Tour Guide Mike

[snowball]

I am currently using his program for our very first family vacation to disney. Has anyone else used his program and touring advice.
And if not how does everyone plan their day?

I am actually having nightmares because I am stressed out about getting to the right ride at the right time and I dream I forgot my notes and plans of where to go next.

What does any one else think?

 

[t-roy]

I think it's overwhelming to you right now but it will pass. I also use TourGuideMike since I hadn't been in awhile and I figured it was the same as buying a guidebook. The more you read and the more you communicate on the board the less stressing it will become.

When you figure out what kind of vacation you want to have then you'll be able to tailor your vacation to fit the needs of you and your family. You won't have to look at everything and will be able to focus on just a few. For example, I'm taking my ds (4) and he doesn't meet a lot of the height requirements so I can narrow down my research to just include the things he can do. It made it easier. You don't mention how long you're staying or how many people are traveling with you but I'm sure once you're well read the nightmares will subside.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to breathe!!

 

[Cinderella822]

I did the same thing on my first trip. I read books, did research, had notes and then - left the notes at home! Well, as long as you have a general idea of what you simply MUST do, let the rest fall into place. My family and friends think I tend to "over plan" anyway, down to the last detail. We had more fun when we made a general plan and then left time for some surprises. So don't let the planning details ruin the fun of the trip itself.

 

[xmatt0926x]

I've also used Tourguidemike and it is a nice guide, but I wouldnt lock myself into trying to go by a definite itinerary. You mentioned that you are stressing out that you might not make a ride at a certain time. If thats the case then its gotten a little out of hand. Maybe thats just me. Im more of a spontaneous person and couldnt imagine standing there with a piece of paper trying to follow a definitive plan with timeframes, etc. I would just use his stuff as a general guide to whats available and maybe come up with your own general ideas of what you want to do and when. Im sure his plans work and all, but if your spending your time thinking about meeting deadlines instead of taking in the moments you'll remember for years to come, its just not worth it. Just wing it and enjoy the moment. You'll make it thru just fine and have lots of fun along the way. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Synonymous]

Snowball, you didn't mention when you're going. How busy the season is makes a huge difference in how tightly you have to stick to your itinerary.

I think you can boil TGM's advice down to "Get to the crowded stuff as early as you can, then go do other things." Just get a feel from his charts as to what attractions fill up early and which don't.

If you try to keep to a tight schedule, minute-by-minute, you'll be too stressed (because you WON'T be able to keep to it once you're there) and you'll miss alot of cool moments because you're rushing to your next "appointment."

 

[dorisdvu]

How does Tourguide Mike work? I too am stressing out about my first trip. I thought that once I made the hotel reservation I would be fine. Well needless to say...I read the boards all the time. There are going to be 5 of us going (3 adults & 2 kids 7 & 4) in March. I am flying and the rest are driving. I still need to get the minivan and flight booked. I'm waiting for some discount codes for that time to come out. I notice something else to do/see just about everyday. We are going to be staying at the Dolphin Sun-Fri and from Fri-Sun at Portofino Bay in Universal. I'm afraid I will be crazy by the time I get there. lol

 

[Synonymous]

TGM is sort of like an interactive guidebook, and costs about the same as a guidebook. You enter the dates of your trip and go through lists of what attractions you want to see. TGM puts together a list of itinerary and planning articles based upon your preferences, as well as the ages of your party. These include detailed advice on the best days for each park, the best times for each attraction, etc. He also gives alot of detail about each attraction, to help you decide if its something you're interested in.

It's like a guidebook that's organized specifically for you. Another advantage over a printed guidebook is that its much more up to date. If you buy Birnbaum or Unofficial Guide today, you'll be getting info that's already several months old. TGM is updated fairly often.

