Flat in the bag · wrap the face · TSA-ok in carry-on
Most Orlando trips are not one building. You land at MCO, you ride I-4 or the Beachline toward a hotel, you walk a park, you drive to dinner on International Drive, and on some weeks you split the stay. Park days first, then the coast, Winter Park, or a night closer to downtown. The magnet that survives that week is light, flat, and wrapped so the face does not take the trip’s scratches. Travel here is one piece in the bag, then a door at home.
You already know how to pack a suitcase. The Orlando question is where a fridge plaque rides so it is still itself when you unpack, and what happens when the week splits between a park hotel and somewhere else.
How to pack the plaque
The face is the trip. Enamel chips on tile; tin print scuffs on a zipper; glass and resin want a hard case. Wrapping is ordinary household care, not a special kit.
- Soft neighbor. Put the face against a T-shirt sleeve, a sock, a handkerchief, or the paper it came in if the paper is clean.
- One layer between enamel faces. Metal lines scratch color.
- Out of the toiletry bag. Sunscreen and mouthwash are how a print clouds. Pool chlorine on a damp towel is the same problem.
- Tin print wants a stiff neighbor: inside a notebook, against a hardcover, so the corners do not fold.
- Enamel plaque can ride in a hard glasses case if you have one empty. The case is accidental armor.
- Date the back before you wrap, with a marker on the magnetic pad, not on the face.
The Transportation Security Administration lists magnets as allowed in carry-on bags and in checked bags (last updated April 17, 2017 on that item page). The officer at the checkpoint has the final say. Ordinary fridge plaques are household objects. Pack the plaque in the cabin bag if you want it on the first fridge you meet. Pack it in the checked bag if the cabin is already a crush. Either is allowed. Wrap it either way.
Split stays: park one block, then somewhere else
| Week | Magnet |
|---|---|
| Park hotel only | One trip piece, bought at the end or packed from home |
| Park then coast | Still one piece. The coast is not a second diary. |
| Lake Nona or downtown work stay | Civic Orlando. Test the apartment door. |
| Two hotels | The plaque moves in the cabin bag. The set does not. |
The classic Orlando week is a hotel on the tourist spine and a park day that starts early. Lake Buena Vista, Kissimmee, and International Drive are the usual beds. You leave clothes in the room. You take a small bag to the gate. You come back wet and sun-tired. If you buy a magnet, it rides back in a pocket, not in a pile of wet ponchos.
Split stays are common. Park one block of days, then drive east to the coast or north toward Winter Park and downtown. The magnet does not need a second copy for the second hotel. One piece per trip keeps the home door readable: last summer’s city view, this year’s park-day icon, the Lake Nona month someone lived here for work. If every building produces four magnets, the diary goes mute.
Lake Nona and the Medical City side of town are a different week: more local, more car, fewer trams. A civic plaque still belongs. Downtown is walkable in a way the park belt is not, but the heat is the same climate. Hotel kitchenettes here are often small. Test the door. Skip the frame until you are home. The fridge guide is that later kitchen.
Heat in a parked car, and the airport
Central Florida will finish a bag left on a seat. Summer highs in the low-to-mid 90s, humidity in the seventies and eighties, and a closed car in a Kissimmee or I-Drive lot add up to an interior that is not a storage unit. A tin print left on a dashboard can bow. An enamel face left in a cup holder picks up grit that then grinds. Bring the plaque inside. If you stop for lunch between a park and the hotel, it comes with you in the same pocket it rode to the gate.
People look for a magnet when the week is already over. The end of a park day is the first moment. International Drive is the second: hotel guests who never entered a gate still want a city object before they drive I-4 in the morning. The airport is the third: the last chance, when the souvenir is either in the bag or it is not. If you are still choosing, start with the souvenir family, park-day magnets, and what a souvenir magnet is doing in Orlando. Catalog map: five families. If the magnet is already home, the fridge guide is the door. A fridge-memory kit for that door: fridge-memory kit.
Name the week when you Prefer email? Use our contact page.: park hotel only, park then coast, Lake Nona month, downtown conference. Publisher: Orlando Magnet Company and Tabaconda LLC.