[00:00:00] Dana Stanley: I think one of the funniest things about my whole brand kind of being around the quote “laid back Disney trips” is that sometimes I think people imagine that me, like I as a person, am just naturally relaxed, and my family’s just like floating around Disney World with no plan and not a care in the world, and somehow everything magically works out for us.

[00:00:30] Dana Stanley: That’s like how it can be imagined, I think When really the opposite is true. I think laid back Disney World trips require a massive amount of Pre-planning, mental work, um, intentions, money decisions, timing decisions, and honestly, trade-offs

[00:01:05] Dana Stanley: Because I think when people picture, like, a good, successful Disney World trip, they are maybe picturing getting everything out of it. They’re staying at the perfect resort. The weather is amazing. Um, there’s low crowds, so there was no lines. They weren’t stressed out. The food was perfect. All the kids napped.

[00:01:28] Dana Stanley: Um, you ended up not overspending. And you already know what I’m going to say, but I’m just gonna tell you right now that that version does not exist. Every Disney trip is going to have its own series of trade-offs

[00:01:46] Dana Stanley: And there can be trade-offs in a lot of things. Like when people think about the perfect time to visit Disney World, I definitely have my preferred weeks, but there are trade-offs even to with crowds or how expensive it is. And I think one of the reasons our trips feel laid back while we’re there is because I’ve gotten really good and comfortable making those trade-offs ahead of time instead of trying to make it work and trying to have my cake and eat it too, for lack of a better term, once we get there.

[00:02:24] Dana Stanley: Which wasn’t always the case, and it’s something I have to work very hard to do even still and remind myself every single time. So today, I wanna talk about the trade-offs of a, quote, “laid back Disney World trip” that no one really talks about because I think this conversation is going to be helpful whether this is your first trip to Disney World or your 20th

[00:02:58] Dana Stanley: So honestly, this episode idea kinda came to me because we are planning for our July trip right now, and I’ve realized that even this trip, which I know will probably feel relaxed while we’re there, which may be not super laid back ’cause I know it’s gonna be hot, but there has already been so many decisions made behind the scenes that people don’t really see or will see when they see or follow our trip on Instagram

[00:03:31] Dana Stanley: And we definitely have a lot of, like, non-negotiables when it comes to our trips. Um, I have them, my husband has them, the kids have them. Um, even when it comes to, like, where we wanna stay, that we want to spend money on Lightning Lanes. But every decision comes at the expense of other things. And I think what’s interesting about Disney planning in general is that people usually look at someone else’s trip and they only see, like, the final product, obviously.

[00:04:05] Dana Stanley: Like, even Whether it’s in pictures or just like recaps of the trip if you’re chatting with your friends without realizing what was traded maybe in order to make that version of the trip happen. Like for example, yes, we are staying at the Grand Floridian this summer, but part of the reason we can do that is because we don’t go to Disney as often as we probably could or want to.

[00:04:37] Dana Stanley: We will purposely kind of pool our money into fewer trips that allow us to maybe do more expensive things or stay a little bit longer, and it feels more comfortable for us instead of doing multiple trips a year that maybe are shorter or just like feel tight money-wise, and we’d have to like say no to things on those smaller trips And I understand that there is no right answer here, by the way.

[00:05:09] Dana Stanley: Like, some people would feel totally the opposite. They’d rather have more shorter trips. So they would go more often and stay at a value resort. Whereas me, I would rather stay deluxe and go less often, but that is the trade-off

[00:05:28] Dana Stanley: I think this is probably the most obvious trade-off because one of the biggest reasons our trips feel laid back is because we usually spend our money in ways that are buying us time, and Lightning Lanes are a perfect example of this. Lightning Lanes in Disney World you can pay to access, and it’s just a shorter line for the rides.

[00:05:53] Dana Stanley: Not every single ride has a Lightning Lane, but most of them do

[00:06:01] Dana Stanley: And it’s something that I have really grown to love, especially going to Disney World for so long. It’s also what I’m used to. I have never visited Disney World without some type of upgraded line that was faster. It maybe was free, but there was always a line that was faster, and that is what I’m used to

[00:06:34] Dana Stanley: And now I buy Lightning Lanes because I personally do not want to get up super early every day and beat the crowds. I don’t want to wake my kids up on vacation. I have to do that for school, and I’m becoming a little bit more, um, stubborn when it comes to this. Like, I think that might be a rule is I really don’t- I hate waking them up for school, period, and I really don’t wanna do that on vacation

[00:07:05] Dana Stanley: I’ll do it for a flight for the vacation, but there’s just something about, like, it’s supposed to be fun and I don’t want them to kind of connect it in their minds of, like, it’s almost like getting up for school

[00:07:21] Dana Stanley: I just don’t. So for me personally, the trade-off of yes, I am spending money, but no, I don’t have to wake the kids up because I will have a Lightning Lane saved in the morning for me. I don’t feel that, like, rush to go, go, go. We have to go before everyone’s getting there because the lines are gonna get long.

