The perfect Disney purse

When you visit Disney World with a big family, you have a lot of gear to haul around. As our boys have gotten older, the amount of gear has decreased, but there’s still quite a lot of stuff that I feel compelled to carry with me each park day. Hence, the need for the perfect bag.

My first trip to Disney World as a mom, I carried a backpack. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was kind of a pain to lug around. Plus there was the fact that the backpack was hot pink and my shirt was white. When it rained (as it always does in Florida in the summer), my white shirt quickly became stained pink in the back. Sigh…

For the next trip, I took a shoulder bag. It wasn’t all that big, but carrying it around on my right shoulder all day, every day, for several days in a row made me feel extremely out of alignment. Not good.

Then I moved on to a cross-body bag. Ah, now I was on the right track! It kept my hands free. It was small. It was light. But it didn’t have enough space for all of my necessary gear.

In a stroke of good fortune, I picked up a LeSportsac cross-body bag on sale at the Disney Store online. It’s both larger and lighter than my other cross-body bags. Hands-free? Check! Zero back pain? Check! Big enough for all my stuff? Check! Cute Disney theme? Check!!

The deceptively small (and incredibly cute) exterior.

The surprisingly spacious interior.

Here’s a list of all the stuff I was able to fit inside it (I was going to take a picture of it all laid out on my resort bed, but it just looked too weird):

• Key to the World card, plus kids’ cards
• ID and credit card secured in a zippered pocket
• daily meds (I’m epileptic) in a baggie, emergency meds (Tums, Benadryl, etc) in another. These also went in the zippered pocket for security.
• small packet of Band-aids
• hand sanitizer
• phone
• folded umbrella
• son’s cell phone and small waist bag (for when he wanted to go off on his own)
• my tiara. You never know when the occasion might call for a tiara!

I was also able to fit into this bag any small items we purchased during the day, such as Disney pins. We sent the bigger stuff back to our room (one of the benefits of staying on Disney property).

The outer pockets – bonus!

The outer pockets served specific purposes, too. The zippered one held anything I needed for visits to the ladies’ room: lip gloss, oil absorbing sheets (a must in humid weather!), a hair scrunchie (for when I just couldn’t stand having hair stuck to the back of my neck anymore), feminine products that shall remain unspecified. The non-zippered outer pocket was where we kept our park maps and daily times guides.

And, look, the bag is Mary Blair/”it’s a small world” inspired! How cute is that?

Charming, no?

My purse and I can’t wait for our next trip to Disney!