[00:00:00] Dana Stanley: I’ve sometimes believed that when it comes to planning for Disney World, over planning can feel like a trap. Like over planning is a bad thing, but then I see trips that genuinely don’t go well. Yeah, these are usually the trips that unfortunately people will look back on and tell themselves like, that wasn’t worth it.

[00:00:25] Dana Stanley: It was such a waste of money, and I found that more often than not, there were key things missing because here’s something that surprised me last year when I was digging around on this topic in particular, that there are surveys out there that actually measure. How people feel after their trip. And one report I read said that 22% of people leave Disney World feeling disappointed in some way or another.

[00:00:54] Dana Stanley: Just kind of like meh about the whole experience. Even after spending thousands of dollars, booking resorts tickets and feeling like they spent a fortune in the parks. And that’s a big number. Like that means one out of every five guests walk away feeling like. No, not worth it. I actually read. A comment yesterday on an article that I’m gonna talk about in a little bit, but someone said I’d rather get a root canal with no Novocaine while passing a kidney stone than go to Disney.

[00:01:27] Dana Stanley: And I really think all of this happens before the trip even. Starts.

[00:01:36] 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.

[00:01:56] 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.

[00:02:17] Dana Stanley: Okay, let’s dive in.

[00:02:24] Dana Stanley: Now, let’s talk about what people actually complain about, because this is where the under planning definition starts to really matter. I pulled together the top complaints that I have found, and the first one is we spent a fortune and it felt like a burden. So there was a story that went viral of a Florida dad who took his family of five to Disney for just one day, and the total cost was almost $1,400.

[00:02:57] Dana Stanley: That was kind of like the headline of his post that went viral, and he used the word like, he actually described the feeling. With the word punished, he felt punished by the cost, like he got hit with the ticket prices, even with the Florida resident discount, then the parking fees and the food, and it sounds like they didn’t get on many rides.

[00:03:20] Dana Stanley: Then realize that if he had done like a little bit more strategy around the lightning lane, the value would’ve been different. But then on the other hand, he would’ve spent even more money. But one of the things he mentioned. Was that if you divided the total cost of what he spent for the day by ride, it probably isn’t really worth it.

[00:03:39] Dana Stanley: Like he said, I don’t wanna say it this way, but if you do the average cost per ride, it’s not worth it. Now, if we took the same mindset, if applied it to other things, like if I think about the things I just like to spend money on, one of the things I am never bothered by is going to the movies. This may be because I feel like there was like a very big chunk of years where we just like didn’t get to go to the movies often.

[00:04:07] Dana Stanley: ’cause our kids were little, we’d have to get a babysitter, but then we’re just like sitting and watching a movie and not able to actually talk. So if we did have a date night, it was out to dinner or something like that. But now it’s getting a little bit easier to go back to the movies or at least take my two older girls to the movies.

[00:04:28] Dana Stanley: And I love it. And I forgot how much I love going to the movies, so I’ll usually do like a matinee ’cause it’s so much cheaper. But when I go to the movies, like I wanna go to the movies, I get the popcorn, I get the drinks. I don’t really say no to the girls with like the snacks that they want. Like you want mini pretzels, get them.

[00:04:49] Dana Stanley: And if my mom wants to come like, sure, I’ll pay for my mom’s ticket. Like it’s the experience. Of going to the movies. I have very happy memories of going to the movies as a kid, so I’m happy to do that for mine. And of course, we love our Disney movies, but like we just went to see the new SpongeBob movie, which like, I didn’t really like it, so I’m picturing when we left, if I had said, oh, that was $72 or whatever, for two hours, so $36 an hour.

[00:05:23] Dana Stanley: It’s not worth it or I actually didn’t think it was as funny as I thought it was gonna be, and if I said I only laughed three times, that’s $24 per laugh. And like I know that, that sounds crazy. Thinking that way when it comes to Disney. I personally know people who are like this and would and would think of it that way, and that’s totally fine.

[00:05:48] Dana Stanley: Just they’re not going to. Enjoy Disney World, then just know upfront that you are going to be feeling that way because that is the way your brain works. So it’s not necessarily that you or Disney are doing anything wrong, it’s just. Something that is not going to be valued by you, which ties into the other, mention that the costs keep rising and things get more expensive.

