[00:00:00] Dana Stanley: If you’re anything like me, you’re probably packing your portable sound machine. Your Stroller fans, maybe some backup outfits for the backup outfits for your next trip to Disney World, but have you thought about your tech stack for Disney? And when I say quote Tech Stack, I’m talking about the apps that can help make a Disney trip run smoothly.

[00:00:21] Dana Stanley: Especially if you are a mom managing all of the logistics of the trip. So in this episode, I’m going to break down what I actually have downloaded on my phone before every trip. Some of them I’ve used for years and some of them more recently. And why from now on, I do not want to show up to Disney World without these.

[00:00:42] Dana Stanley: Hello and welcome to the Laid Back Magic Way podcast. I’m your host, Dana Stanley, creator of Laid Back Magic. As a mom of three, I know how tough it can be to find time to plan a Disney World trip. That doesn’t leave you feeling stressed or overwhelmed. That’s why I’m here to help moms like you create Disney vacations that feel even better than they look on paper here.

[00:01:02] Dana Stanley: We’re not chasing perfection, but creating our next favorite memories. So whether you’re brand new to Disney or looking to go deeper into the details. This podcast is your go-to for simple tips, mindset shifts, real life trip recaps, and expert insights to make your trip magical and manageable. New episodes drop every Monday, so be sure to subscribe so you never miss a moment.

[00:01:23] Dana Stanley: Okay, let’s dive in. Before we dive in, this list is all about apps, so not necessarily websites or services to use. But believe it or not, the combination of these apps can help you skip the most lines as possible. Can keep your packing list as minimal as possible, and just help keep the mental load of the Disney World trip itself a little bit lighter, which is always a win in my book.

[00:01:51] Dana Stanley: Now, you certainly don’t need all of these, but even just one or two added to your arsenal I think is a great place to start. This first app has changed and adapted over the years, but I keep coming back to it, trip after trip because I’m telling you like once you use it, you kind of can’t live without it, which is what I’ve heard from many people that have used it.

[00:02:12] Dana Stanley: And this is Standby Skipper. So this is a third party app, meaning it is not owned or operated by Disney. Has nothing to do with Disney as a company. And actually the sweetest people started this back in the Genie plus days. So this was. Disney World’s old Skip the Line Service called Genie Plus when you were not able to pre-book Lightning Lanes.

[00:02:35] Dana Stanley: That’s kind of how the app was born. And I’ll give you a quick rundown is when you buy Lightning Lane Multipass, which is the new name of Genie Plus, and there’s a few changes from how it used to be, but you can pre-book three rides ahead of time for your park day to use the Lightning Lane four. And every time I say lightning lane, just know that that is the faster, quicker line in Disney versus the regular standby line.

[00:03:01] Dana Stanley: So even though you walk into the park with three pre-booked rides, when you scan into your first ride, you can start booking more lightning lanes. And this is the absolute key to getting the most lightning liens as possible. And in turn, staying out of long lines. When I buy Lightning Lane Multipass, I wanna use the lightning lane for everything.

[00:03:21] Dana Stanley: Even if it only saves me five or 10 minutes, I wanna be booking as many lightning liens as possible. So when you’re scanning into your lightning lanes and you’re unlocking more lightning lanes, essentially you can go back onto the Disney World App and refresh the screen as many times as you want.

[00:03:38] Dana Stanley: Waiting for certain lightning lanes to pop up. Some rides might be available that aren’t super in demand, but then there’s other rides that will be completely sold out. Let’s take our last trip, for example. We had a day in Epcot where we used our three pre-booked lightning lanes for frozen ever after.

[00:03:58] Dana Stanley: Nemo and Friends and Journey into your imagination. And I was using standby Skipper to book my Epcot Lightning Lanes as we were in the park scanning and it was booking it for me. We had plans to hop later to Hollywood Studios that night, so I really wanted to get a lightning lane for Slinky Dog Dash over in Hollywood Studios.

[00:04:19] Dana Stanley: But the problem was that the lightning lane for it was completely gone inside of the Disney World app. It’s a very long line, so the lightning lanes obviously book up for it very quickly. Especially when guests are booking a week in advance of the trip or three days in advance of the trip. And this is where the standby Skipper app comes in.

