[00:00:00] Dana Stanley: If your feed has been looking anything like mine, you’re probably very much thinking about gifts right now, and I’ve noticed that a lot of like gift guides on the internet are more geared towards kids and or if it’s for like Disney related things. They’re kind of like over the top themed gifts. So I wanted to give you guys like an updated gift guide for the Disney lover who isn’t necessarily like over the top Disney.

[00:00:38] Dana Stanley: Maybe they love subtle Disney or just going to Disney World, or if you have a friend or someone in the family that you know who’s going to Disney World soon, but aren’t necessarily regulars, a lot of the things on this list would be perfect for them too.

[00:01:00] Dana Stanley: Some of these ideas could be for the friend who goes really often. Maybe they have an annual pass. It could be for the person planning their very first trip next year in 2026. It could be maybe the one who loves the old classic Disney movies and you wanna get them something that they’ll use but isn’t like cheesy and over the top.

[00:01:25] Dana Stanley: A formal intro

[00:01:36] Dana Stanley: to get started, I put together a list of my 10 favorite, thoughtful, also useful gifts for the Disney person. You know who it is in your world or honestly for yourself. And all of these things on the list, I either own and use, or I have gifted or I have gifted to someone. So they’re like my tried and true favorite things and they’re all very affordable, which is a plus.

[00:02:08] Dana Stanley: I first up on the list is a bag. This is a sling bag called the Louis Sling from a brand called Walker Family Goods. If you know me, you know how much I love Walker Family Goods. Really all of their bags. But what started my collection with them was the Louis Sling. It was the first bag that I got from them, specifically for, I had gotten it specifically for Disney because it’s a little bit bigger than like.

[00:02:40] Dana Stanley: The very popular, um, like Lululemon sling bag. I needed something that was a little longer to fit a diaper or two diapers. So it is just the perfect, so it’s just the perfect bag. I wear it across my chest. You can also kind of flip it so that it’s more on your back, but it’s just so comfortable. It’s indestructible.

[00:03:05] Dana Stanley: It looks good even when it gets a little dirty, if that makes sense. Like it’s not. Like it doesn’t need to be pristine. And then when it does get dirty or I spill something on it, I just throw it in the wash. It has like tons of pockets. I just love this bag. So a lot of people ask me like, how much fits in it.

[00:03:23] Dana Stanley: So I usually have like a very slim pack of baby wipes in there, one or two diapers, my phone, an extra battery pack, and like, you know, a lip balm or sometimes my sunglasses. And they come in. So many colors. Actually, lemme look it up real quick. Okay. I just looked it up and it looks like they have around like 20, 29 different colors.

[00:03:49] Dana Stanley: They just came out with this fun collection and when I say fun, I mean like fun. That’s what they called it. And it has this really pretty chocolate brown that I want, but they also have like brighter colors like. Red and olive green, which I have. They have sage, which I have. I am not allowed to get another one because I think I have four.

[00:04:09] Dana Stanley: It’s just the perfect bag for every day, and especially in Disney World, even their logo is like a little starburst. So it just has this like little like magical nod. I don’t know. I love it. You can throw like a little Mickey key chain on there and make it like extra Disney if they wanted to. It’s just perfect.

[00:04:28] Dana Stanley: And by the way, as I go down this list. And by the way, as I go down this list, these are all linked in the episode description, and if you need more information on them, I will link it into a blog post as well.

[00:04:46] Dana Stanley: Second on the list is a book called Ride of a Lifetime. This is an autobiography by the CEO of the Walt Disney Company right now. Bob Iger. He has a wild ride of a story, no pun intended. I read this book back in 2020 and I loved it so much that I actually lended it to my father-in-law for him to read, and then found out that he had lended it to my mother-in-law to read.

[00:05:20] Dana Stanley: She loved it. And then. They lended it to Colin’s uncle who also loved it, and they like Disney, but they’re not like super, super fans. So if you’re looking for something maybe for like grandpa, I don’t think they have to be like huge Disney fans to like this. Like my dad could care less, but I also think he would really enjoy reading this book, if that makes sense.

[00:05:49] Dana Stanley: I think it has over like 20,005 star reviews on Amazon. Something like that. It’s, it’s just a very well rated, but like well written and just well-rounded autobiography.

[00:06:07] Dana Stanley: I’ve talked about number three before on the podcast, and now I’m like reaching. The point where I think I’m gonna start buying the expansion packs, which is super dorky, but this is Dream Light Valley. It’s a video game. We play it on the N, we play it on the Nintendo Switch, but I think you can also get it for other game consoles.

