Family traditions?

[McLiberal8]

I am taking my boyfriend to Disney World for the first time in January. I could not be more excited to share my 'happy place' with him, and he is excited as well! We were discussing our vacation last night, and he said he would love to figure out a tradition we could do every trip.
I am just curious, what are your family traditions? Trying ice cream from every park, each vacation? Visiting Soarin' first, every trip? Riding the monorail on your first day?

[Disney Hungarian]

My tradition is to go to Epcot and ride the monorail to ttc then transfer to the MK monorail. Ride through the CR then get off at MK take the ferry back to the ttc and ride the monorail back to Epcot. Since I would drive to WDW, I would get there in the late afternoon. Too tired to actually go to the parks. This allowed me get in the "Disney spirit"

[iceicebritney]

:woohoo: first trip as a couple to WDW! I'm so excited for both of you:mickey:

My family tradition is to have our arrival and departure meal at Cape May Cafe.

However, this year will be the beginning of my husband and I's traditions together. We are breaking the norm and not planning a thing. We too are looking to create our own tradition since all of our previous trips together have been with our entire families tagging along:D, but since my trip-planning rights have been forfeited for this years adventure, we'll just have to see what happens! Although it kills the uber-planner in me, I'm somewhat excited to go to WDW and not have a thing planned.

Is this your Boyfriend's very first trip ever, or just your first trip together? When my boyfriend (now husband) and I went on our very first Disney World Trip together I made sure we went to Toontown (now you'd go to main street theater) and had a photo of us taken with Mickey. I was all about getting photos of us with the Characters. We also dined at Cinderella's Castle for dinner, Chef Mickey's for Dinner (more photo ops with the Characters) and took a Carriage Ride in Fort Wilderness which was so romantic:thumbsup: Another thing I was sure to do was take tours.

I'm sure whatever you both decide to do on your first WDW vacation together will be magical.:mickey:

[AllDisney]

Our tradition, before they cut back on the showing of Fantasmic everyday , was to make sure that we saw the show on our first and last day:mickey:

We now make sure we get to see it at least once during our trips.

[Mousemates]

We always have a chocolate covered coconut mickey head on our last night.

And then do a trip debriefing( where we give our trip superlative)s on our way home...i.e favorite meal, funniest moment, etc.

[Djscherr]

The tradition in my family excludes me entirely. In fact the tradition does not exist when I'm there.

It all started years ago, I had a younger cousin who was just starting out in life and had himself a bit of spending cash and wanted to get everyone a souvenir to bring back. Well I was going to Disney about once or twice a year back then and didn't really buy souvenirs. I told him he should just save his money and buy himself a Mickey Bar, then just sit on a park bench somewhere eat it, and think of me and that would be enough. Sure enough that's exactly what he did and he took a picture of himself eating it as proof. Now whenever anyone goes to Disney World without me they all take a picture of them eating their Mickey Bars and bring the picture back. :)

This was especially hilarious as I cancelled out of a big family vacation last October. There were about 10 family members going, but I decided I had a better use of my money that fall. So instead of going to Disney World I saved my money and bought my now fiancee a nice diamond ring. Sure enough they got a picture of all of them eating their choice of frozen desserts and took a picture of it for me and gave it to me for Christmas.

Well my fiancee and I are set to get married here in just over a month, as part of our family moon, she, my future DS9, and I will be taking a Familymoon this December down to Disney World. I think we will just have to send back a picture of our own this year. :)

[McLiberal8]

Is this your Boyfriend's very first trip ever, or just your first trip together? When my boyfriend (now husband) and I went on our very first Disney World Trip together I made sure we went to Toontown (now you'd go to main street theater) and had a photo of us taken with Mickey.

That's a great idea! He hasn't been since he was 8 (we are 25 now), and it wasn't the optimum Disney vacation (stayed offsite, went for 2 days only), so I am counting this as his first REAL WDW vacation ;) I am trying not to talk about it TOO much, which is hard, because I have been 8 times. Like most of us here, I am making ADRs and planning out our days. He is such a great guy, letting me plan everything and reassuring me that he trusts my Disney knowledge enough to 'follow the leader' while we are there :mickey:

[brownie]

Now whenever anyone goes to Disney World without me they all take a picture of them eating their Mickey Bars and bring the picture back.

That's great! I may have to adopt something like that.

[Missy_Mouses_Dad]

We always see the MK fireworks on our last night, and dd picks out our refillable mugs while the wife checks us into the hotel.

[peterpan at heart]

Last December was my DW and my first trip together to the World and she was pregnant at the time. We have now scheduled our first trip to DW taking our DD who will be almost two in December 2012. We plan on starting a tradition of taking a trip to DW every December!

[TexansInNY]

:mickey:Chef Mickey's..fun we have the pictures with the plate and see how kid 1 was so little and grew then kid 2 added to picture, how they and we grow, etc - very nice -

[We LOVE Disney]

Every year we are there we make SURE we get a certain picture.

It helps this description if you have seen this before but there's a metal Mickey head outside of the Contemporary in the back. My daughter stands behind the sitting Mickey (it's on the Mickey head), one of my son's lays inside one of the ears and my other son lays inside the other ear. My hubby and I stand on either side of the sitting Mickey and hold hands. I place the camera on a stand that's perfect for self timers & take the picture.

[joonyer]

Our family tradition is to ride Splash Mountain during Wishes, at least once on every WDW vacation. It happened by accident on our first trip with our kids (we had no idea when fireworks would be going off), but wow, what a magical experience! On top of that, there's almost no one in the queue, and you can ride several times with no waiting. Splash is our favorite WDW attraction anyway, and riding it during the fireworks puts it over the top for us.

