Tour Guide Mike - End Product?

[kutchyone]

Tour Guide Mike veterans I need your help. I worked my way through, answering all the questions posed to me. At the end what should I see as an end product? I don’t get it. The “itinerary” appears to be not specific to me or my needs just a general itinerary that I could come up with from any other park book. Please tell me that I didn’t just throw away my money on this product. As I get closer to my June trip will something wonderful appear based on the information I provided? Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[Julia M]

I have the same question.

I've tried to navigate the site, but there is alot of info, and I'm wondering if I am missing something big

julia

 

[disneyeveryyear]

There should be a link on one margin or another for the specific month you are going.

TGM will give you very important information regarding which park will be least busy on each day of the week, he has touring plans for different touring styles, he should also be able to help you keep up to date with the constant changes of EMHs.

I would stick with it for a little while longer. If not, I know TGM offers a satisfaction guarantee, or you money back.

I absolutely loved his advice at Christmas. We never waited more than 10 minutes in any line, and did all 4 parks in 6 days.

 

[bquick]

Be sure you are logged in to TGM and have entered your information about dates of trip, resort, ages of guests, what you want to do (activities,events). We used TGM in Dec. and were able to do everything we wanted-Fantasmic, MVMCP, all the shows, character meals, etc. I am using it now to plan our trip in Dec. 2005. I found it to be a WONDERFUL personalized plan for my family and me.

 

[kutchyone]

I did enter that information but I'm not seeing anything like a personal itinerary. Am I missing anything?

 

[Selket]

Unless I've missed it too there is nothing that is will spit out that is on one page that says "go to this park this day at this time and ride this thing and then eat here and then do this and that and that" - you really do have to figure that out for yourself.

When you are logged into the TGM site there is a VERY helpful post in his AVP forums called "How To Plan Your Vacation." It is stickied at the top of "Itinerary Planning and Questions" forum. Check that post out and see if it helps.

I've found TGM's planning tools to be the best anywhere. He has sample touring plans once you decide which parks you want to visit and when - he gives advice on best days to visit each park.

Hope that helps.

 

[kutchyone]

So far no information that he has provided is news to me. I certainly hope that as it gets closer to our departure date of June 7th new information will be provided.

It would have been nice if he gave some touring plans along the line of the Unofficial Guide.

 

[jayally]

There is another thread about TGM around here. I bought it thinking it would be a good way to plan my days with a personal intinery, one that I could enter the times and days I will be at a park and the rides I want to go on and the guide would suggest a route. Alas, TGM can only give you articles to read that may help you make your own plans. Many of the suggestions I already knew about or figured out on my own with a bit of common sense. I felt it was a bit misleading as it is not an intinery planner as the site suggests. I did receive a prompt refund. Many people find his information helpful but you also have to be willing to like his writing style, which I did not, and be able to spend hours trying to navigate your way through his site.

 

[sanibelover]

You know, I felt the same way about Tour Guide Mike. I was expecting much more personlization, not so much general info. I never got info on Tour Guide Mike for our vacation last Nov. that I din't already know from Disboards, Mousesavers, Allearsnet, etc.

There was another post about whether to purchase Tour Guide Mike and I felt like the only one who said I didn't think it was worth it. Maybe if you don't read all that you can about Disney anyway, you would find it helpful, but I felt like for the money the Uuofficial Guide was much better(of course with all of the new info on tickets, packages, etc. that is a little outdated at the moment). I could bring it with me without printing out everything I wanted to remember. Maybe I was missing something too, but I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I was being a little slow or something....never really felt like I got my money's worth.

 

[zippehsmom]

TGM does give sample touring plans that you can use. I used them last year and they worked out wonderfully. Just like the Unofficial Guide gives you generic touring plans also. The big difference with TGM, why I liked it better is because it does not have me crisscrossing the park and it suited my plans better.

I also have to respectfully disagree about being able to find everything that TGM has in other places, but everyone has their own opinion. All I know is I've done trips to Disney pre TGM (all wonderful trips), but my trip with TGM was awesome.

