5 Disney World Traditions Your Family Can Start
Some Disney traditions begin because someone carefully plans them. Others begin because everyone loves something so much that, on the next trip, you simply have to do it again.
Family traditions don't have to be old. After all, every tradition once happened for the first time (or as they say in Frozen, "for the first time in forever"). That includes the little rituals families develop around Walt Disney World.
Maybe you always have the same first meal. Maybe you take a photograph in the same place. Maybe everyone chooses one attraction you have to experience together.
Sometimes, you don't even realize something has become a tradition until someone says:
“We have to do that. We always do that at Disney.”
You don't need to manufacture traditions, but if you'd like to begin one, here are five simple ideas.
1. Take the Same Photograph Every Trip
Choose one place.
It doesn't necessarily have to be Cinderella Castle in Magic Kingdom. Maybe it's a bench at your favorite resort, a quiet spot in World Showcase at EPCOT, or in front of the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom.
Take a photograph there every time you visit. Individually, they're ordinary vacation photographs. Together, over the years, they become something else. The background may barely change. The people will.
Children grow taller. Styles change. Eventually, someone who once had to be held for the photograph may be holding a child of their own.
You aren't trying to recreate the previous picture. You're simply returning to the same place and allowing the effect of time to show itself.
2. Let Everyone Choose One “We Always Do This”
Ask each member of the family to choose one experience they would love to repeat on future trips.
Maybe someone chooses Pirates of the Caribbean in Magic Kingdom. Someone chooses dinner at Mexico in EPCOT. Someone chooses a particular snack, like the famous Dole Whip desserts.
These don't have to be expensive or elaborate traditions. In fact, sometimes the simplest ones are the easiest to keep. It could be just walking through the butterfly garden at EPCOT's Flower & Garden Festival each spring. Or it could be sitting on a bench, ice cream in hand, by Gertie the dinosaur at Hollywood Studios.
If interests change over the years, the traditions can change too. The point isn't obligation or repetition. It's creating something everyone looks forward to returning to.
3. Have a First-Day Tradition
There is something wonderfully distinctive about the beginning of a Disney vacation. One of the slogans in Disney-Pixar's Up is "Adventure is out There." There is plenty of adventure out there at Walt Disney World. To begin the adventure, consider a small tradition to commemorate starting the trip.
You could celebrate it in a small way. Maybe the first thing you do after checking in is explore the resort. Maybe you always have pizza on arrival night. Maybe you take the same walk or wear the same shirts. Maybe everyone gets one Disney snack and you sit together talking about what you're most excited to do.
It doesn't need to be spectacular. The tradition simply says:
We're here. The vacation has begun.
4. Ask the Same Question on the Last Night
At some point during your final evening, ask everyone:
“What is one thing from this trip you never want to forget?”
You may get answers you expected, but you may also get answers you never would have guessed.
Write them down if you'd like. Or don't. Sometimes, simply hearing everyone's answer together is enough.
5. Bring One Little Piece of the Trip Home
This doesn't have to mean buying an expensive souvenir.
It could be choosing one photograph for a family album. It could be a drawing your child made on the trip. It could be taking home the souvenir card from the character dining experience.
Many Disney World visitors collect pins. There are pins for almost everything imaginable: the parks, the rides, the characters, the resort hotels, and even special events and anniversaries. Maybe you start a tradition of collecting one pin from each trip. Every time you look at that pin, you will remember that trip.
Or if you are staying at a Disney World resort hotel, you collect the resort's magnet. When you return home, put the magnet on your fridge. Now, each time you go to open the fridge door your memories from the Yacht Club, Port Orleans, or wherever else you stayed will come back to you as if the trip were just yesterday.
The idea is simply to create a small bridge between being there and remembering being there. There is an added bonus, too: you are bringing some Disney World magic back home with you. That feeling you get when at Disney World now in a small way exists in your home, too.
Let Traditions Develop Naturally
Don't spend your vacation trying to create five traditions because an article told you to. Begin with one.
Or even none. Then, something unexpected happens. Everyone becomes obsessed with the same snack. A funny phrase develops.
You discover that you love ending every Magic Kingdom day on the same attraction. Your children insist on saying goodnight to a particular park icon.
Now, when you return two years later, someone says:
“Are we doing that again?”
There it is. A tradition.
Traditions Aren't About Doing Disney World the Same Way Forever
Traditions can change.
A character breakfast that means everything to a five-year-old may not matter to a fifteen-year-old. The attraction everyone once loved might eventually disappear.
The interest and preferences of families change over time, too. That's okay.
A tradition isn't valuable because you successfully repeat it forever. It's valuable because, for some period of your family's life, it became one of the things you shared.
Before You Start Planning...
Ask everyone:
“Is there one thing we could do on this vacation that you'd love to do again every time we come back?”
Don't worry about whether it actually becomes a tradition. Just start somewhere, because lifelong traditions begin with nothing more complicated than:
“We should do this again next time.”
Plan Your Trip. Make Lifelong Memories.