 

[snowball]

I like Tour Guide Mike, but I am finding it hard to follow! There is just so much information to go thru. and maybe I am doing it wrong but it just doesn't flow very smooth. But very well worth every penny spent. And I got a discount promotion code from one of the other sites for maybe like $5.00 off. If your interested I can probally find it again.

It has helped me alot, but so have these boards!

My husband, myself and our 6yr old will be going Nov 27 (Thanksgiving) and returning Dec 3rd. As far as the crowds it looks like it will be very very crowded Thur - Sunday. So we will have about 3 good (least crowded) days.

We never have spent much money on vacations, but we lost our baby girl after 6 months of pregnancy. She was diagnosed with anacephely. The funeral was June 12. It has broke my heart because the doctors told us we would never have any children so when our 6yr old was born it was a miracle. So when we became pregnate again after 7 years and it was a girl, I was so excited and so was our family. But at our last ultrasound we found out the worst news possible. Her head did not close in at the top of the skull. She had no chance of survival. So since then this has been my thing to do to keep me busy and my mind off things.

Soooo.. I think that is really why I am stressing out about this trip, and the fact that this is not a cheap trip and I want it to be perfect for our family.

We have reservaitons at the all stars and Port of Orleans, reservations at Rainforest Cafe, Coral Reef, and MVMCP tickets for the 2nd, and Fantasmic Dinner package at Mamma Melrose.
We have our Park Hopper Tickets and our meal vourchers already. I have a pastporter book and a Birhmans book. And a touring plan, and a packing list. What am I forgetting?

Sorry for blurting it all out....but thanks for reading! I feel better.

 

[NavyDotz]

Originally posted by snowball
We have reservations at the all stars and Port of Orleans, reservations at Rainforest Cafe, Coral Reef, and MVMCP tickets for the 2nd, and Fantasmic Dinner package at Mamma Melrose.
We have our Park Hopper Tickets and our meal vourchers already. I have a pastporter book and a Birhmans book. And a touring plan, and a packing list. What am I forgetting?

dont forget to relax & have fun!!!
you'll have a ball - enjoy the holidays as much as you can

 

[Synonymous]

Don't worry, Snowball, you're going to have a great time. Just by doing the planning you've done, you're way ahead of 90% of the people who will be there. Take along TGM's list of what attractions to do at which time of the day (the short one in table form) and that's all you'll need.

Try to relax, soak in the atmosphere, and let your 6-yr old guide you sometimes without worrying about "the schedule." Remember to enjoy what you're doing, even if it's just strolling down Main Street, rather than worrying about what you're NOT doing.

You couldn't have picked a better place to go to enjoy being with your family. I know you'll have a great trip.

 

[tjkraz]

Six years ago, almost to the day, my wife and I spent 8 days at WDW for our honeymoon. We paid too much for the trip. Did almost ZERO planning ahead of time. FastPass was years away from reality.

And you know what? We had a GREAT time.

I would never discourage planning, but there is only so much you can do...particularly since it's your first trip and you have little frame of reference for many of the things you read.

In the end, try to determine what information is most valuable to you once you reach the parks, and figure out how to keep that info with you. Before our last couple of trips I prepared 4x6" cards for each park. On one side were small maps of each park (I hate trying to use the big fold-up maps in the park), along with a list categorizing each attraction as "to do" or "optional". I ranked the attractions in the order that many guidebooks recommended visiting each, but never held myself to that order if it didn't make sense at the time.

On the other side of the card I listed other relevant info such as PS times and confirmation numbers, parade and firework times, park hours, other scheduled activities (golf, etc.) cell phone numbers for our party, any any other relevant details that I wanted to carry with me.

That's the only piece of planning information I took to the parks with me. In that one 4x6 card I had just about everything that I needed to get me through the day.

It isn't practical to carry around 4 guidebooks and hardcopy printouts from TGM. Read as much as you can. Retain as much as you can. But once you get to the parks, a little common sense will get you a lot further than many of the people you'll see standing around you.