[00:04:39] Dana Stanley: So you can go into the app and say, Hey, find me a slinky dog dash for two people, four people, whatever. You select the people that you want and then you pick a general time window. So for us, I did evening. I actually wanted to ride at night. I think Slinky Dog is super fun at night. And sure enough, while we were relaxing later in the afternoon, it got us a lightning lane, perfectly timed before Fantasma, just when I wanted.

[00:05:09] Dana Stanley: So instead of me, Dana Stanley sitting on my phone literally for hours. Refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, hoping that a lightning lane pops up. Standby. Skipper is in the background doing that for you. So it finds the return times that pop up when someone cancels or maybe just more availability pops up the day of.

[00:05:32] Dana Stanley: So it’s letting you stay off your phone, be in the parks, enjoying the rides, instead of obsessively checking on the app while you’re trying to, you know, be in a theme park with your kids, which is already stressful in itself, on top of having to worry about booking lightning lanes so that you don’t have to wait in line.

[00:05:51] Dana Stanley: But now you’re on your phone all the time. Standby Skipper just completely takes care of that part. But this is completely separate on its own from the Disney World Lightning Lane system at all. So you would have to buy Lightning Lane Multipass and then also buy Standby Skipper and download the app, which comes to the next thing in your text stack, which is the My Disney Experience app.

[00:06:16] Dana Stanley: Or if you search in the App Store, it could come up as the Disney World App, and this is an obvious choice. But trust me, you’re going to be using this more than any other app while you’re on vacation. This is going to have your park tickets where you book Dining Reservations, the whole Lightning Lane interface.

[00:06:37] Dana Stanley: Park maps wait times, where to find characters and bathrooms and water refill stations. Everything that you need is going to be in this app, and I wanna mention this in the beginning of this episode as a reminder that you can download the My Disney Experience app or MDE app right after you listen, because you can start clicking around today.

[00:06:59] Dana Stanley: If it prompts you to make an account, that’s fine. Just remember that your email and password. Are the same things that you’re going to want to remember when you really start booking your trip and buying tickets so you have everything together. And don’t underestimate how much this will help your trip just clicking around the app, even just going into the park maps and zooming in.

[00:07:21] Dana Stanley: I mean, you can really see parking lots and playgrounds and monorail lines. You can get your bearings so well if you’re new to Disney, just from playing around with this app. So like. Your usual like 10 to 15 minute Instagram scroll. Go into the MDE app and just play around. I promise it’s going to make you feel a lot more confident with your trip coming up.

[00:07:44] Dana Stanley: I wasn’t sure whether to put this one in my tech stack, but when I thought about it, it really is the bones of the trip itself and I refer to it more often than not. And that’s Google Sheets, which. Technically is its own app. So when I show my members how to quote, sketch their trip, I’m usually in Google Sheets.

[00:08:08] Dana Stanley: I love paper and pen, and sometimes maybe I’ll start with it, but I’ve found that with paper, as much as I love it, I’ve been ending up losing it. Like I am just such an airhead lately and I’m losing everything or. Someone scribbles on it. And when I say someone, I mean crew, which is very cute ’cause he loves to draw.

[00:08:31] Dana Stanley: But I’m looking at like a notebook right now and I can’t read it because he scribbled all over it. And I don’t have to worry about that with Google Sheets because it’s auto saving in the background. So if I need to refer to it on my laptop when it’s sitting on my desk or even like on my phone sometimes.

[00:08:48] Dana Stanley: We’re out and about and I wanna check something, or Colton asks about a date or reservation or something. I can just pull it up on my phone. But the best part is once it’s all settled and I really have a bird’s eye view of the sketch, I can go back and just print it out and then that’s what I take with me on the trip.

[00:09:07] Dana Stanley: It’s not a sketch anymore. It’s like a concrete. Schedule of all of our plans, and I will throw that paper in my suitcase and keep it next to our bed once we’re in the hotel. Or I’ll tape it to the wall sometimes and I really like that. I can just keep track of, you know, which park we’re going to that day, what lightning lanes I have pre-booked.

[00:09:28] Dana Stanley: I’ll do what time the park opens, how the crowd levels are gonna look that day. So if you’re someone who like needs to see the week at a glance, I feel like that would be really helpful. At this point, I kind of consider myself like a collector of dining alerts or like dining alert systems. I really think that I have tried all of them, mouse dining, magical alerts, thrill data, but these specific dining alerts, I’m talking about their websites.

