Tour Guide Mike

[rie'smom]

For anyone who might want a refund,I have an experience to share. About 4 years ago, I was planning a WDW trip. I found out about TGM from an internet search. I paid my fee, logged on and FREAKED out with all of the info. I emailed Mike for a refund.BAM I got it-no questions,no hassle.
Fast forward a year. I found the DIS. While on the boards,I started reading about all of the positive experiences people were having with TGM and thought I'd try again. It really has made a wonderful difference in our trips. Mike's advice is absolutely right on the money everytime. Between the DIS and Mike, we love WDW so much that we're now DVC members. I'm the money manager for the family and there's NO way that I'd have let my hubby even consider this purchase if not for our stress free WDW trips.
So, if you want a refund,just ask.

 

[saffy]

6 months-Not at all, I signed up again right after my June 2006 trip and won't be returning again until June 2008. The useful life for me goes way beyond getting the calendars up.

I agree!

I signed up about 11 months before our trip and am still visiting almost daily to get info!

The site is helping me learn what we WANT to do, and figure out how much time it will take us to to do it. That way, once the best days and hours get released, we'll be able to easily plug things into that.

Frankly, I forsee it losing its value once at the 6 month mark, because once I get the best days charts, I'll be "done" planning.

Yeah, right! I know, but assuming I'm able to leave things alone at that point, I'll already have the trip planned.

 

[mb168]

I was actually considering signing up for TGM for our trip this June with 7 of us going, now I'm even more curious about what's so great about it that I don't already know after so many visits.

 

[tracy51]

Ekball...I'm right there with you! Sick today ughhh. But able to log on, since my work computer blocks TGM, only to find no TGM! Wah. I got the Sept hours off the WDW site yesterday...looks like my preplanning will be right on target, but I am looking forward to the best days to confirm that I am right! Hi Ken...Kutchyone...Colemanares...JillL...anyone else I forgot!

Hehe, there's a few more of us that don't have the same username here as there. And I just figured out who someone was here this morning Quite a few us find both the DIS and TGM great resources for planning our trip.

 

[ekball]

Ekball...I'm right there with you! Sick today ughhh. But able to log on, since my work computer blocks TGM, only to find no TGM! Wah. I got the Sept hours off the WDW site yesterday...looks like my preplanning will be right on target, but I am looking forward to the best days to confirm that I am right! Hi Ken...Kutchyone...Colemanares...JillL...anyone else I forgot!

Dicecatt!!! Nice to see you, even though it's NOT on TGM!! One can only hope that he'll be up and running soon.
I did the same yesterday with hours, and my plan looks good too. A little confirmation from TGM would be helpful though, especially before next Sunday when I FINALLY get to make my ADR's. Oh my.... this addiction is such an illness.
Hope you're feeling better soon!!

 

[DisneyMommaTGM'er]

I just had to share my experience with Mike from our 2004 trip.....I found TGM about 4 months before we left for our trip & let me tell you....I was TGM 24/7 trying to learn everything he had to offer!! I did really well & had our plans printed & laminated!! One week before our trip......Mike changed our green days!! He said that the first 2 weeks of June had been busier than he'd ever seen WDW & he felt he HAD to change his best park days!! Talk about me freaking out!!! I was reworking all of our days at the last minute, but I did it! (& even got them laminated before we left!) That was a WONDERFUL trip!! Our very first trip, during a VERY busy summer & we never waited in line for anything longer than 10 minutes!! My DH could hardly believe it! What I found SO valuable is that Mike updates to the minute! I never would have gotten that last minute advice from a book that was printed over 6 months before! That is one of the reasons why I will patiently wait for my dear Mike to work out his 'puter problems & will ALWAYS use his site as my primary source of planning!!

Love ya, Mike!!

Dana

 

[jnorth1007]

Hi TGMers. I have been having withdrawals also. I look at it this way. After Katrina I went without electricity for 31 days and it took Charter 2.5 months to get my cable back up and another 3 months to get it back up RIGHT. I figure a couple days or a week without Mike is no sweat. I have every imaginable resource for these 2 trips and I can honestly say I haven't looked at any of them (UG, Birbaum's, Passporter, touring guides) since I joined TGM. He has excellent resources and some of the best members ever. No flaming and lots of really useful information. I have become a Mike addict and I have to admit can't make a decision without first reading what Brad and Brian have to say about it first Hope its up soon but since I am not going until Oct and Dec I can wait. Just means my kids get to go outside today and my hubby eats real food for a change.

 

[mmcguire]

In English, the server is up. [fingers crossed] Maybe they are restoring the backup tape. Course, first they have to find the software for the backup and install it...get the last known good backup tape ... it could be a while. Then again, who knows if they had all the software dug out once the hardware started working.

