How to Deal With Flu Season in Disney World

If you’re traveling to Disney World, you’re likely running at least a small risk that you could get sick during your trip. Travel, in general, presents that possibility, as you’re interacting with more strangers than usual and are often in a small, confined space with other people (like an airplane or a car).

Travel poses a risk of getting sick

Add in the big crowds that are usually in the Disney Parks, and you’ve increased the odds even more. Right now we’re also moving into flu season, with the winter months coming up soon. So do you just have to accept your sneezy fate? Not necessarily! Here are some tips that can help you stay healthy during your upcoming Disney World trip.

According to the CDC, the flu season in the Northern Hemisphere begins around October and lasts until about April or May. The busy holiday season at Disney World is usually from November to October, so you can expect larger crowds in the parks at that time.

Magic Kingdom

Especially if you’re going to join the holiday travel rush, you’ll want to check out these tips to help you avoid getting sick or at least to be prepared in case you do start to feel bad during your vacation.

Tips to Stay Healthy and Be Prepared

Get the Flu Shot

The CDC recommends that people ages 6 months old and older get the flu vaccine every year. The best time to get it is in the fall before the U.S. flu season starts. Note that you should be vaccinated at least 2 weeks before you plan to travel, as “it takes 2 weeks for vaccine immunity to develop after vaccination” (CDC).

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You can get the yearly flu shot for free at most pharmacies, like Walgreens or CVS. Some grocery stores that have health centers may also have the shot available.

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Before you travel, it’s also a good idea to be completely vaccinated for COVID-19. Being fully vaccinated means you’ve had all the required doses of any approved vaccine and 2 weeks have passed since the last dose. A booster for the vaccine is also recommended and available now. The CDC has a lot of information about which vaccines are approved and what you need to do to stay up-to-date on your vaccine doses.

Learn About Flu Activity at Your Destination

Understanding what the flu is like at your travel destination can help you make well-informed decisions about your plans and be prepared for what you might encounter when you visit.

Orlando International Airport

The CDC monitors flu activity throughout the world — you can check out updates here.

Wash Your Hands Often

You’ve heard these tips time and again, but we’ll go over them one more time for good measure! Make sure you’re washing your hands frequently while traveling, especially after you’ve been in contact with high-touch areas.

Sink

You should use soap and running water and scrub your hands together for at least 20 seconds. If you’ve been coughing or sneezing, this is especially important.

Wash those hands!

If your hands are not visibly dirty or if water and soap are not immediately available, you can use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that has at least 60% alcohol.

Cover Your Mouth and Nose with a Tissue When Coughing or Sneezing

If you’ve been coughing or sneezing, make sure to pack your tissues and hand sanitizer! You should always cover both your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. If you don’t have a tissue with you, use your upper sleeve instead (not your hands).

Towels and tissues

Make sure to wash your hands or use hand sanitizer after you cough or sneeze.

Avoid Contact with Sick People

This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s worth mentioning. If you don’t want to get sick, it’s best to avoid contact with people who are sick.

Magic Kingdom crowds

That may not be possible all the time, such as if a sick person is on your flight or in your car. In that case, you can use a face mask and wash your hands or use hand sanitizer frequently to help prevent getting sick.

Keep Your Hands Away from Your Face

One of the fastest ways that germs spread is when someone touches something (a doorknob, table, or really any surface) that has also been touched by a sick person, and then the healthy person touches their own face.

Fingerprint scanners are high-touch areas

Keeping your hands away from your face — particularly away from your nose and mouth — can help prevent infection. Before eating or if you need to touch your face for any other reason, wash your hands first.

Drink Lots of Water

Drinking water is so important for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons is that it can help you stay healthy or recover from sickness faster.

Drink that water!

By keeping your body hydrated, it will better be able to fight off infection. Plus, you’ll feel better in general and be able to stay energized during your Disney World trip.

Bring a Travel Health Kit

Having a few health essentials on hand is very important. You never know when you might need a tissue, some hand sanitizer, or a face mask.

It’s always best to pack some medicine from home, too!

We’ve compiled a list of some of the most important elements in a travel health kit below — take a look to build your own kit before your vacation.

Don’t Travel If You Feel Sick

And finally, you should not travel if you feel sick. According to the CDC, “If you are sick with symptoms of influenza-like illness, you should not travel. These symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headache, and fatigue.” Not everyone with the flu will have a fever.

Stay home if you feel sick!

If you do get sick, you should stay home until at least 24 hours after you no longer are experiencing symptoms. If you start to feel sick while you’re traveling, you can use a face mask, hand sanitizer, and sanitizing wipes to help prevent other people from being infected.

Feeling sick while you’re in the parks? Click here to learn all about First Aid stations in Disney World.

How to Build a Travel Health Kit

To help you be totally prepared for your next trip, we’ve assembled some essentials to create the perfect travel health kit. First, you’ll need some hand sanitizer to keep your hands germ-free in the parks.

You can get a pack of 8 travel-sized hand sanitizers from Amazon, and each bottle comes with a gel carrier so you can attach it to your bag for easy access throughout the day. The pack of 8 hand sanitizers is on sale now for $14.38!

Click here to buy some hand sanitizer.

Although face masks are not required anywhere in Disney World, you can of course wear them if you want to be extra careful. They can help you and others stay healthy.

On Amazon, you can get a pack of 25 N95 face masks for $19.74.

Click here to buy the face masks from Amazon.

Stick some sanitizing wipes into your bag as well so that you can wipe down tables, airplane seats, and other frequently touched surfaces that you come in contact with while traveling.

There’s a 6-pack of travel-sized Purell hand sanitizing wipes (each package has 20 wipes) on sale on Amazon now for $12.54.

Click here to buy sanitizing wipes from Amazon.

There’s probably nothing worse than having a runny nose and no tissue available. Prevent that uncomfy disaster by bringing along travel packs of tissues!

You can find an 8-pack of travel-sized Kleenex packages, with 10 tissues in each package. They’re on sale now for $7.45 (down from $10.92).

Click here to buy the tissue travel packs.

Remember how important it is to drink water? The winter months won’t be quite as hot in Orlando as the summer, so it can be easy to forget to keep sipping on water throughout the day. To help you remember, bring along a fun reusable water bottle!

And if you want to save some packing space as well, you can’t go wrong with a collapsible water bottle. You can collapse it to put it in your parks bag and then expand it once you’re ready to fill it up in the parks! There’s one on Amazon for $12.99 (down from $15.99) that comes in a few different colors.