• A trip to Disney is pretty magical all in itself. But sometimes a little extra magic is needed. Maybe you are celebrating something special, a birthday, anniversary, or even a first visit. Believe it or not, but you don’t have to completely break the bank to add in some special magic. Over the years we have done some of these for our kids making their trips even more fun.

    One of the easiest, and fun for the little ones is making a countdown paper chain. I love this because it is something my kids can make, and it is something visual for them to see when we are leaving. Every time we put one of these up the incessant “Do we go today?” Questions stop. Kids can look for themselves if it is time to leave or not.

    Another favorite of ours is to give them a gift the night before we leave. Usually this gift is a new Disney themed shirt, or pajamas. I have to admit I dig the pajamas the most.

    One year our kids got duffle bags for the trip, each sporting their favorite characters.

    My kids love hunting down characters at the parks, and truly enjoy getting autographs from them. Even though I think this is ridiculous, they don’t. I have made my kids their own autograph books. There are tons of templates for these online. Ours had signatures on the right hand side of pages. When we returned home we glued pictures of my kids with the characters on the right side of the page. It was an awesome memory!

    Another fun thing to do is to have Mickey write your kids letters telling them how excited he is that they are going to be visiting. Along those same lines is the Disney enchanted phone call. Disney.com has enchanted phone calls for your kids. You choose your character and schedule a time. You get a prerecorded call talking about your trip.

    I like to send my kids cards from Mickey once we get home thanking them for coming to visit.