That is assuming that there is, in fact, a backup. We don't know TGM's hosting agreements, etc...it's possible that a low-cost third-party service doesn't have backup servers.

Even with a system, there's always the possibility that the backup itself is bad. The last company I worked for had a tape backup system put in, and everything was fine until this little virus called ILOVEYOU exploited our mapped drives and destroyed the graphic files on the server. When they went to restore everything from the backup tapes, they discovered that they had failed to put the tapes in. Luckily we had one guy with a Mac (which viruses generally don't affect) who had the graphics stored on an external hard drive, and we were able to restore most of the graphics from there.

 

[TourGuideMiKE]

Hi everyone!

Please accept my sincerest apologies for this 2-day downtime. Fortunately, there is nothing wrong with our server -- the mechanical device that stores our web sites -- nor have we been hacked for personal information. We didn't discover until late last night that someone entered our server through a direct account set up years ago, not a "TGM AVP" account like all of you have, and removed the internet address files required to display a web site. We can see that they tested their own access to the server a week ago, and then at 3:45 p.m. 2 days ago, went in and removed the specific files that would shut TGM.com down completely. They also took the extra step of removing key files from the server's Windows software so that it would have to be completely reinstalled.

So ... that's the technical stuff as best as I can openly describe. That, and I'm anything but an IT specialist, so if I said something above that doesn't make complete sense to more knowledgeable people than myself, know that it's accidental. All that I care about is if our database used for my TGM guests had been accessed -- no -- and was anything done to remove updates or files from the database to affect the site's content -- again, no. We should be exactly where we were when the site went down at 3:45 p.m. 2 days ago as soon as we're back online.

It appears that the only goal this individual had was to remove tourguidemike.com from the internet and nothing more. In a weird way, I'm thankful, and we should be back up in a few hours from now (I'm typing this at 1:22 p.m. on Fri, March 2).

I know everyone worries about their credit card information when they hear a commerce site has gone down or been illegally accessed, and please know that we never store anyone's financial information anyway. We had that as a prerequisite for running an online business years ago when developing the business plan for tourguidemike.com because at the time, around 2001, hacking was receiving more and more press. We use Verisign to encrypt the purchase page, one of the Internet's most recognized and respected companies for that purpose, and Authorize.Net to approve your credit card purchases. Once your purchase is authorized by your own credit card company or bank, everything but the last 4 digits and your card's date of expiration is removed. Even I do not have access to this information -- nor did I ever want or need that responsibility.

For the record, I just received an angry email from someone stating that they have not been able to access the web site "all week." This simply is not true. We transferred TGM.com to a new server hosting company several months ago and this is actually the first downtime we have experienced beyond a few minutes here and there. However, if anyone out there wants a refund because of this downtime, or for any other reason, please use the "Contact Us" link that's at the bottom of every page, public or while logged in, on the entire web site. Again, I sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, and I do completely understand how frustrating it must be -- especially for those leaving yesterday or very soon, and please know that we are taking every measure we can to ensure this does not happen again.

I hope everyone has a great day today, and I also appreciate your support with this matter. Thank you!

Best regards,

Mike Hewell

a.k.a. TourGuideMiKE

 

[jcemom]

Thank you for the update.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

Thanks for the update Mike. Sounds like you guys ran into a complete nightmare. Best wishes for getting it all fixed up.

 

[80spanda]

Thanks for the update, Mike!


Renee

 

[mom2my3kids]

Thanks Mike..

 

[latexscooter]

Thanks, Mike, that was a real stand-up thing to do. I'm sure everyone agrees with me when I say Thanks for the Update!

 

[disgirl]

Mike: Thank you so much for posting and letting us know what is going on. I am sorry all this has happened and I like many others, I am sure, am looking forward to getting on your site again real soon. Good Luck and thanks again.

 

[SueOKW]

oh yeah baby! (said in my best Austin Power's voice) Glad you are nearly back in business - sorry you were zapped like that.

 

[luuuceee]

Thanks for the update, Mike!

Weird situation, eh? I'm glad that we should be up before long.

 

[saffy]

Thanks, Mike, that was a real stand-up thing to do. I'm sure everyone agrees with me when I say Thanks for the Update!

I know I do! Thanks, and UGH! How nasty do people need to be to deliberately go in and do something like this?

Awful, just awful that people would do something like that to bring your site down! I hope that measures are being taken to prevent some other jerk from doing something similar again!

 

[Lisa0503]

Thanks so much for the update!!! I finally booked my trip so I have new date to enter into my AVP. I am not leaving till Jan 08 so I have plenty of time. I used TGM for our Sept 06 trip and I don't think I will ever go to WDW without TGM again. I love his site and the Best Days are wonderful!!!!

 

[rhiannonwales]

Thanks for the info Mike!
Hope you catch who did such a juvenile thing.

And to the person that complained about a week's worth of downtime.....
Dramatic much?