5. Weather Underground – Take that, Florida

Screenshot: Jett Farrell-Vega, Weather Underground App for Android

Florida is a beautiful state, but it certainly has some testy weather. When it comes to keeping track of the Sunshine State’s temperamental skies, no app has more features for the thorough traveler than Weather Underground.

Weather Underground isn’t your average weather app. Yes, it delivers all the information expected in similar apps like Weather Channel or Accuweather—detailed forecasts, radar maps, and weather news. However, Weather Underground takes things to a whole new level of specificity. Users can easily access details on sunrise and sunset times, moon cycles, ozone quality, pollen count, how high the UV index is, hurricane reports, and even flu reports. A search through the Walt Disney World page can give visitors access to webcams from the area to see live footage of conditions, and you can even use the app to set up smart forecasts for daily activities like hikes and runs.

Oh, and Weather Underground has one particularly neat feature that trumps all competitors. You can completely customize how its data is used thanks to a very helpful connected app…

6. IFTTT – Hack your trip

Screenshot: Jett Farrell-Vega, IFTTT App for Android

I could easily write a full article on the endless potential for hacking your Walt Disney World vacation using IFTTT. For those who aren’t familiar, IFTTT stands for “If-This-Then-That”. It is a workflow automation program that allows you to set very specific macros for your phone that run in the background and make complex tasks simple. It is most commonly used to automating lights, A/C, and other systems in smart homes, but the possibilities for using this versatile program at Walt Disney World are myriad.

For example, using Weather Underground, IFTTT users can set their phones to automatically call or email every morning with a daily weather report. If you have party members prone to sunburn, you can set IFTTT to send you a notification every time the UV index rises above sunburn levels. You can also receive notifications regarding incoming rain, wind speed, pollen counts, and more.

If you like sharing trip updates to social media, you can automate the process across social networks by using IFTTT triggers. One example would be that when you share a photo to Instagram with a certain hashtag, you can have IFTTT automatically share that photo to Facebook (even to a specific album). The same applies to Twitter, Pinterest, and Foursquare. It definitely makes sharing trip photos easier.

You can also set IFTTT to back up your trip photos to OneDrive, DropBox, Google Drive, and other photo engines. Oh, and if your battery is constantly dying due to Wi-Fi hopping throughout the parks, you can set an IFTTT trigger to shut Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off when your battery reaches a certain percentage. Oh, and if you just want to do something fun, you can use IFTTT to set up a trip countdown notification. Pretty cool!

What unusual app is your favorite must-have tool for visiting theme parks?