[00:06:30] Dana Stanley: It is an all Disney and Pixar themed like adventure game where the whole goal is to complete. Quest so that you can unlock more characters. So it’s really cool unlocking a character. My kids love it and we’re all kind of working on the same account, so sometimes I’m playing, sometimes sailor’s playing who’s five and I have to like, she’s just learning to read, so sometimes she needs a little bit of help or my 9-year-old who plays on our own.

[00:06:57] Dana Stanley: But we’re all kind of working on the same quest, trying to get as much dream light as possible so we can unlock more characters. And then it’s really exciting when we do.

[00:07:15] Dana Stanley: And now we have, and we have not unlocked all of them of the like og, dream Light Valley, but there are other characters like Rapunzel that we would love to have that are not in the core game. So now I might be getting an expansion pack. I’ll report back on that. The next gift idea is one of my absolute favorite things, and that is a vintage Disney record.

[00:07:43] Dana Stanley: You can get them so easily online now, especially on Etsy. They’re really affordable. And I, and I was thinking, and what I was thinking is if you wanted to kind of like. Beef up the gift, you could do a record with an actual record player because obviously to listen to a record, the person needs a record player and they don’t.

[00:08:08] Dana Stanley: That’s a perfect gift opportunity. That’s also a great gift. We had a record player in my daughter’s room when she was little, and that’s just something. I remember very vividly is like, we have this little basket just full of vintage Disney records, and a lot of them are more like story style. So we would listen to like, oh, we need the Poo one, or a Peter Pan one.

[00:08:33] Dana Stanley: But we also have ones that are just music. Um, we have one that’s like, we found ones that are more obscure. Like we have one that’s like the Adventureland music. So like you could get pretty niche with it depending on the person. But I think you could find something for everyone, like even for like a little kid or a baby or an adult.

[00:08:57] Dana Stanley: There are so many vintage Disney records. To give you some ideas, some of the ones that we really like are the Jungle Book, um, Mickey and The Beanstalk. We have Mary Poppins.

[00:09:19] Dana Stanley: Lady in the Tramp, like those, we have like a lady in the tramp one where it’s more of the reading of the story and then it has like different sound effects. They’re very cool. You can find some for like five bucks, sometimes like maybe five to $20 a record I would say, or on Etsy. A lot of people do like bundles, so you could do like a cute bow.

[00:09:42] Dana Stanley: Put it on a record player. That would be really cute.

[00:09:49] Dana Stanley: Coming up halfway through the list is Yes, my planning course laid back Magic because, because sometimes the most thoughtful gift you could give someone is help planning their Disney World trip. So if you’re interested in this, yes, you can gift. You can gift someone access to laid back magic. If you want to go ahead and email me at hello, at hello@somewhereworthwhile.com, I’ll leave a link in the show description and we will get them all set up.

[00:10:29] Dana Stanley: Number six is kind of a new one, but an old one for us because. We’ve owned it for, I can’t even tell you how long, sitting in like a game closet and because I have a 2-year-old boy, he rummaged through the closet, found it, and now we’ve been playing it.

[00:10:48] Dana Stanley: And that is the The Disney Pic. OIA card game. So we have like the travel version, I guess. I think there’s two versions. It looks like there’s two versions. One has more like a board. This one is just small. It looks like a pack of Uno cards, which is great. And it does have like some type of rules, like you roll a dice and do something, but we don’t even play it like that.

[00:11:13] Dana Stanley: We’ve just been pulling it out at the kitchen table. And what it’ll have is on one side of the card has four characters, A, B, C, and D, and they’re different on every card. And then on the back it’ll ask you. And on the back it’ll say something like, which two characters lived in Erindale? Or something like that.

[00:11:35] Dana Stanley: Or which three characters, uh, were raised by animals or something like that. So you learn a lot about, but it has like some obscure characters where when you see them without a name, you have a hard time placing it. So it kind of like, if you’re really a dizzy. Person like me, I like that because it kind of refreshes your memory or you learn about characters that maybe you haven’t heard of from, ’cause it’ll have like Pixar to Disney Junior to like all under the Disney umbrella characters.

[00:12:11] Dana Stanley: We’re definitely going to be bringing this the next time we travel or fly or go anywhere. It’s great for restaurants. But yeah, we’ve just been playing it at dinner too.

[00:12:23] Dana Stanley: Next on the list is a film camera, just like an inexpensive film camera. You could do a disposable camera. I know there’s like a lot of different brands coming out where it is a like screenless digital camera, so it feels like film. Anything down that alley. I prefer like true 35 millimeter film that I also buy the film for.