 

[lentesta]

Hi Synonymous,

Note the free on-line updates to the 2003 and 2004 Unofficial Guide have been available for a while now. The last update was September 13, and we should have some minor updates later this week. The URL is in my sig. If there's anything we've missed, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Len

 

[Rileygirl]

Hi Snowball

I am so sorry what happened to you. My sister-in-law had the same thing happen to her (she has three little boys and then it happened to her with a little girl)

I too was soooo stressed about our WDW vacation. We are a family of 5 and live in Canada, so the Disney trip will probably occur once every five years for us. (Even with all the money saving tips and tricks I learned through the boards,mousesavers and TourGuideMiKE, it still cost a lot of money.)

I wanted the perfect vacation too, and I must say I am a planner. I printed out tons of stuff from TGM and took it all with me. But you know what? After the first day, I realized I did not need to take all that stuff to the parks with me. I totally agree with synonomous.... just bring that printout of what times at what day from tgm. You are already waaaaayyyyy ahead of everone else because you know which days and what times to be at what parks..... that cuts down lines soo much (we went in the middle of spring break, never waited more than 5 minutes for anything except one ride.) If you read his stuff on priority seating,, that makes you ten times further ahead of everybody ... big time. Already your chance of having a hugely successful vacation is in the bag! So try to relax and enjoy it.

I must say how suprised I was that I knew and remembered so much from his information. So dont worry about printing it all out, or memorizing it.....you really dont need to.

Snowball, you have found these boards, you have passporters, and TGM. Honestly you will have a great time. My advice to you is say to yourself, "we are going to have a fantastic time" and start to 'enjoy" the planning. Involve your six year old... (I picked up a whole bunch of advertizing mags at the travel agent and let the kids cut out pictures of the rides they wanted to do... they loved that... there are also lots of great ideas floating on the board on getting the kids involved....)

One more thing, I hope you looked at your November Calendar clipboard in TGM... he outlines EVERYTHING you need to know about avoiding crowds and having a great time at thanksgiving. He gives you lots of very specific advice there. Also there are several articles in Decembers Calendar Clipboard about MVMCP and how to have the most fun.


I hope you have the perfect vacation snowball! Have fun planning.!!!!

Rileygirl

 

[t-roy]

Snowball, I also found TGM to be hard to follow at first. I think since I wanted to find out ALL the information at once I didn't know how to organize in my mind the data I was seeking.

One thing that helped was using the Express Planning Guide. I started there and worked my way back. I then took time to read about each park individually, not necessarily trying to remember or plan just basically familiarizing myself and enjoying the read. I then started to read the sample tours to get a better feel of the parks. Kind of like walking it out in my mind. I'm very visual so that part made me feel better and I could then go onto reading over the material about shows, parades and fireworks; once again just to get familiar. Then I put everything down for awhile.

When I came back to everything I was less anxious and could focus on specifics. I'm leaving Oct. 9th and I have a "plan" but more importantly I'm familiar. I have no intention of sticking to my plan since I want to take the time to look around and smell the roses but I do have to have a roadmap before I go. So I know how you're feeling.

This board will be of tremendous help once you get more focused. It has helped me immensely. Just know you're not alone in this!! Take our hand and we'll walk you through it.

 

[xmatt0926x]

One more thing about Tourguide Mike. Make sure you take advantage of all those articles. some are very informative. Like I said in my previous post, I would never be able to plan out my days at the parks too much, its just not my personality, but you will probably surprise yourself at how much you retain just from reading his stuff. I do think its a pretty unique service and gives a little more than the basic book guide will. I purchased mine last year and I remember that he had tips in there that were very helpful as opposed to the basics you get in the books, and Ive read all the books, believe me. My favorite all time tip from him was the second floor seating area at the Colombia Harbor house (not sure if thats the correct spelling). He said most people dont realize that there is a second floor to sit in and he was right. It was mobbed downstairs, we went up to the second floor and it was empty other than one other family. You almost felt like you were getting away with a crime or something.

