My Experience with Walt Disney World in the September Heat 🥵

Our family recently returned from a week long trip to Walt Disney World in the mid September heat. We were warned it was going to be hot, but to quote Mickey himself, “Boy oh boy” was it HOT! Unseasonably high temperatures and plenty of sun and humidity left us sweating.

Here is what worked to help our New England born and raised bodies cool down. 

Cooling towels

I read about cooling towels before our trip, watched YouTube videos with influencers shouting their praises and laughed at how unnecessary they seemed.  I most certainly stopped laughing once we arrived in Florida in mid September. The cooling towel was by far the easiest and most effective tool we used to cool ourselves down the entire trip. It was easy to wet at water fountains throughout the park and wear around our necks all day. 

Misting fans

I purchased two of these for the kids when they went on sale at Amazon but was skeptical about their value. I didn’t even bring them with us for the first park day. By day three they were glued to each of our children’s hands all day long. 

Hats

Light colored hats of varying form based on the comfort of each family member were crucial to keeping the sun off of our faces and heads. Everyone had their preferred style. Anika liked the bucket hat, Jake the baseball style and Jamie and I did baseball or sun hat depending on the day and what we were doing. 

Hydration Supplies

I cannot express how important it was for us to drink water at Disney in September. It’s so hot, you are sweating just being alive. Powerade is something I definitely don’t drink in my normal day to day life, and yet every afternoon at Disney I would crave it and select it as my resort mug beverage of choice. I think I was a bit dehydrated from the heat and my body knew it. 

A good water bottle

We made the mistake of just packing plastic water bottles that got hot quickly. Should have brought our go to Owalla’s from home to keep our water nice and cold. 

CamelBak

Jamie swore by his CamelBak and absolutely loved it on this trip. 

Electrolytes 

With the amount of sweating we did at Disney in September water alone wasn’t going to cut it to rehydrate us. A packet of Liquid IV, a cup of Powerade, a bottle of Body Armor, any one of these in addition to a bunch of water a day was definitely life giving. 

Mid Day Breaks

One of the best thing we did at Disney to help with the heat was to start our days early, stay late and take a mid day break. The heat in the mornings and evenings wasn’t awful. 1-4 in the afternoon was when things got tough, especially the days when the sun was out. 

We planned afternoon breaks in the hotel air conditioning to rest and hydrate or if we stayed in the park we’d go to air conditioned shows, pop into a gift shop for a bit or get a snack in the ac. 

Athletic Clothing

After being highly recommended by my friend I purchased some clothing from 32 Degrees for this trip. I was looking for moisture wicking, light weight clothing that didn’t cost a ton of money. This is exactly what this website sells. When I tried my newly purchased items on I was worried everything was going to be too short. I even exchanged the athletic skirt for a bigger size. I shouldn’t have and shouldn’t have worried about things being too short. My dress had built in shorts and a bra reducing the layers of hot and sweaty clothing I had to wear. 

If I had to do it over again I’d buy four of those athletic dresses and rotate through them like a uniform during our park days. They were lightweight, kept the sweat off me and allowed for airflow! They were also so convenient because everything was built in (shorts and bra). I enjoyed the athletic skirt and tank top  but it was much too long to be comfortable. Any extra fabric in Disney in September is miserable so I’d do that route but definitely a shorter skirt.

If skirts and dresses aren’t your thing I’d recommend athletic shorts. I wore these for our day at Animal Kingdom with an athletic tank from 32 Degrees and it worked out well too. Definitely much more comfortable then jean shorts! Those athletic tanks are great and also have a built in bra. They are only 7.99 right now!

Pull your Hair Back!

Long hair is brutal in the heat. My daughter and I both braided our hair to keep it off of our necks.

Sunglasses

Cheap sunglasses that I didn’t have to worry about losing or breaking (fun story my husband in fact did break them 😂) were a necessity. I got some polarized ones from amazon. I would recommend going with something even cheaper from Target or Walmart. Something you can throw in a purse or bag quickly and not have to worry about scratching, breaking or losing, but good enough quality to shield your eyes from the Florida sun.

Embrace it!

The last thing we did was to just embrace the heat! There were some benefits to it being hot that we didn’t get to experience when going to Disney in January. We got so much pool time this trip. We could swim morning, noon and night and that was incredible. Water rides were great when it was hot too, also something I have zero interest in in January! Also, September has the lowest crowds we’ve ever experienced at Disney. This was a nice trade off the amount of sweating we did. 🤣 Also, we were in Disney World on an amazing trip, feeling so much gratitude that we were fortunate enough to be able to go on this vacation. How lucky were we? Thinking like that cools you down real quick!

Amazon List

Here’s an Amazon list I put together of some of our favorite things we used to help us with the heat at Disney in September.