If you have a problem finding info about TGM, I would suggest posting your questions on his forums, so that someone can help you.

zippehsmom

 

[HillPete]

I am a fan of TGM and I like his writing style, but I think what you are looking for is more along the lines of the plans at touringplans.com. They offer a (costly) service where they take your likes/dislikes and spit out the plan for each park. I think each park plan is about $15, so from that perspective, TGM is a bargain. The trade-off, however, is your time and energy. Mike teaches us how to approach itinerary planning on our own, using his knowledge and experience. That way, no matter where we are in the park, no matter what time of day, we can look at our situation and correctly assess what should happen next. Just cuz the UG or TGM or whoever says that such-and-such a day will be a low crowd day, doesn't make it so. Would you rather stick to a 'spit out of the computer' plan that may end up having you wade thru hoards and hoards of people? Or would you rather have the knowledge to say 'Hey, there is an unexpectedly large crowd here today. I wonder which park/land/attraction could be emptier. Let's check with TGM and see!"
Cheryl, I hope you find what you need to have a great trip! Go Tribe!
--Hillary (in Cleveland Heights!)

 

[kutchyone]

Thanks everyone. I'm going to give it a shot. I am an avid planner so I do tons of reading and usually check in daily with my favorite sites, this being one of them, so maybe that is why I am not impressed as of yet. I really did misunderstand what was meant by itinerary planning, I thought that the itinerary would be planned out for you with directions to follow in each park. Oh well live and learn. Maybe I can get a few tips for my money, we will see. This will be our first summer trip so I was looking for a few tips to get us through it.

Thanks again

 

[Brian Noble]

I've gotten several tips on TGM that I haven't found anywhere else. I guess it is possible that I don't spend enough time reading all the other boards, and if I did spend more time, then I, too, would not find new stuff there. (I doubt it, though).

Then again, my time is valuable enough that that $20 is a bargain, particularly given the low signal-to-noise ratio on some of these boards.

If what you are looking for is a go-here/go-there plan, you can do that pretty effortlessly with TGM. There are lists of best parks on best days for various categories of guests (EMH-eligible vs. not) and times of year (accounting for EMH changes and holiday patterns). Mike's philosophy about why he picks which day when is a bit different from the Unofficial Guide's---and both tell you *why* they suggest the parks they suggest. Both probably lead to good plans. I think more like Mike does, so that philosophy fits me better.

Anyway, start with that list. Each day has 1-3 "best bets" for morning, and a separate list for evenings. Pull only from that list, choosing so that you see the parks in the order/frequency that you think best fits your family. Then, each park has between 2 and 4 pre-planned touring plans that you can just use. Unlike the UOG's plans, they focus primarily on the mornings through about mid-day, so if you really want an exact, all-day laundry list of what/when/where, they won't quite give you that. On the other hand, there is more explanatory text for why he plans things the way he does, making it easier to tweak the plans to suit your needs.

There's a lot more to TGM's planning philosophy, and it's really a philosophy, not a method. If you can get in tune with that philosophy, his site is a lot easier to follow. One big part of that philosophy is that "less is more" when it comes to being in the parks: he is a big advocate of afternoon breaks for everyone. He is a big advocate of not following a late night by an early morning. He is a big advocate of taking a day off from the parks entirely mid-stay to recharge your batteries. I don't necessarily follow all of this advice, but I do what I can.

If you haven't visited theme/amusement parks with this "less is more" attitude before, it feels like you are not "getting your money's worth"; I'll call that the competing philosophy. Once you convince yourself to try it, though, you'll never go back. I used to be a "get my money's worth" kind of guy. Then I bought season passes to my home amusement park, and the freedom of not needing to ride something with a long line convinced me that even when I visit other parks paying the full, one-day price it is better to follow the "less is more" philosophy. Most importantly, I believe I'm getting better value for my money because of it.