 

[HappyMommy2]

Hi Snowball,

So sorry about your daughter. God bless you.

I'm glad you're going to have a great WDW trip soon! I used TGM for our trip (our first!) in very busy July of this year and it helped us immensely. At first I was overwhelmed by all the info, but (as someone else suggested) I decided to start with the Express Planning part and that helped me a lot. After going through that section I spent some time looking through additional articles and other information. Like another poster said, it all boils down to getting the busiest attractions done first and then moving on to the other things. TGM is great for helping you understand what "everyone else" tends to be doing at a certain time of day so you can avoid that if possible!

I printed out the tables of what general times of day to do what attractions, and I took those printouts to our hotel. Each evening I'd look over the next day's attractions a bit. I didn't carry any TGM or other planning material around the parks. Each day we had a general "plan of attack" for the park we were going to, but we remained very flexible (had to with two very small kids!). For example, we knew we wanted to do Fantasyland very early, but instead of zooming off to the next Land after Fantasyland, we stayed to ride Peter Pan and Dumbo an extra time or two.

You will have a wonderful time. I think just having a general, well-informed idea of what you're going to do each day will be all you really need to make the most of your trip!

 

[3for Me]

Snowball -

I think part of your anxiety is that you and your family have been through soooo much and you need something to look forward to and you reallllyyyy want it to be perfect.

So....PLEASE take the advice of the previous posters and just use TGM and any other guides as just that A GUIDE.

Trust me, when you get there your 6 yr old will surprise you by wanting to see something you thought for sure he would not be interested in, OR it will rain (God Forbid!) one afternoon when you had planned to be at Splash Mountain OR the rides may have shorter lines (now that's more like it!) than anticipated and it will throw off your schedule. Another schedule - buster are the characters. Beware! They will eat up lots of time.

The point is - those are things you can't control and they are also the things that make your trip magical - those spontaneous moments.

Go and ENJOY and Yes! use your guides - but don't let them guide you - leave that to your son!

God Bless You and Your Family - may you have a magical vacation.

 

[crazyforgoofy]

And, snowball, here's a cyberhug {{{{HUG}}}} from me. I had a similar situation with what would have been my husband's and my only child together (we each had 4 from previous marriages). It took a long time to recover and I still ache when I think about it.
But it does get easier with time - quite a bit of time.

Everyone has given you wonderful advice. Tourguide Mike is wonderful, he and I corresponded about a few things on the site and he's a nice person in addition to giving super advice. Read as much as you have time to, print out things to review again perhaps on the trip and then relax. You will have a fantastic time in the MAGIC. It'll help heal your hearts. My favorite tip from TGM is to bring towels to mark your place along a parade route (it will cushion your bum, keep your clothes clean and dry and keep others from encroaching on your spot). We stuck a few hand towels from the hotel room in the backpack and it was great. I'd never have thought of that myself. Oh and I love the upstairs at Columbia Harbor House too. Go early, use fastpass (with Mike's tips it works even better), relax and enjoy.

You have such fun things planned - MVMCP is incredible. Make sure you get a good spot for the parade, it's Christmas Magic at its finest - imho.

What are you forgetting? Maybe just to relax and be a kid again yourself.

Here's a big sprinkle of pixie dust *~*~*~*~*~*~*~* for your trip.

Mary Alice aka crazyforgoofy

 

[snowball]

Thank you for the words of encougement. I really need those my due date was to be next week on Oct 14th. My heart is really breaking and I still need to pick out a stone for the cemetary. I hope your right, because I could sure use some Disney Magic.

I have never heard about the upstairs in the Columbia Harbor house. Would like to know more about it. We have bought some meal vouchers and plan on using those. Any advice would be appreciated. But I guess that is another board!

Anyway sorry about your child...hugs to you to! On the otherhand it sounds like you live a Brady bunch life!