[00:07:44] Dana Stanley: We can sleep a little later and just take, like, a slower morning And that’s just saving us time in the morning, not taking into account, you know, having a toddler who doesn’t wanna wait in line, um, avoiding standing in a long line in the July heat. Uh, maybe we can sit longer for lunch or dinner But a lot of people could argue lightning lanes are expensive and that’s obviously the trade-off is money

[00:08:19] Dana Stanley: And I think sometimes when we get online and we start getting things fed through interests in our feed, which as soon as you start looking up Disney, you’re gonna start seeing things in your feed. And a lot of the, um, decisions I think people make and post about are kind of presented as like hacks, like use this hack.

[00:08:44] Dana Stanley: But really there’s not many hacks anymore, to be honest. There’s maybe a handful that when they’re a hack they could be gone next week But this is just a decision and a choice, and the trade-off was spending money on a Lightning Lane to avoid a long line

[00:09:04] Dana Stanley: We skip so much at Disney World, like a shocking amount, because there’s just so much to do, obviously, in Disney World. So we don’t do the waterparks. Um, we don’t spend our time at, like, mini golf. We don’t spend much time at Disney Springs. I don’t even usually get to try half of the festival booths in Epcot when we go.

[00:09:26] Dana Stanley: We certainly do not do every ride, obviously. Um, we miss out on the dining that I want to do or have my heart set on because we can’t do all of it, and we don’t have time And I think this is important because you could think that you can have a laid back trip just by, like, your energy and your mindset, but you’re still also trying to fit in everything.

[00:09:55] Dana Stanley: But really, a laid back trip means that you’re deciding what doesn’t matter that much to you. And this is hard because if you’ve never been to Disney before, you aren’t going to be able to, like, practice this. But if you have been before, you just have to get really good at missing out on things, like skipping the pool, not going back into the park late at night

[00:10:24] Dana Stanley: seeing certain characters that you really wanted to see. And all of those things are fine if you want and can and have a ton of energy and can fit all of those things in, that is totally fine. But for us, our version of a, quote, “laid back trip,” it just is a lot of things that we are subtracting and curating and saying no to

[00:10:51] Dana Stanley: And I say that you have to kind of practice getting good at this because it can feel really uncomfy when Disney’s kind of– They want you to see the value, right? Like, Disney is always showing you, even when you get to the hotel with your TV on and the loop of just all the things to do in Disney World, is they want you to feel like you’re getting so much value for your ticket.

[00:11:18] Dana Stanley: They want people to come to Disney and spend the money because look at all of the things you can do. So I don’t know if it’s even subconsciously or consciously, but it makes you feel like you need to be– It makes you feel like you have to make your ticket worth it because you spent a lot of money, and now look at all these things, and you’re only doing, like, 10% of them.

[00:11:43] Dana Stanley: And I get it. Like, honestly, I still struggle with that sometimes

[00:11:50] Dana Stanley: Especially having this business and the podcast and also being on vacation with my family, I would love to do more like strategies and rope drop and like, well, let’s see what happens if you went to this ride first and then that ride

[00:12:12] Dana Stanley: So every time I feel like pretty good about doing less, I still have that in the back of my mind more business-wise. So I And I know that’s like a similar feeling to people when you don’t have a business. When you’ve just been there the first time and you go, “Oh, I can’t believe we didn’t get a picture with so-and-so,” or, “Ah, you know what?

[00:12:35] Dana Stanley: I just saw, you know, this treat on Instagram and now we’re home and I’m really bummed because my daughter would have loved that.” It’s hard. It’s something that’s gonna pop into your brain 100 times on the trip

[00:12:58] Dana Stanley: One thing I think about all the time is that people will tell me things like, “I just want to be spontaneous. Like, I don’t want to do all of this planning.” I’ll see comments of like, “I am not going to Disney World ’cause I don’t wanna, you know, have to go to college,” blah, blah, blah. And honestly, me neither.

[00:13:16] Dana Stanley: I don’t really want to. But the reason that I can be spontaneous in the parks is because I already did a lot of that research and mental work ahead of time And I know, like that is exhausting. It really is exhausting. I think that we make it harder, and there are ways to make it easier with our planning.

[00:13:41] Dana Stanley: I have it down to a science. But, but thinking through your transportation and what order you’re visiting the parks, dining, the stroller, the Lightning Lanes All of the things. I do that before the trip because there is no way, Jose, that I am handling that when I am in a theme park already overstimulated with a bunch of people with three kids

[00:14:13] Dana Stanley: And then that way, while we’re there, I can stay off my phone more and actually be present

[00:14:22] Dana Stanley: So laid back does not mean less planning. It sometimes means more planning just before the trip and not while you’re actually on the trip.