[00:06:16] Dana Stanley: How do you make it quote worth it when the price tag is so high? And I don’t really have much to say on this because calling something expensive is just so different for each person. Do I think that Disney World costs a lot of money? Yes. Do I think that it is worth it? Yes, but that is not going to be the case for everyone.

[00:06:37] Dana Stanley: But I do have kind of a few tricks up my sleeve for when I am trying to keep the cost down on a Disney World trip. And the first thing is to really work backwards. Like I would want you to price out. Your ideal trip first. And I’m not saying like go nuts, you know, like we’re gonna do a VIP day every day and get flown in on a private plane or something like that.

[00:07:00] Dana Stanley: Like a reasonable dream trip. Starting with where you would love to stay, how many parks would you love to go to? And then from there you can see how you could tweak maybe the time of year that you go so that the ticket prices are cheaper. Or if you’re looking somewhere like top of the line at a deluxe resort, you could rent DVC points to save a little bit of money, which is a conversation for another day.

[00:07:26] Dana Stanley: But instead of coming up with a number first of what you can afford, I think you should look into the pricing first. Get just the lay of the land of what is like a Disney normal price. And if you can’t go to Disney the way that you want to right now. Maybe save for another year. Like I would rather you go less often or put the trip off to do like a trip that you really want versus kind of like forcing it to work and then feeling disappointed, especially when you feel like stretched thin.

[00:08:03] Dana Stanley: So what is really going wrong on these trips for people to feel this way? And this is the part where I wanna stop and just say. That. I really do think that the trips don’t really like go wrong when you’re in the parks. Like yes, you can have things happen that are not ideal, but for something to like truly fail, I think that happens before you even get there.

[00:08:30] Dana Stanley: So when I hear someone say like, I wouldn’t do that again, or it’s a one and done, there are usually three things happening and it could be a combination. Of one, two, or all three of these things. Number one is just not setting up your expectations first, either you, your kids, or the whole family. People think that going to Disney World is like a bucket list vacation where it’s kind of like a rite of passage and because of that pressure of feeling like, well, everyone does this, I have to do this.

[00:09:06] Dana Stanley: Their expectation ends up being well, that everything should be perfect because of that pressure. But the problem is they don’t think about what quote perfect means and really think about it. What is a perfect Disney trip? I honestly have no idea because even my husband and I who have very similar interests, like I’ve been with him almost as long as I haven’t been with him, I think if he wrote down like his dream itinerary, it would look very different.

[00:09:36] Dana Stanley: To what I would write down if you’re hearing that and thinking, oh my gosh, you’re totally right. I haven’t even thought about that yet. To help with this download, the free journal I have, I made it to help you set up this foundation before you do anything else. So if you go to laid back magic way.com/journal, I’ll send that to your inbox and you can get started.

[00:09:59] Dana Stanley: Then you can set that up before you do the next mistake. I see. And that’s jumping right to the fun stuff. And when I say fun stuff, I mean like thinking about what you’re gonna pack or Bty, BTY Boutique, or maybe eating at the castle or seeing Mickey Mouse or the fireworks, like the fun stuff that you’re excited about, which you should be.

[00:10:20] Dana Stanley: But imagine if you were building a house and you just started with the walls with no actual foundation, right? Like obviously the house would fall down. So picking the fun stuff of like your dining and rides and things. But skipping like the Disney 1 0 1, basics of the crowds and your budget and the time of year that you’re going, and especially the actual location of your resort, a trip will fall apart in the same way.

[00:10:47] Dana Stanley: And I think this is why a lot of families feel burnt out because they’re jumping ahead and maybe even booking these things and kind of setting them in stone willy-nilly of when and where they’re going to be. And then they’re working their plans. Around those things. So not only is this gonna be hard.

[00:11:05] Dana Stanley: If you don’t know what’s important, but it’s gonna be really hard when you’ve now kind of booked yourself into a corner. A third mistake I see is missing the context around the cost and the planning. And when I say missing the context, I mean like you expect it to be something else entirely, and I think there’s like a huge spectrum here.

[00:11:27] Dana Stanley: But most likely it’s that you haven’t been to Disney World for a very long time, so you have a memory of it as a kid. Or maybe you went in high school, that type of thing. This could be the price too. Like maybe you’re just not expecting it to be as expensive as it is, and that could be expected. So if you’re thinking about taking a trip and haven’t thought about costs yet, I do have an episode where I talk about the hidden cost of Disney, and I’ll link that below in the show notes.

