How to Recreate Your Disney Vacation at Home!
Today, I am going to share some ways in which you can recreate your Disney vacation (or dream vacation) at home! My least favorite part of a Disney vacation is knowing the magic must eventually come to an end. Enter…THE POST-DISNEY BLUES. The Disney Blues are ROUGH! Transitioning from the carefree Disney bubble to your real-life concerns and responsibilities can leave many vacationers longing for another taste of Disney magic. But how (you may ask) can I experience the magic of the Parks when they are SO FAR AWAY?! By recreating your Disney vacation at home! This is my absolute FAVORITE way to combat the Post-Disney Blues. It gives me and my family something to look forward to once we get home.
Maybe you can’t get to the Parks as often as you’d like. These tips can help you experience the magic of the Parks while you prepare for your dream vacation. So follow along with us as we recreate our Disney vacation at home and experience the Parks all over again!
* This post contains affiliate links. If you click through the links to make a purchase, I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you!
1. Start the Morning with Mickey Waffles!
Time to get up early for rope drop! But before hitting the Parks, we will need to boost up our energy levels with some Mickey waffles!!!
Did you really even have breakfast in Disney if you didn’t enjoy the infamous Mickey waffles?! These delectable morsels have been bringing smiles to faces across property for decades. And it’s easy to enjoy your own Mickey waffles at home! If you want to keep things super simple, you can pick up some Mickey Eggo waffles from the frozen food section at your local grocery store. While they aren’t quite as delicious as the fresh waffles served in the parks, they do have adorable Mickey faces on them and are popular with the kiddos. Presto! Mickey waffles are served.
If you are looking for an authentic Mickey waffle experience, you need a Mickey waffle iron! This one (available on Amazon) creates mini-Mickey waffles EXACTLY like the ones in the parks.
Insider tip: I have HEARD the waffle mix they use in the Parks is Carbon’s Golden Malted Waffle Mix…you can purchase the mix following the link below!
However you decide to serve up your Mickey waffles, they are an essential component to recreate your Disney vacation at home!
2. Dig Into Those H2O Samples You Brought Home
Let’s run back to the room to scrub off all that syrup and get ready for a big day in the Parks!
If you were fortunate enough to recently enjoy a Disney vacation and snag some of those resort room H2O personal care products – it’s time to bust those out! Our sense of smell is closely related to our memories. When using Disney’s H2O product line, the smells immediately transport me back to our busy mornings in the hotel room getting ready for an exciting day in the park.
I have ONE tiny bottle of lotion I saved from our February 2020 trip. I break it out in the DIREST of Disney yearning circumstances. You can also purchase the full H2O line on shopDisney!
Unfortunately, H2O retired this popular skincare line at the end of 2022. We are hoping for an equally awesome product to debut in the Disney Parks soon!
3. Dress for a Day in the Parks
Alright, we are filled up on Mickey waffle deliciousness and are squeaky clean. Time to grab our park attire and board those busses!
To get the full feel of a day at Disney, you need to look the part! Now is the time to dig out those Minnie ears, souvenir t-shirts, and even magic bands if you have them.
Little princess lovers can get dressed up in their favorite gowns and treated to an at-home Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique makeover. Older Disney lovers might have a lot of fun putting together a DisneyBounding outfit. Use clothes you already have in your closet to create an outfit that emulates one of your favorite Disney characters. We DisneyBounded on our last trip to Disney and had a lot of fun with it! It’s a great way to pay tribute to your favorite Disney characters without coming off costume-y.
4. Play Music from the Parks
We made it to Magic Kingdom! Unfortunately, the line to get into Jungle Cruise is incredibly long. But at least we can enjoy some funky queue music to help pass the time!
Playing the music and sounds from the Disney properties is a great way to transport yourself right back to the parks! There are tons of stations devoted to Disney Parks music. Two of my favorites are DPark Radio and Sorcerer Radio. They play a great mix of Disney songs, area music, and queue loops.
