Experience with Tour Guide Mike?

[DisneyGalAlways]

I'm pretty new to DIS and just now discovered Tour Guide Mike's site.

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with him and his program. What's the deal with it? How did you benefit from it? Was it worth it to you?

Thanks!

 

[carrs52]

I used him for our trip 2/7-2/14 and faithfully abided by his color coded system, it worked great! I had a hard time waiting for MK until Day 3, so we did PM EMH 9p-12a day 1 which was great! The one day we decided to do MK pm even though he had a yellow, parking was out to the raceway. DH and I loooked at each other and said NO WAY. We went Epcot instead and had a great time. I did not follow touring plan because we have been 10+x's and we knew what we wanted to see and how. There is tons of info on the website though!

 

[Disney8704]

OMG YES!! It is sooooo worth it! DH and I went to Disney last August (5th - 17th). We used TGM everyday except the last 3 days. The first full day (6th) we had ADRs for CP at 8:05am. Ate, left there, went to sign DH up for flag retreat, got to Fantasyland around 9:05am, had Fantasyland completely done by 10am. Normally it takes us 3 days to fully complete MK, we got it done in 2 days. Everything was practically a walk on to the max of wait time was 30mins at all 4 parks during are whole stay. The last 3 days, we were completely bored cuz we had finished everything at all 4 parks. So we just re-rode our favs, park hopped like crazy, ate dinner and then went back to our resort around 6pm for the rest of the night. We will never go to Disney ever again without TGM. In fact I just renewed mine a few days ago for our trip this December!

edit to add: Everyday we went to the parks, was a day that TGM suggested we DID NOT go to and we got late start every morning. We wouldn't arrive at the parks until about 10am.

 

[vicki_c]

I've been using TGM for at least 5 years (that's about a dozen trips to WDW) and it's always worked great for us. It's well worth the $20 to me (and you get a discount from the link above). It's not perfect, but none of the touring advice sites really are, or the books either for that matter, but I think it gets the job done for a small small fraction of what you're going to spend on your vacation.

 

[dacky041208]

Here's another happy customer of TGM, whenever we return I'm sure we'll use them again. Well worth the money.

 

[cdrn1]

Honestly, I find the site a bit frustrating and confusing to use; I often don't end up where I thought I was going, and if I want to look at something I have seen before it takes me a while to find it BUT...I ALWAYS subscribe (for at least the last seven trips) because the least-crowded-parks chart is spot on. The only times I have had to wait in line or experienced badly crowded parks are the few times I have gone against the chart's advice. I find it totally worth every penny, and I have been to WDW close to 20 times.

 

[RevJATB]

I signed up for TGM not long after signing up on this board and reading all the glowing recommendations for it. Frankly, I was not impressed at all. The information was not up-to-date (this forum has provided me with more, and better, information) and the site was extremely poorly organized and hard to follow. The buildup to this site promised to deliver a powerful tool for organizing a trip to WDW. What it is is an amalgam of information gleaned from other web sites, all of which are free. We ordered the Birnbaum guide from Amazon and I checked out the Unofficial Guide from our local public library. Both of these are excellent, but I think the Unofficial Guide is the more useful of the two. Either one is about the same price as a membership to TGM and will be much more useful to you.

 

[Aliceacc]

I like www.touringplans.com much more. I think it's easier to navigate, the info is easier to get to, and it's updated a bit more frequently.

 

[creativeamanda]

I don't really like him that much. Touring plans has the same best/worst parks he does. For touring plans I use Ride Max. I've asked for my money back from him (Tour Guide Mike).

 

[MinnieMom]

I've been a TGM member for about 4 years now and though I do think his plans and touring advice has helped us tremendously, I do get frustrated with the fact that a lot of his information is outdated now. When I first signed up everything was spot on and it seemed well organized, thought out, and current. Now I find that much of the touring plans are just not up to date.

That being said, however, he really teaches you how to tour the park in a time efficient manner, so even if his specific advice isn't updated you'll know how to work around it . . . if that makes any sense! LOL!

