I had read the cute idea of doing Tinkerbell gifts and decided to incorporate them into our trip. The idea behind Tinkerbell gifts is that if you were a good little boy or girl, then Tinkerbell will come and leave you a special treat during the night. The goal is to promote good behavior…ultimately it is a total bribe! I thought it would be a nice way to “save” a little money by picking up things like glow wands and such at the $1 bin at Target and other shops. Some of my favorite places for my Disney finds were Target for games, books, cds, & coloring books. Old Navy has cute & inexpensive character t-shirts and comfy mix-and-match separates. The Disney Store always had some sort of sale and I would check online periodically for unique Frozen surprises! The toy department at Marshall’s is another great place to find nail polish, lip gloss, socks, backpacks, and more! The Dollar Store had princess antibacterial wipes, tissues, boo boo crown, and bandaids. So inexpensive too! We found an adorable set of Minnie ears at Hobby Lobby!
My point is…start collecting early! You never know what you will find!
Each day we left little surprises out for Lily to see when she woke up! They would hint to the days activities and included a special outfit.
Above is the Tinkerbell gift we left out for her Epcot morning: A Belle t-shirt and skirt to compliment our meal at Akershus, an autograph book to begin collecting signatures, glow wand for fireworks, princess glow tattoos, and a birthday sash (which she did not wear!).
I found an Elsa Halloween costume at Party City that had the perfect amount of sparkle for the Bippity Boppity Boutique. Only $30! I also found a pretty sleeveless Elsa dress on Etsy. It was great for the hot September weather.
Target also had good ponchos for about $10 each.
FINAL TIP! Another idea that I had for Lily’s surprise travel bag to help save money was to include a Disney gift card. We chose the one with the Elsa design and included a personalized note with the card. It was from Elsa and she personally wished her a wonderful vacation and that she was so excited to meet her. We told her that was her special spending money and when it was gone, it was gone! She really budgeted and it worked! Another idea for bigger kids is to get a card (with $20 or so dollars) for each day with an appropriate theme – Lion King for Animal Kingdom day, the castle for the Magic Kingdom, and so on.
My First Disney Vacation 