[00:09:58] Dana Stanley: Which is not a big deal, but today we’re talking about apps specifically more than websites, and for that I’ve been liking stakeout. Dining reservations in Disney can get pretty intense. I feel like they have not been as intense or as in demand as years passed. So I don’t stress about getting certain dining as much as I used to.

[00:10:25] Dana Stanley: And ever since my son was born, the thought of waking up at 6:00 AM to book dining, just I prioritize sleep so much. Like if I don’t have to wake up early, I’m going to use everything I can to avoid that. Sometimes I just skip the whole 6:00 AM thing. So in that case, that’s when I use dining alerts. So this would be a service that watches for dining reservations for you, and then we’ll send you an alert through text and or email when something opens up because people are canceling all the time.

[00:10:58] Dana Stanley: So any dining alert system is really helpful, but if you’re looking for an app, stakeout works really well for getting those hard to get dining spots like Cinderella’s Royal Table, which is eating at the Castle or Topos, which is a very popular. Breakfast reservation at Riviera Resort, which I highly recommend.

[00:11:19] Dana Stanley: I do love it there, and it lets you be a little bit more spontaneous too, like on our last trip, I didn’t book Totino’s until the night before the breakfast because I had an alert set up. And honestly, anytime I have an alert set up, I have no problem getting a reservation. Where we want. So especially if you have like a last minute trip coming up and you missed your reservation window, then this would be a great app to have on your phone.

[00:11:45] Dana Stanley: One of our biggest kind of non-negotiables when we travel is sticking to just carry-ons. No matter how many kids we have, every kid, we just kind of figure it out of still not checking a bag. And the Instacart app, even though it sounds a little random, is. Mainly how we do it. So the week of our vacation, I will schedule a small Instacart order to our resort address.

[00:12:12] Dana Stanley: So you’ll wanna have the exact address of your resort for this to work, which going back to the My Disney Experience app, you can actually go under your reservation. And this is the address that I will use over just like a Google map search to make sure it’s super accurate with the address that Disney gives.

[00:12:30] Dana Stanley: So you’ll want to tell Instacart to deliver to that address with the top line being guest and then your name. So like mine says guest hyphen Dana Stanley and I will order everything from diapers, swim diapers, wipes. Snacks, full size bottles of sunscreen or like toiletries that I want, things that I just don’t wanna carry in my bag and would for sure force me to check like one or two suitcases if I did.

[00:12:59] Dana Stanley: I like to schedule it to arrive maybe like an hour or two before I think I’m actually getting to my resort. That way I just don’t have to worry about it, and I know that it’s there. I love walking off the plane and having like a little alert from Instacart that our groceries were delivered. Because Disney will actually keep them cold for you.

[00:13:16] Dana Stanley: So like if it’s frozen or cold, you don’t have to worry about that. Just do not order alcohol with your order, because if you do, you’ll have to be there in person to pick it up and show ID, and that like kind of defeats the whole point. And in the end, it’ll save you a lot of money too, especially if you buy like a case of bottled water for in the parks.

[00:13:35] Dana Stanley: If you want to get around Disney World as fast as possible, the most reliable thing besides your own two feet in some cases is going to be driving. So while driving your own car is great, or calling an Uber is great, there’s a few problems with that. If you’re headed to Magic Kingdom specifically, you can’t just take.

[00:13:57] Dana Stanley: A car or any ride share to the front of the gate, which can be a huge bummer. They will make you go to the TTC or Ticket and Transportation center, park there, or get dropped off there, and then you’ll have to take another little leg of travel using a ferry or monorail to the actual park. And then with an Uber, you’re also not sure if it’s going to have car seats or if an Uber with car seats will be available, which isn’t a big deal if you don’t have little kids, but I know the majority of you listening do.

[00:14:30] Dana Stanley: So if I wanna get to Magic Kingdom quickly, or we’re going for the fireworks, or we don’t wanna rely on the bus for early entry or something like that, I’m going to be booking a minivan. So this is M-I-N-N-I-E van. As in mini mouse, and these are operated by Disney World, the drivers are cast members, so you know you’re in good hands.