My recommendation: kick the tires, and try it out. He will refund your purchase price if you don't feel like there is value to you. I've gotten enough value out of it that I now recommend it, along with Unofficial Guide, to all of my family members and professional colleagues considering a WDW vacation. The total $40 investment is about the cost of adding hopping to *one* ticket, and provides much more value.

 

[cocowum]

I found the same thing with TGM. I prefer the UG. After ordering TGM, I emailed him and said I thought his touring plans would be more personal and I thought his site was a little misleading. He refunded my money immediately, but he took my criticism to heart and sent me a strongly worded email about how great his site was and how much everyone loved him. And most people seem to. I just think the UG is better.

 

[Brian Noble]

To be fair, when I first came across TGM, I was hoping it would be something like RideMax is for Disneyland---you tell RideMax what you want to experience, what time you are arriving, when you are leaving, and when you want an (optional) break, and it will either spit out a plan for seeing those attractions with minimal wait, or tell you that it can't be done.

But, before I plunked down cash for TGM, I understood from its online tour that it can best be described as filling a similar role as the Unofficial Guide (lots of hard-earned information, but leaving the actual planning up to you), at the same price point, but from a different (and to me, more resonant) perspective.

RideMax is excellent by the way; if you are going to DLR, I recommend RideMax plus the DLR version of Unofficial Guide---a three month RM subscription costs about the same as *one* custom WDW plan from the UoG folks, but allows you to play what-if games with it rather than being a one-shot deal. My brother's family goes to DLR only as a side-trip to their U of M Rose Bowl vacations---one day during the absolute most crowded Disneyland week of the year. Worse, they usually don't get there until 11 or noon, and they have to leave by dinner time---the most crowded *time* of the most crowded *week*. He went one year without RM, and the next year with, and experienced about twice as many attractions in the same amount of time.

The amazing testament to Disneyland was that after that first year, he still had enough fun to want to go back!

Note to enterprising entrepreneurs: if you were to develop something like RideMax for WDW, you could make a killing. There certainly seems to be a market.

 

[always quiet]

I LOVE TGMike . No, he does not give you a specific daily touring plan but he will tell you which time of day to hit each attraction, which day of the week he recommends each park, if you are or are NOT using the EMHs. There is month specific information, email reminders, PS information to tell you when you can call for any specific information.

Personally, I would not hesitate to use him again!

 

[jayally]

I found the same thing with TGM. I prefer the UG. After ordering TGM, I emailed him and said I thought his touring plans would be more personal and I thought his site was a little misleading. He refunded my money immediately, but he took my criticism to heart and sent me a strongly worded email about how great his site was and how much everyone loved him. And most people seem to. I just think the UG is better.

I received a similar worded email immediately after I was encouraged on the site to email my comment on how hard it was to navigate and I thought the site was something more than it was. I never asked him for a refund but he paypaled my money back. Apparently he takes all criticism very personally. I thought It was a very strange reply for a business.

 

[mshrm]

but certainly attest to the wonderful program for Disneyland by Ridemax! I went in the middle of summer last year during the busiest days and Ridemax had created such perfect schedules for our 3 day visit. I sure wish they would expand their service to the WDW!

 

[2infinityandbeyond]

What I like about TGM over other planning sites or books is that he provides the information which allows you to make your trip as regimented or as flexible as you choose, and I think flexibility is essential when vacationing with kids.

I've used the UG touring plans for past trips. While they worked reasonably well, I thought there was too much criss-crossing/backtracking, which made for a tiring day.

 

[henrylovespooh]

I last used TGM in 2003 and I thought the info was great. I like to plan, so I read all his articles and parks-each-day suggestions and then typed out an itinerary. He has sample itinerary pages that you can prepare. I have been to the parks before, so maybe that's why I enjoyed his approach. If I had never been there before it might not have made as much sense.

If his approach was to tell me what to do in every park, every day, and in what order, I wouldn't have liked that. With small children, I could never be put on that kind of schedule. I liked that he gave me the information to make informed decisions. The trip that I used TGM for was a terrific success.