[00:12:46] Dana Stanley: I get it developed. This is great for anybody that has that nostalgia feel because the look and feel of bringing just a small film camera to Disney A, all of the photos are going to have that vintage feel without having to do any editing. But it’s also just a great thing to bring to Disney because the kids love taking pictures and it’s not something with a screen that you have to worry about.

[00:13:11] Dana Stanley: So it keeps them busy, and then you also get the memories on top of it.

[00:13:21] Dana Stanley: I get asked a lot on Instagram, like what preset I’m using on my feed photos. They’re all film because I actually hate editing photos, so the easiest thing to do is just shoot it on film and it looks great from the beginning.

[00:13:37] Dana Stanley: Next on the list is definitely the easiest thing to do that you could do. That you can do truly last minute and like from your phone, and that is a Disney gift card. I mean, it could be $5, a hundred dollars. And this is so easy because they can really use it for anything Disney. They could put it towards, uh, park tickets, even.

[00:14:04] Dana Stanley: They could put it towards their park tickets or use it at one of the restaurants. Or use it on food once they’re in Disney, or they could use it on shop disney.com if they just want like merch. So if they’re either not going to Disney but they like Disney or you know that they’re headed there, a Disney gift card is great.

[00:14:26] Dana Stanley: And I feel like it shows that you put a little bit more thought into it than just like a Visa gift card or cash that like, Hey, I know you like Disney, or, Hey, I know you have a trip coming up.

[00:14:39] Dana Stanley: I got the idea for putting this one on the list because I recently was at my mom’s house, like a, you know, my childhood home. And I saw a blanket that I got her years ago in Hollywood Studios. It’s like a, um, it’s a throw blanket that she has on the couch. And when I saw it, I immediately thought of my mom.

[00:15:01] Dana Stanley: It has like very muted. Kind of dusty colors with a really beautiful green that matches her couch perfectly. But it was actually an Alice in Wonderland blanket. So when you hold the whole thing up, it has this beautiful illustration, I think from Mary Blair of an Alice in Wonderland theme. But you can’t tell when it’s on the couch.

[00:15:22] Dana Stanley: It’s like so beautiful. And I looked for that and there’s like ones on eBay and things, but they don’t make it anymore ’cause it was so long ago. But in my searching I did find these beautiful blankets that have the same thing where they have a Disney print, but if they’re tossed on like a bed or a couch, they’re really subtle.

[00:15:43] Dana Stanley: Like you wouldn’t know because it just kind of comes down to the colors. Like the colors are just very muted and beautiful.

[00:15:59] Dana Stanley: I don’t think anyone can have enough like cozy blankets, so this would just be a great gift. And they have lots of different designs depending on the person’s style. So I’m gonna link the one that I found that I specifically would buy my mom. Just in case that’s helpful because it has topiaries on it.

[00:16:17] Dana Stanley: It’s got that perfect green that would match her couch. And if your mom is anything like my mom, she would love this blanket. On that same line of thinking, number 10 is I think for more of like the savvy Disney person or like if you don’t know a lot about Disney. But they know a lot about Disney.

[00:16:38] Dana Stanley: They’ll be like, really impressed that you got them this book. And bonus points, if it’s for a woman who is also into art, and this is a book on Mary Blair. I know I just mentioned her, but if you don’t know who that is, Mary Blair was an artist very much in Walt Disney’s inner circle, and she’s known for her style like it is.

[00:17:02] Dana Stanley: More kind of like modern, um, like big color blocking with beautiful colors. She worked on films. She worked on things in the theme parks. She worked on things in the resorts.

[00:17:19] Dana Stanley: If you can picture the themeing of Small World, that was all Mary Blair’s design. This book is different than the other one I mentioned because it’s more like a beautiful coffee table book ’cause it has all of her illustrations and art in there. It’d be something that they could keep on display too.

[00:17:53] Dana Stanley: If you were to ask me what I would like as a gift, I have a goal for getting a certain amount of reviews by the end of the year. So if you haven’t already, and you can take just a minute to leave a five star review. I would be so, so thankful. The fact that I’m recording my 45th episode is actually insane.

[00:18:14] Dana Stanley: So I just wanna tell you, thank you for listening because there would not be a podcast obviously without you listening, and I’m really grateful if you’ve already left a review or about to leave a review or if you wanna email me hello at somewhere worthwhile. And gimme some feedback of what you’d love to hear in future episodes or how I can make this channel better.

[00:18:39] Dana Stanley: That’s it for today’s episode, and I will see you next week.