[00:14:53] Dana Stanley: But the two best things about it is one, it’s gonna come with two car seats right off the bat, so you don’t have to worry about that. And two is it will take you directly to the Magic Kingdom Gate. So you can book these minivans to get around anywhere on Disney World Property, but you can’t book them through the My Disney Experience app.

[00:15:14] Dana Stanley: It’s only through Lyft, so that is in my tech stack, is the Lyft app. Make sure you have it downloaded, you’re signed in, like you have an account. You have your credit card linked. That way you’re not scrambling to do all of that when you actually need to get somewhere and you just wanna book a minivan.

[00:15:31] Dana Stanley: It is more pricey than going through Uber and obviously like Disney’s free transportation. But I’ve done this all nights where we’re coming back from the fireworks and it’s really late. When crew was really little, and I did not want to just be, you know, waiting for a bus or like stuffed on a bus. So it’s definitely a little bit of a luxury, but every time we’ve taken one, we think it’s worth it If you’re flying to Disney World, which is very likely.

[00:15:57] Dana Stanley: I like having the Flight Aware app. I am a very nervous traveler, which I’m sure you’ve learned by now, and I like to see. Not only is my plane on time, but I like to see where my plane is before it’s like departing my location. And there’s literally a little button after you put in your flight number that says, where is my plane?

[00:16:19] Dana Stanley: So you click on that and it’ll show you where the plane that you will be boarding is like, was it late to the destination before coming to my airport? Because the more information I have, even though I know it’s completely outta my control. The better. I feel like that’s just the reality of how my brain works.

[00:16:38] Dana Stanley: So this is really helpful for when you’re arriving into Orlando or leaving Orlando because you can track your delays before the airline usually even tells you, especially if you’re traveling during hurricane season, like this is the type of app that could save you. Maybe not rushing to the airport or adjusting like your hotel or dinner plans, things like that, especially if you’re coordinating.

[00:17:02] Dana Stanley: Pick up and drop off, you know, third party transportation type things. I really like the accuracy of the flight aware app, which brings me to the latest addition to my tech stack that I really just got into on our trip last month. And it kind of all came about because we were staying at the Riviera Resort and you know, from the balcony I could hear everyone down at the pool having fun.

[00:17:26] Dana Stanley: And then I’d get a text from Colin that was like. There’s lightning in the area, they’re closing the pool, which is always a bummer, but whatever. The kids would go get a snack or something and then maybe like 10 minutes later I’d hear thunder in the distance and I was just thinking to myself, okay, like how is the cast members down at the pool?

[00:17:48] Dana Stanley: Like how are they tracking that? ’cause they’re obviously closing the pools if there’s lightning in the area, which makes sense. And after a little bit of research and with the asterisks that I am truly speculating here, the service weather bug came up in my search, which also happens to have an app so you can put in your location and it will specifically alert you about lightning.

[00:18:13] Dana Stanley: Like closest strike in the last 30 minutes was 14 miles away. There’s storms approaching and. There’s even an actual like storm tracker on there too, so you can go to the map and play with the layers. Choose storm tracker and just see what’s going on around you. I wish I had this app on our last trip specifically because we were staying at a Skyliner resort and that will also close if there’s lightning in the area.

[00:18:43] Dana Stanley: And I don’t know the exact distance I’ve heard, you know, anywhere between like two and 15 miles. So the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, like maybe six, eight-ish miles, the Skyliner will close and there’s nowhere in the Disney app to see like, Hey, the Skyliner isn’t running right now. Or, Hey, the boats aren’t running right now.

[00:19:03] Dana Stanley: But I feel like if you’re using the weather bug app specifically for lightning in the area. You could save yourself a lot of steps because you knew that there was lightning or lightning approaching, and this can be really helpful to know specifically if there’s lightning in the area, because in Disney it can close the pools.

[00:19:24] Dana Stanley: It can close certain outdoor rides. It can delay the fireworks. So knowing this ahead of time can really help you out with just wasting your time going somewhere or waiting for something. One year we were stuck in a thunderstorm in Magic Kingdom for the 4th of July fireworks, and it just kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed.

[00:19:47] Dana Stanley: And against Colton’s wishes, I was like, we’re out. Like we’re going home. Like this is, the fireworks are not happening. This is such a waste of time. And sure enough, when we finally got to the bus, we started seeing fireworks go off. Now, this was probably five or six years ago. I did not have this app, but I was thinking if I had been able to track the storm and track the lightning in the area, if it was dissipating, I would’ve probably stayed because I would’ve known that there was an end in sight.