[00:14:38] Dana Stanley: But that is the trade-off is sometimes it means a little bit more planning, a little bit more work that maybe you don’t feel like you want to do. I get it

[00:14:54] Dana Stanley: But that is the trade-off. I kinda touched on this in the beginning of the episode when I was talking about the trade-offs of, like, the time of year and the budget. And this one’s hard because if we wanted a trip with, like, lower crowds and better weather, we usually have to pull our kids out of school.

[00:15:13] Dana Stanley: And that hasn’t really been an issue. And, and we are the type of parents that think travel is very educational, even Disney World. Just kids, um, going through an airport and dealing with all different kinds of people, and having to wait around a lot, and order off of menus, and make- and making decisions, and holding doors open for people.

[00:15:35] Dana Stanley: Just traveling in general, I think is wonderful. I, I don’t feel guilty for pulling them out of school. That being said, they are getting older, and my daughter especially, when we pull them out of school, she can get a little behind in her schoolwork, and I don’t want her to feel that way

[00:15:59] Dana Stanley: So this trade-off here is if we only wanted to travel during, like, the standard school breaks, then I’m dealing with, like, the spring break crowds, the Christmas crowds, and the pricing of those times of year

[00:16:16] Dana Stanley: And then if we don’t pull them out of school, that kind of just leaves you with doing the summer, which is one of the reasons why we’re going back in July and we went last July

[00:16:30] Dana Stanley: But summer has its own trade-offs. Like, yes, the crowds are actually really manageable, but it’s really hot. Obviously, I don’t have to tell you that. It is very, very hot. It gets hot in New Jersey too, where we live, but it is just a different kind of heat down in Florida. Um, you can get a lot of rain showers.

[00:16:53] Dana Stanley: The sunsets are very late, which you may think, “Who cares?” But the sunsets being late makes the fireworks really late

[00:17:06] Dana Stanley: So like when we’re gonna go, the fireworks start at 10:00, which is really late for my toddler, and honestly my five-year-old is going to be like feeling it by 10:00 PM. So there’s no like perfect time. There’s always going to be a trade-off, whether it’s the money or like the holidays and festivals that are going on that time of year, or your kids’ slash family schedule

[00:17:35] Dana Stanley: So you’re always kind of choosing like which hard thing feels more worth it to us right now.

[00:17:50] Dana Stanley: And the last trade-off sounds small, but it really does affect our trips a lot, and that is that we travel extremely light. We pack carry-on only. We do not check a bag, so minimal stuff. And it may sound like less work because you’re packing less things. You need to be dealing with less baggage literally.

[00:18:17] Dana Stanley: But really, like, absolutely not, because the packing light and only fitting in a carry-on for five people takes me hours. I think it would be, I know it would be much easier to just throw everything I want to bring into, like, a giant checked suitcase and figure it out when I get there. But packing really light, I have to really think through, not necessarily the outfits.

[00:18:44] Dana Stanley: We don’t do, like, outfits per park, like Hollywood Studios day or anything like that. We, we each kind of just have our tops and then some bottoms, and they can mix and match, and then a couple dresses for me, obviously, not Colin. But we have to sometimes re-wear things. Sometimes I do laundry on vacation I have to really think through the weather and, like, what layers we’re gonna need.

[00:19:12] Dana Stanley: I have to be strategic and very thoughtful with our shoes and, like, what shoes we’re wearing on the plane, because you should wear your biggest shoes on the plane, FYI. But it is more mental effort upfront, for sure But the trade-off is our mornings getting to the airport are so much easier. We get to our resort super quickly because we don’t have to wait for our bags.

[00:19:41] Dana Stanley: We don’t have to pay for our bags. We have no risk of our bags getting lost, and there’s a lot less clutter in our room, which might not sound like a big deal, but if you have less stuff, if you’re bringing like half the amount of things that you could bring in a checked bag, there’s just less stuff in your room.

[00:19:59] Dana Stanley: And for me, I don’t like seeing a lot of clutter. It’s already overstimulating as it is being in Disney, so I want our resort room to be generally tidy, and just having less stuff makes it so much easier It’s less unpacking, it’s less repacking, easier getting back to the airport, and for me, that trade-off is 100% worth it

[00:20:41] Dana Stanley: I think the whole point of this episode is just realizing that there isn’t really a version of planning where you avoid the trade-offs completely. Every family is just going to be choosing different ones

[00:21:02] Dana Stanley: And honestly, I would love to hear what trade-offs you make on your Disney trips. So message me on Instagram, or if you’re inside the Laidback Magic community, you could post them there. I genuinely love hearing how different families approach this, especially when it comes to kind of the give and take of Disney World

[00:21:25] Dana Stanley: All right, I’ll see you next week