[00:11:54] Dana Stanley: But just wrapping your mind around the cost ahead of time and accepting that you’re not necessarily getting your money’s worth with certain things. If you think about a bottle of water, for example, is going to be one price at Costco, another price at Target, and another price in the fridge section of an airport.

[00:12:13] Dana Stanley: So if you’re planning for Disney and kind of making a mental checklist of just line items like, oh tickets, check lightning lanes, check dining, but without actually thinking through how much those things will cost, you can turn into that guy who said he felt punished by the cost. It’s probably because he didn’t know or think about it beforehand, or maybe he was just trying to go viral.

[00:12:36] Dana Stanley: I honestly don’t know. So let’s bring it back a little bit of what is the like missing piece? What’s the secret ingredient to a truly laid back trip to Disney? It really comes down to preparation, but I know that this sounds like a little bit of a contradiction. Because laid back is like, I go with the flow.

[00:12:57] Dana Stanley: I don’t have to really prep or prepare and plan for all of these things. But I want you to think of it of like the input versus the output. So there is this rule that comes up a lot in business called the 80 20 rule. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Or pray TOS principle and without completely putting you to sleep.

[00:13:14] Dana Stanley: The 80 20 rule says that 20% of your effort creates 80% of your results. And in business you could think of it, if you have an online shop that sells clothes, you could realize that 20% of your shop, let’s say like the T-shirts are creating 80% of your sales or the 20% of the time you spend at the gym. And eating well creates 80% of your weight loss, something like that.

[00:13:46] Dana Stanley: So if you think of that in Disney terms, 20% of what you plan determines 80% of how the trip actually feels, how the trip ends up in real time, because I really don’t think that people end up being disappointed because they didn’t get on more rides. That just doesn’t seem like the real core of the problem.

[00:14:06] Dana Stanley: I think they get disappointed. Because they didn’t prepare that right. 20% when I think that 20% usually would look like is where you’re staying. I think it’s also truly the first hour that you are in the parks, like kind of a little bit of an and or between what time you get to the parks and then like that first hour, I think that’s definitely in the 20%, and then also where your dining reservations are not so.

[00:14:34] Dana Stanley: Like where you’re eating, like the restaurants themselves, but the geographical location of them against what you already have planned. And then also knowing kind of like your lines in the sand of like what you have to do, what you would be devastated if you missed. And this could work kind of into your lightning lanes because you can pre-book three, which makes sense because if you don’t wanna miss them, you should get a lightning lien for them if you can.

[00:15:01] Dana Stanley: And that’s it. Everything else, I think. Can be fairly flexible and that’s it. Like I think everything else can kind of work itself out, but that 20% is going to make up 80% of your trip, and that 80% ends up being like, you’re in better moods. You’re all just in better moods. You are spending less money fixing mistakes or like backing up things that you didn’t actually need to do and just less waiting around.

[00:15:32] Dana Stanley: Which to that guy, the less waiting around you’re doing, figuring things out on the fly, the more you have time for rides, if that is your non-negotiable and you want that wiggle room for like the unplanned things you see Chippendale in the lobby or a cast member surprises you with a front row and a ride.

[00:15:53] Dana Stanley: Like those things are great, but I would argue. That something was either decided or maybe given up that the person knew what they wanted to do, that allowed that for kind of a spontaneous moment, which is what people think is like the magic. All that to say all of this is really good news because.

[00:16:18] Dana Stanley: You’re already listening to this episode and thinking about these things ahead of time. You’re going to grab that free journal@laidbackmagicway.com slash journal, and you’re going to start making the right decisions really early for your family so that once you’re in the parks. You can really enjoy it and be present with your kids and relax, which is the whole point.

[00:16:40] Dana Stanley: Now, come back next week because we are going to dive into something kind of along these same lines that is not talked about enough. I really think could be the missing piece when it comes to a park day. If you are a woman, you have to listen to the episode next week, and that’s about keeping our blood sugar balanced so that we are feeling our best.

[00:17:04] Dana Stanley: Alright, I will see you next week.

[00:17:10] 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.

[00:17:25] 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.