[00:20:20] Dana Stanley: I probably don’t have to tell you how great and wonderful white noise can be when you have. Kids that are trying to sleep. In fact, I know I don’t have to tell you because there was a time when I had gotten on a ride, so I left crew with his grandparents and by the time I got back he was very upset and crying ’cause it was his, you know, time to eat.

[00:20:43] Dana Stanley: And as I walked up to my in-laws with the baby, there was a mom holding her arm out with the phone, like towards Cruso. With just white noise, like blasting. And she was like, I’m just trying to help. I feel so bad when I heard him crying and like this always helped my kids and it was just a white noise app that she had on her phone.

[00:21:06] Dana Stanley: And while it didn’t really work in that scenario, I appreciated that she was trying to help because the truth is that white noise can make a difference. I know it’s like. Kind of the newer thing, like our moms didn’t have white noise apps, but while I bring a portable white noise machine that I love, there have been times that I’ve just forgotten it.

[00:21:28] Dana Stanley: Or maybe I have it packed and we’re in the car on the way to the airport, or I forgot the cable to charge it. And like worst case scenario in all of these, I can use a white noise app. And there are tons of them out there, so I don’t think it really matters, but I’ve had this in my tech stack, especially if you are in the age of kids that still naps.

[00:21:51] Dana Stanley: It is such a great fail safe when you just need white noise then and there maybe like in the stroller, or you’re walking to the monorail and you see them kind of dozing off and you’re like, oh, I wish I had my white noise machine. Having that on your phone just makes it so much smoother. And speaking of sleep or lack of sleep, I really love early morning flights to Disney for a lot of reasons.

[00:22:14] Dana Stanley: And honestly, they’re usually at like 6:00 AM which I know sounds insane and it’s only for like a certain kind of person that would do that. But this last app I know you already have, and that’s the Starbucks app. If you’re thinking, Dana, why are you telling me this? And it’s because the Starbucks at the Orlando airport, which.

[00:22:34] Dana Stanley: You’re most likely going to be flying into for Disney World has mobile ordering at the Starbucks and the main terminal and also at the gates. So if you’re like me and you find yourself having a really early flight and you haven’t had like a good cup of coffee yet, or maybe you’re leaving Orlando and you wanna get some coffee before your flight, the line can get crazy when you’re walking up.

[00:22:54] Dana Stanley: You won’t even believe the line at Starbucks sometimes. So instead of waiting in that crazy line to place your order. Order on the mobile app, you’ll still have a little bit of weight for your drink itself, but open that bad boy up like 10 to 15 minutes before you actually want your drink and you’re gonna be good to go.

[00:23:14] Dana Stanley: And a pro tip that’s very niche is that this is where I order. Warm milk to fill Cruz bottle. So I have it for takeoff, and you know what? It has been working because I give him the bottle and he like slept the whole flight. Knock on wood. So if you have a kid that needs more milk, I know I have been stuck in scenarios where I’m like, what am I going to do?

[00:23:37] Dana Stanley: Like our flight is delayed. He won’t drink. Milk that’s cold. Starbucks is just like the best and easiest thing to do. You can mobile order a kids’ temperature steamed milk, and it has saved me many, many times. So that’s the stack. And the best part is once you have these downloaded and synced up and ready to go, you don’t have to think about them again.

[00:23:58] Dana Stanley: And then they’re just there when you need them and they’ll save you so much time in the moment. Nothing is worse for me than hearing someone say. You know, I wish we had known like X, Y, Z after a Disney trip. So my hope is that even like one or two of these will make your trip even smoother. If you wanna see my full list of these, they’re all listed in the show notes for you, and I will talk to you next week.

[00:24:23] Dana Stanley: Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Laid Back Magic Way podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode and it was helpful for you, it would mean the world to me. If you’d write a quick review, your reviews, help more moms like you find the show, and I read every single one of them seriously.

[00:24:39] Dana Stanley: Thank you in advance. You can find me on Instagram at somewhere worthwhile, and I’d love to hear from you there. DM me. If you have any questions about this episode or what you’d like to see in future ones until then, keep planning for your next favorite memory and I’ll see you next time.