How to pack Mary Poppins bag in a fanny pack

I used to laugh at people who wore these just for the sake of wearing them but nothing beats a fanny pack when you are at Disney! I cannot survive without one. My husband won't wear one and neither will my sons. Well, my then 7-year old wore his briefly on our 2007 vacation.

I have multiple packs and really the one that holds the most, I use the most, except for when I want to be styling and wear my black one that has "Disney" embroidered on the front. But when I go with my husband and kids, I need the one that has the most compartments.

Okay, my standard fanny-pack contains: Emergency Ponchos ($1 at Walmart), sunscreen, gum, Tums, Advil, my camera & case (for extra protection), our passes, money, cell-phone, credit card, pens, sunglasses, restaurant reservation numbers, park maps, Photopass card and lip stick. I mean, I need to look somewhat presentable in all those pictures! Essentially, it is my goal to not have to stop and purchase anything while we're in the park no matter what is thrown our way. I think on our last trip I even had a Benedryl pen so if anyone got any bites we could just whip out the Benedryl and roll it on. It was great!

I learned the importance of the well-stocked fanny pack on our first trip in 1998. My husband gets cluster headaches and you never knew when they were going to hit. Well, his hit the week before our trip. I did most of the drive down to Florida because he just could not do it. So we found that Excedrin Migraine was the only thing that worked for him IF he took it at the first twinge of a headache. My fear was that he would wait too long to take them and never make it back to the room without collapsing. So I kept them with me at all times and there were a couple of times that we had to stop and let him rest for 10 minutes but that was it - he was up and ready to go and we were back on the rides in no time. I used to get chronic heartburn and so having the Tums with me really helped and then there are those unpredictable Florida rain storms - that's where the emergency ponchos came in. We never had to run in to a store for any kind of emergency because we were prepared.

A fanny pack works better than a purse/pocketbook because it keeps your hands free. Of course, if you have little ones, you are most likely going to have a diaper bag with you at all times so you won't need the fanny pack, per se, but you should keep all of the essentials with you to save you time and money in the parks.