JOMO travel is quickly becoming an industry trend, and it goes against EVERYTHING Disney Adults have gotten used to about taking a vacation.
As defined by Forbes, a JOMO — or joy of missing out — vacation is “positioned as the antidote to the restless, tickbox trips that are still popular. It appeals to those who want to visit a place and really immerse themselves in the experience, rather than chasing full itineraries.” In other words, not planned to the minute or dependent on a phone or app.
According to Alexander Haraldsson, the CEO of Lotus Car Rental, the interest in JOMO trips stems from “the growing awareness around mental well-being and the impact of our surroundings.” He continues that this has led travelers to “avoid environments that might feel too chaotic, so they can focus on enjoying a more serene and enjoyable travel experience.”
If you’re a Disney Adult reading this, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of “I didn’t know a vacation COULD be like that!”
Over the last several decades, Disney has, for better or worse, transformed vacations at their resorts (especially Walt Disney World) into anything but a JOMO vacation. Instead, Disney World trips are dependent on booking Lightning Lanes, dining reservations, and occasionally theme park reservations beforehand, locking in at least the starting theme park for each day.
Then, during the trip itself, Disney has made their My Disney Experience app essential. From keeping track of Lightning Lanes and wait times to accessing mobile order options, a Disney World guest needs to have their smartphone pretty much all the time to make the most of the resort.
This has arguably led to Disney Adults who visit the parks often having this kind of vacation hardwired into their brain, to the point where it’s likely hard for some to turn that “off” when visiting a vacation spot of the JOMO variety.
If you’re planning to embrace the JOMO lifestyle on your next vacation, you may need to leave your “Disney” training behind! Stay tuned to AllEars for more on the latest travel trends.
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Do you find it hard to turn your “Disney Brain” off when going on a more JOMO vacation? Let us know more in the comments below.
We might be a little bit JOMO.
We don’t book lightening lanes. Too expensive.
We don’t make dining reservations. Too expensive at table service locations.
We don’t have to book park reservations. Don’t currently have an AP.
We don’t use mobile order. You can’t charge to your room which we prefer, as we don’t want loads of credit card debits and prefer one big debit at the end of the holiday.
We will use the app for virtual queue if needed.
We do look at wait times if we’re not near the information board.
We don’t plan anywhere near as much as we have had to in the past.
The usual “Disney Adults” in the title for clickbait aside, its completely possible to have a “JOMO” vacation on disney property its just that disney would never promote a vacation like that since it would in theory make them less money despite them fully having the capabilities to offer such a thing. Add that to the fact that more than ever visitors seem to desire to visit disney to say they did it versus trying to take a vacation to enjoy themselves and its no wonder the general sentiment is that it HAS to be this stressful over-planned excursion.
My family went on disney trips growing up but as an adult theme parks and the headaches that comes with them no longer appeal to me (ride waits, ticket prices, crowds in general, screaming children in excess). However Ive still been on several disney vacations in the past 5 years where we never stepped foot in a park and Ive found that approach to be preferable and an untapped way to enjoy the property. Ive also been to the parks in that time and never used a lightning lane (ever actually) but i also went during down season and wasnt with people who had a bucket list that NEEDED to have all the boxes checked so i guess this cant relate to a park-completionist approach or first-and-only timers clamoring to do everything in one go.
WDW is a vast resort hosting over 20 individual hotel locations, with plenty of places to eat and lots of recreation and activities to do whether youre staying there or not, plus free transportation between all of them – most of the transportation can even double as a ride itself. Even if hotel hopping or disney springs isnt your thing these individual hotels for the most part are fully functioning vacation resorts you can isolate yourself to and make a whole trip out of with just a hotel stay – fort wilderness, old key west, coronado springs and animal kingdom lodge in particular come to mind as prime options. Even as a child I found it so weird disney has so many places to visit and yet everyone was tunnel vision on going to the parks when kid me ironically wanted to explore everywhere that didnt require paid entry to visit. If only my parents listened to me they coulda saved so much money LMAO.
Most vacations are going to come with a level of required planning especially if its somewhere youve never been before. Also if we’re being honest, outside of how necessary smartphone usage is for the everyday at this point, people especially dont put down their phones on vacation due to photo taking+posting, looking into places to eat/visit, contacting the people they travel with, etc so using those arguments feels like an easy excuse to me that broadly applies to most vacations and – I say all this as someone who pretty much only uses their phone for the mydisneyexperience app in limited capacity (ordering food, location hours, bus times, the map) and calling my travelmates when I visit WDW.
I recommend any disney park fan who may want a change of pace to take a parkless or limited park approach at least once. Itll save you (some) money and be the vacation relaxation you could be looking for if youre dead set on maintaining your vacations at one of the properties. Otherwise if not, obviously just go anywhere else not-disney for that because it will likely be cheaper lmaooo.
Usually Im a silent lurker/reader of this platform but with how much disney world planning discussions have heightened into this idea that a literal vacation spot has to be planned to the minute or you wont have fun while Im over here chillin in the pool, adventuring around hotels or between resorts on an air conditioned bus as a welcome break has had me itching to say something somewhere for a while, especially since Id be classified as a “disney adult”. (sorry this is so long lmao).
I typically go to DW alone so I don’t use my phone in the Parks. I appreciate the efficiency of mobile ordering, booking Lightening Lanes (or whatever), checking show and wait times etc., but it’s too structured for me.
JOMO? Is that what they call relaxing now?
My family says the best vacation we’ve taken was a road trip where we planned one or two things to do on a given day and took our time doing them. It was not at WDW 🙂