 

[ScotnSteph]

Here's my video review of Tour Guide Mike.

http://www.expotv.com/videos/reviews/21/188/TouringWaltDisneyWorldwithTourGuideMike/287367

 

[disjacksons]

Do you think TGM or TP is more accurate in their best parks/worst parks advice? They seem to conflict sometimes so I'm confused!

 

[Aliceacc]

It probably varies on a daily basis.

They both have legions of loyal fans. I'm guessing you won't go wrong with either one, as long as you obey their most basic advice:

Get there at rope drop.
Have a general plan of what you want to to.
Get the headliners out of the way early when the park is less crowded.
Utilize fastpass.
Leave when the park starts to get too crowded.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Works great. As many have said, the best days(nights)/best park/s is well worth the money spent. I have used often, preferring to enjoy the low crowd park/s of the day/night. Never disappointed.

 

[UP Disney]

I pay for his site just for his best days. There have been several times that we came back after using his advice to hear about how long the lines were and how crowded it was. We would look at each other and say "Isn't that when we were there and we walked right on ... {name a popular ride}?" Sure enough, we had went to a park that TourGuideMike recommended and the complaint was about one that he told us to stay away from. We are park hoppers so it isn't as important to us because if a park is crowded, we just go to another one. I would think it would be more important for those that do not have park hoppers so are stuck with wherever they start the day.

 

[Disuser]

By the time we leave in June, I will have spent almost a year reading Disboards.
I signed up for TouringPlans.com. In my opinion it is worth the money spent
and much more so if you don't have much time before you leave for Disney World.

 

[MelanieC]

I've been using it for a while now. I use it to check what I have planned, and usually there is at least one thing I did not consider.

 

[mdoc]

We've used it for multiple trips, and I continue to sign up when we go to WDW. For me, it is well worth the money if only for the least crowded parks charts. It's not always up to date, and it's not the easiest site to navigate, but if you take the time to pore through what's there, there's some really valuable information. You don't get a specific touring plan; you get TGM's philosophy of touring , basic principles and the information you need to make your own plan. That in turn gives you the ability to improvise if something happens to throw your plan off. The TGM forums are wonderful, too.

 

[tzuhouse]

Absolutely. I used him for our first trip in 12/05, again in 9/07 and am already signed up for 11/10. He's great because your subscription doesn't end until your trip is over, so even if you aren't going to 3 years, you can sign up now. Also, he offers a money back guarantee, so if you spend some time reading his articles and don't feel that it's worth it, you can get your money back.

mary

 

[jediobiwan]

I agree with the majority of the posters here (keep in mind I haven't taken MY TGM trip yet, I am still in the planning stage)

Pros:

• The site has a wealth of knowledge about every aspect of your trip. (most could be found elsewhere, some on the DIS, some elsewhere, but there is also a lot of stuff you can't find elsewhere)
• The Least Crowded Charts seem like a really good value. Unlinke TouringPlans.com, he actually has different tiers and tells you why he believes this park is good and that park is bad, as well as breaking up the day as far as how crowded they will be both in the morning and evening. Also, I could be wrong but I believe that TouringPlans does not update to include things like Fantasmic nights, which makes a big difference.
• The touring advice is really good. Although he doesn't directly make the plan for you, he teaches you how to tour instead of saying just do this in this order.
• The forums are really great. One of the things I like the best is the private vacation clubs for each month. This makes it much easier to do things like photopass shares with people close to your time frame.

Cons:

• Much of the site needs a major update. The sample tour plans don't include things like Toy Story Mania but elsewhere on his site does.
• The LCCs don't get updated till the last minute, sometimes past people's ADR window...this is because he does include events like Fantasmic so it is both good and bad, but can lead to frustration if you need to make ADRs.
• The site is sometimes hard to navigate and find the stuff you are looking for.

Personally I signed up for both TouringPlans.com and TGM so if there is a conflict, I will go with TGM's recommendations...

Hope this helps!