pathways. A lot of the resorts have walking pathways, and and so you could walk from I don't know, the Polynesian to the Grand Floridian, or you could, if you're staying over like in the campsites at Fort Wilderness, you could Oh my gosh, you could there you would be going for days walking. That was really fun. All the decorations and Halloween, they do all the decorations. You can the there's also a lot of resorts that do movies under the stars. And then there's sometimes there's yoga class, like even just the resort hotels have things going on at them. They have craft times and yeah, there's games around the pool. There's all kinds of things to do on a day off that's not in the hustle-bustle of the parks. We've had a lot of fun with games at the pool. And yeah, lots of good times. Remember the when dad did the uh the Cupid shuffle when they were changing the lifeguards out at the pool. And all of a sudden, dad's part of the lineup of the the lifeguards doing the the line dance was awesome. So much fun. Yeah. Did anyone get a picture of that? Oh, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Okay, I want to see that. All right. Well, we've given you our master plan. Rope drop it, pace yourself, and for the love of Mickey, take the midday break. It's time for part of the show that's short, sweet, and more efficient than your lightning lane strategy. It's time for a magic minute. Ever notice how some roller coasters feel fast even when they're not breaking speed records? Take Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom, for example. It actually tops out at around 27 miles per hour. That's about 44 kilometers per hour, which is slower than most highways, I think. What? Seriously? Yeah, but here's the physics trick. It's almost completely in the dark. So when your brain can't see what's coming, it can't predict turns or drops. That unpredictability increases your perceived speed and intensity. Your vestibular system, that's the balance system in your inner ear, feels the motion, but your eyes can't confirm it. So your brain just assumes there's chaos. Exactly. Darkness plus tight turns plus controlled forces equals this is way faster than it actually is. Science says it's not just speed, it's sensory engineering. That is so cool. I love the science tidbit there. Amazing. So my trivia for today is a Run Disney themed one since our focus was less on the running part of our rope drop and run podcast. So our my my Run Disney themed trivia for you is that the very first Run Disney event was the Walt Disney World Marathon in 1994, January 16th, 1994. And it was about 5,600 runners who took part in that marathon. The only race distance that they offered that day was the marathon. Of course, today the marathon is just one of the four events on that weekend Run Disney event. And there's more than 12,000 participants in the marathon alone, probably anywhere between 30 and 40,000 participants for that whole Run Disney weekend. Now, it actually wasn't phrased as a Run Disney event. That branding came along later, but 1994. And did you know that in 1994 when they did that first, it was a competitive marathon, they invited several running legends to be a part of it, and Jeff Galloway was one of those running legends. Wow. 32 years. He's been there since the beginning. That's amazing. Well, thank you, Jeff Galloway. Well, that's it for this episode of Rope Drop and Run. Join us next time to find out all about our favorite Disney restaurants. If you liked what you heard, share this episode with a friend and follow us on Instagram at Rope Drop and Run. Please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review. And send us all your Disney questions. We can't wait to chat with you next time. We'll see you at the castle or the start line.