If you have specific Disney World music in mind (hanging out at the entrance of EPCOT? Snacking on popcorn on Main Street? Or hanging out with us in the Jungle Cruise queue?) you can find pretty much ANYTHING on Youtube. Since we are STILL waiting in the Jungle Cruise queue…I’ll just leave this right here:
5. Watch POV Ride Videos
We are FINALLY at the front of the queue! Let’s hop aboard our favorite ride!
One of the things we miss most after leaving Disney is the attractions. To recreate some of the fun at home, we watched POV ride videos on Theme Park Review and SoCal 360 YouTube channels. These POV videos are high quality and very well done – you really feel like you are back at the parks experiencing the attractions for yourself!
To make our ride viewing EXTRA fun, we all sat together in a row and leaned with each turn of the ride to recreate the twists and turns of our favorite roller coasters. Make sure to have a spray bottle ready when you ride Splash Mountain to splash the riders when you make the plunge! Our kids got a kick out of this added element. Check out some videos of other Disney fans recreating their favorite attractions HERE and HERE! These ideas are incredibly clever, and oftentimes hilarious!
6. Watch Recordings of your Favorite Disney Shows
Whew! It’s getting HOT. Let’s catch some A/C inside the theater while watching one of our favorite shows!
Here is another situation where YouTube is your friend when experiencing the Disney Parks at home. You can easily find full productions of your favorite shows with a quick YouTube search. Here are some links to some of our favorite Disney shows:
You can also find videos of your favorite parades on YouTube. No need to sit and wait for a parade to start in the hot sun – you can simply enjoy it from the comfort of your home!
Disneyland’s Magic Happens Parade
Walt Disney World’s Festival of Fantasy Parade
7. Recreate Some of Your Favorite Meals
After an exhausting morning of catching rides and shows, it’s time to grab our favorite meal from the Park.
This is another one of my favorite ways to recreate some Disney magic at home – by preparing Disney food in my own kitchen! You can do this by utilizing official Disney recipes or trying out some copycat versions on Pinterest. Disney shares a lot of their recipes on the Disney Parks Blog. We have had a lot of fun whipping up some of these official recipes at home in order to recreate our Disney vacation. One of our FAVORITE recipes to make has been the Num Num Cookies from Hollywood Studios (which also was one of our favorite treats on our last trip!). Check out our Disney World Cookie Bakeoff HERE to see the official recipe.
You can also find some great recipes in Disney Cookbooks. We loved eating at Docking Bay 7 on our last trip, so we used the recipe for Endorian Tip Yip in the Official Galaxy’s Edge Cookbook to make it at home. It turned out great! You can find the cookbook on Amazon by clicking HERE!
Another experience I knew we needed to recreate at home was our Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian (check out my full review HERE). We absolutely LOVED treating ourselves to teatime at Disney, so I knew we had to recreate that experience at home before we hit those virtual attractions again!
8. Create Some Silly In-Park Photos
Ok everybody! Stand in front of the caste…BIG smiles, now!!!
Using PicCollage, you can take photos of yourself or family members and edit them to look like you are actually in the Parks. Simply use the Cutout feature on the photo of your choice to edit out the background, then add your photo to a Disney background. This is by no means photo shop or professional level photo editing, but it is fun to play around with and it got some laughs out of the kids!
9. End the Night with Fireworks Viewing
Time to secure a good spot on the Hub grass for Happily Ever After! After all this running around, it feels great to just SIT and RELAX.
A great day at Disney MUST end with fireworks! Again, YouTube is here to save the day. You can find TONS of Disney fireworks presentations from the parks all over the world. Pick your favorite performance, fill your popcorn bucket with some fresh popcorn, and enjoy the show! Make sure your kiddos are equipped with their bubble and light up wands for this viewing experience! And the best part? No busy crowds or long trek to the busses before bed time!
I hope some of these ideas have inspired you to find ways to recreate your Disney vacation at home! Recreating our Disney vacation is one of my favorite ways to beat the post-Disney blues. Check out some other ideas for beating the Disney blues HERE!
Looking for other ways to infuse some Disney magic in your day-to-day lives? Check out some of my Disney Themed Dinners HERE!
How do you keep the magic alive when you can’t make it to the parks? Let me know in the comments!
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