by Holly Russell

Created on: October 14, 2009

Roller coasters, rides, shops, hot dogs and parades....everyone loves a day at the theme parks! A theme park visit can make or break your holiday or vacation. There is a huge potential for fun, but also for discomfort or disaster. If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Taking the time to make sure you are adequately prepared for a day at the theme park is vitally important, and can ensure you have a wonderful day, rather than a day plagued with hunger, sunburn, sticky fingers and a budget blow-out.

Snacks and Water

Most of us accept that we are going to be ripped off for our meals at any theme park. It doesn't matter where you go, but you will find yourself in the land of ridiculously pricey food and especially drinks. If possible, budget to purchase your lunch. Unless you are prepared to spend the morning lugging around a lunch that won't mind being scrunched into a backpack and left in the sun, expect a hit to the wallet at lunch time. However, pack snacks and a water bottle or two. Theme parks have to have good drinking water available by law, so you can get away with taking one or two water bottles and re-filling them as needed. Keeping hydrated during a day in the sun is vitally important. Make sure your kids have at least one good drink every hour. If it is a battle to get your kids to drink water then pack salty snacks to encourage drinking. Pringles, pretzels, fruit leather, trail mix and nuts all work well as snacks and are robust enough to survive rough treatment at the Theme Park. By planning to take snacks and water, you will save both time and money...you won't have to leave those pesky lines to refresh your family.

Hand sanitizer

Theme parks can be very dirty. Some are worse than others, but all of them survive by entertaining a vast array of people, and some of them will not have good hygiene. To keep your vacation free from sickness, make sure you and your kids use a hand sanitizer several times through the day. Certainly before eating, and after using the bathroom facilities.

Wet Wipes

While hand sanitizer does a much better job of actually disinfecting your hands or any questionable surfaces, wet wipes can clean up some yucky messes. A melted chocolate bar or messy ice cream cone is going to take more work, and wet-wipes work so well. You only need a travel pack, and will be amazed how handy they can be.

Hats & sunscreen

Sun safety is always important. Hats, sunscreen and sunglasses should be used by everyone. If you can, buy straps

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