[Tink#64]

We have a few traditions, most are centered around visiting DTD on arrival day for some shopping & dinner. We always arrive midday & we are anxious to get into Disney mode without hitting the parks that late in the day. Every trip we always do 3 things in DTD, take a picture of us in front of the holiday scene outside of the Christmas shop, we use that pic in Christmas cards! We also pick out an ornament & have it personalized including the date! We also take a picture of DS's in front of the Lego Loch Ness monster! It's so cool looking back at those pics taken in exactly the same spot every year & see how they grown!:mickey:

Another pic that we've taken for years is in front of COP, they used to change the year on the sign every year, sadly enough that has changed! This year the sign was just generic - no year! :(

[dizneydeb22]

Our traditions are that our first park is always the Magic Kingdom, we eat at O'Hana(although no particular day), and as an individual tradition, I always have a Mickey bar on our first visit to MK and a Grand Marnier Slush in France! :marg::bar::papple:

[DisneyMom12]

My family tradition was taking the ferry to Magic Kingdom the first day we were going. Know that the buses take you there instead of TTC, we haven't done it lately.

[T-Belle]

Our tradition is breakfast at Kona. We try to do it the first day of vacation but that's not always possible. But we always fit it in somewhere. It's become an important part in vacation planning. While we may eat different things we always have a Wasbi Bloody Mary for my daughter and a Mimosa for me.

[iceicebritney]

That's a great idea! He hasn't been since he was 8 (we are 25 now), and it wasn't the optimum Disney vacation (stayed offsite, went for 2 days only), so I am counting this as his first REAL WDW vacation ;) I am trying not to talk about it TOO much, which is hard, because I have been 8 times. Like most of us here, I am making ADRs and planning out our days. He is such a great guy, letting me plan everything and reassuring me that he trusts my Disney knowledge enough to 'follow the leader' while we are there :mickey:

Does your Boyfriend have a favorite Disney character or movie? Perhaps you can find some things that hes looking forward to doing and plan them out in your schedule. My husband loves the muppets and indiana jones so I made sure to definitely hit Those early in our trip to keep him happy. When we went for the first time Lights Motors Action just came over from Paris. He loves fast cars and stunt shows so this was another must do!

One thing we like to do every year before we go is watch the newest vacation planning DVD and make a list of all the things we each want to do. That way he feels like he's had some input in planning the vacation and he has something to look forward too:mickey:

[azcavalier]

We have a couple of traditions:

1. We always hit the Outlet Mall on the way in. There's a Disney Store in the outlet, and it allows us to get some souvenir shopping out of the way early (and we always find some cheap pins...my wife is addicted to those things).

2. We always have a special shirt for the trip. Last year we made a bunch of special "I Survived...." t-shirts that we thought were hilarious. Mine was "I Survived Spaceship Earth", with a really scary font and a photo of SE in the middle. My son's said, "I Survived It's a Small World" with pictures of the Small World dolls on it. People here on Intercot thought it was great, too. Most people that talked to us in the parks just seemed confused, as the rides featured on our shirts were the most tame, unexciting rides in the parks.

This year, my wife is getting some tie-dyed shirts that i'm sure will say something about WDW on the front.

We also always each have a Virginia Tech shirt, and one day on our vacation we all wear them. It's "Hokie Day". This year, Disney has actually released a line of t-shirts that feature universities. So, we actually have Disney/Virginia Tech shirts that we bought at the bookstore. If you're an alum of a major Div. 1 university, or just a fan, you need to check at the bookstore to see if Disney did this with them. I know that they have apparel for BYU as well.

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

We have a few:

1) On arrival day (we usually arrive around 4pm), we check into the resort unpack freshen up and head to Downtown Disney. We like to eat at Wolfgang Puck Express then go shopping. Its nice to get those little souveniers you have to get for people out of the way first thing.

2)We buy a Christmas ornaments every year, one with the year on it that we are visiting and then a special character ornament.

3) We always eat a nice TS breakfast on our departure day and then visit our favorite park of the trip (usually MK or Epcot). We each get to pick two rides a piece to ride one more time.

4) We buy a piece of candy at the MK candy store and wait until we get home and all eat it together.

5) We designate at least one day to return to the resort early. We go to the pool while we wait on our clothes to wash and dry. I always get an adult beverage and sit and watch my son swim.

[DisneyDINK]

I grew up in LA and went to DL (now DLR) too many times to count as a child. When I first started going on my own, without my parents, I always got a picture of me, my friends and the Kodak Photo Spot, not the vista, the sign. It has become a running gag. Whenever I see a sign at WDW I have to stop and get a picture with it, no hint of the scenery the sign is pointing out, just me or me and DW and the sign.

Odd, yes, but fun. Of course I take other pictures too...

[ryca1dreams]

Mine is that the first time we ride Space Mountain, I stop in the star tunnel and make my son listen to the music. He was pretty annoyed by our last trip. I don't know if the star tunnel has changed now - if not, I'll do it again next trip!

[darthmacho]

Great topic! I love having family traditions, especially at WDW.
We're still working on developing our traditions now that we're going as a family of four, but here are a couple that we're working on:

1. Explore the home resort on the first day , the travel day, so no park.
2. Breakfast at Crystal Palace on our first full day.
3. Go on Dumbo for our first ride.
4. Visit the Wilderness Lodge for dinner.
5. Watching MSEP or Spectro from our "spot".

I think there may be a few more, but those are the highlights. :mickey: