Trip planning tools...WHERE ARE THEY?!?!

[Grff]

I don't think Disney is just going to be comfortable handing the information necessary for your app idea over to random third-parties. There is a reason why they have Disney-affiliated travel agents.

I imagine the underpinnings of data like resort room inventory, guest capacity, etc. is either going to fall under "industry secrets" or "the guests' personal information".

And good grief Disney is working with legacy systems from the late 1990's!!!! They certainly are NOT going to choose to invest the IT overhaul that this project would require!

I get where you're coming from, but this is 2017, and travel agencies are becoming less and less necessary by the minute no matter how you slice it. I don't have anything against travel agencies, it's just a fact that as more tools become available on the web for DIY trip planning, they simply become more niche and less used/necessary. Also, their comfort is not my problem and is largely irrelevant to me, the consumer. Disney is a money-making machine, I'm sure they can keep up. It's also worth mentioning that WDWInfo, TouringPlans, RideMax, and plenty of others either pull data from Disney's site or collect data themselves while in the parks and generate trends while doing it.

HA! These are not industry secrets or the guest's personal information we're talking about. Rather, they are pieces of information made available over the public web to anyone with a web browser. You, me, some guy in Colorado, anyone, even a computer program written to fetch that information. In today's web, it's either build it or someone else will. The reality of this sort of tool though is that if built to run on a client's own device (from their local web browser), Disney doesn't really have much of a choice whether or not to hand over the data. Disney does require you to authenticate to their site before running pricing and getting a final total on the checkout page for obvious reasons. In short, if they want to allow people to book online, they have to live with the reality that this IS totally possible for someone else to scrape their websites for info. The fact that we had to live through ADR bots that did just this for a time and then resold those ADRs for a price is proof enough that I'm not totally wrong. Truly their only other option is to force people to call them, go through travel agencies (which would most likely have to call for you). Or go somewhere in person to book! Is that even still a thing? Disney is a publicly traded corporation whose sole purpose is to make money for its shareholders. Do you really think they would take down their website to prevent people from scraping it? I sense a shareholder munity would quickly be planned were that to happen.

Disney's web infrastructure is not using technology from the late 90's. In fact, that's quite far from the truth. Maybe their animatronics are dated back to that time (which I highly doubt all of them are that old), but their web infrastructure certainly is not. Just looking at the most basic elements of their site they are keeping pace with current technology trends. The problem is not that the technology is old/outdated, but in how they built it, and that they don't dedicate enough resources to serving pages more quickly. Why would they? The performance is probably acceptable for most users. Could it be improved and optimized? Certainly! But their web infrastructure is absolutely NOT running on legacy systems from the 1990s. This project also requires nothing from Disney in the way of "IT overhaul". The whole point is to use the data they already make public on their site and do so from the client's device.

 

[Tawni]

Yes, I would absolutely use this. I have spent a lot of time trying to find the best price for every date/hotel/and amount of tickets. It would be amazing if I didn't have to spend so much time switching screens and starting all over again to compare. I am kind of an over planner though!! Good Luck!

 

[Anabelletoronto]

I don't see the need for an app. You would really only use it once to choose your overall plan (number of park days, where to stay, when to go)
And then you wouldn't need it anymore.
I have an agent and I just emailed her (no charge) and said please quote me for
3 days with hoppers
6 days without hoppers
Moderate resort vs deluxe resort
Dining plan vs no dining plan.

Then I went to the website 'is the dining plan worth it' and checked that.

The MDE app is very user friendly for me. I didn't have to book my dining- my agent did that which was amazing.

 

[Grff]

Yes, I would absolutely use this. I have spent a lot of time trying to find the best price for every date/hotel/and amount of tickets. It would be amazing if I didn't have to spend so much time switching screens and starting all over again to compare. I am kind of an over planner though!! Good Luck!

Good to hear! What generation do you belong to (i.e. Baby-Boomer, Gen X, Millenial)? Trying to determine if the primary target demographic for this app is my own generation (Millenials) or all generations. LOL I totally get the over-planner thing. Good to know there are others out there like me. Thanks for the feedback!

I don't see the need for an app. You would really only use it once to choose your overall plan (number of park days, where to stay, when to go)
And then you wouldn't need it anymore.
I have an agent and I just emailed her (no charge) and said please quote me for
3 days with hoppers
6 days without hoppers
Moderate resort vs deluxe resort
Dining plan vs no dining plan.

Then I went to the website 'is the dining plan worth it' and checked that.

The MDE app is very user friendly for me. I didn't have to book my dining- my agent did that which was amazing.

Thanks for the feedback! If you don't mind me asking, what generation do you belong to (i.e. Baby-Boomer, Gen X, Millenial)? In my experience, travel agents have always taken at least a few hours to a few days to get back to me no matter the destination. I'm a millennial and I do suffer from the "I need an answer immediately" syndrome known as instant-gratification. Personally, I think it's silly to wait for someone else to do what I could do in about 15 to 20 minutes perhaps less with this app. I think most other people who belong to my generation would err on the side of caution when given the choice of an app vs. travel agent (most of my friends who are around my age do their own travel planning). I'm sure part of it is an inherent lack of trust in someone else doing something for you, but much more than that they simply don't feel like waiting. But maybe I'm wrong about that!

I'm curious because I genuinely want to know...how long does it usually take your agent to turn around a quote like that? It seems fairly simple so a goal of the app would need to be to always be able to beat a human travel agent. Now if you're wanting the personalized service, that's obviously one thing an app can't provide in terms of "just do everything for me so I don't have to lift a finger", but again that is NOT the point of this app.

Thank you for the feedback though! I'm glad there are varying opinions on this proposal! It's too early to call a percentage of yes vs no, but I think I'm on the right track. I just need a larger sample size. lol

 

[Anabelletoronto]

My agent always gets back within 24 hours, if not sooner. That works fine for me.
I am generation x and a parent. I would say most parents of young kids love the outsource idea for everything. Especially if it's free. When she said she would book my dining reservations for me- and gave me tips on which ones to book when - I was relieved. 7am is the time I start work and when most people are getting kids ready for school so not ideal.

 

[bumbershoot]

Check out Passporter.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not quite sure I want to continue building spreadsheets when I could focus the effort into something others might also want to use. That was my original question. Would people use this or not? It sounds like for you and probably many others, that's not the case and you'd rather use the Disney website. I'm just not a huge fan of their site. In my opinion, it's slow, clunky, and almost for every option requires a painfully slow page reload. The UI/UX isn't all bad, but what planning tools they do have are disjointed and lacking in functionality and not seriously integrated enough to give you a full overview of your total cost. At least not until after you get home and start adding up receipts. lol

So...there used to be more sites that helped with this stuff.

Then Disney slowly started painfully revamping their sites (back when you could have different logins to their various sites) and slowly creating MDE even before we knew what they were doing, slowly breaking everything as they fixed one thing...

The sites I remember peering at disappeared after mde showed up and made people think it was going to do all those magical things.

But just like the marketing that told us (for ten minutes) that the mb was all you would need to bring to the parks,it was wrong. Because why would Disney want to give us something that would allow us to make good financial decisions???

I must have attention span issues. I couldn't get through your first post.

I was blaming my head cold.

And good grief Disney is working with legacy systems from the late 1990's!!!! They certainly are NOT going to choose to invest the IT overhaul that this project would require!

Yep. For those of us who have been watching it for 10 years and seeing it get sadder and sadder compared to other sites out there, I'm going to have to agree.

They won't put the money in to hire proper people to make it right. IT is in Seattle where they could easily grab more people from Amazon but they only seem to get management from there. And only the unhappy Amazon peeps who don't like working hard. Then they get underpaid interns to do the work but don't create anything interesting. (A 25 year old I know on the fast track to VP at amzn tried to get in at Disney it as an intern 6 years ago but he was too focused for them) They can't even figure out how to create a master site where changes are made and tweaked and perfected, and instead do everything live on their site.

 

[mjonis]

I usually use TripIt!, but this time, it looks like I can't export my Disney Itinerary and have it sent to TripIt, so it'll be interesting to say the least (we're not staying onsite, etc.) I'll have to manually add everything in (ugh).

Although budget tracking is lacking (AFAIK) in Tripit, although you can put the cost details in the items, I don't know if there's a way to report on it.

I do agree it'd be nice to have as it's easy to suddenly wonder where all the money went to (LOL).

Although I suppose if you used Dave Ramsey's envelope system ... (haha).

I haven't tried TripCase, though.
I think that's what it's called.

 

[wonderstruck88]

Good to hear! What generation do you belong to (i.e. Baby-Boomer, Gen X, Millenial)? Trying to determine if the primary target demographic for this app is my own generation (Millenials) or all generations. LOL I totally get the over-planner thing. Good to know there are others out there like me. Thanks for the feedback!




Thanks for the feedback! If you don't mind me asking, what generation do you belong to (i.e. Baby-Boomer, Gen X, Millenial)? In my experience, travel agents have always taken at least a few hours to a few days to get back to me no matter the destination. I'm a millennial and I do suffer from the "I need an answer immediately" syndrome known as instant-gratification. Personally, I think it's silly to wait for someone else to do what I could do in about 15 to 20 minutes perhaps less with this app. I think most other people who belong to my generation would err on the side of caution when given the choice of an app vs. travel agent (most of my friends who are around my age do their own travel planning). I'm sure part of it is an inherent lack of trust in someone else doing something for you, but much more than that they simply don't feel like waiting. But maybe I'm wrong about that!

I'm curious because I genuinely want to know...how long does it usually take your agent to turn around a quote like that? It seems fairly simple so a goal of the app would need to be to always be able to beat a human travel agent. Now if you're wanting the personalized service, that's obviously one thing an app can't provide in terms of "just do everything for me so I don't have to lift a finger", but again that is NOT the point of this app.

Thank you for the feedback though! I'm glad there are varying opinions on this proposal! It's too early to call a percentage of yes vs no, but I think I'm on the right track. I just need a larger sample size. lol

For what it's worth, I'm also a millennial. I'm just in the category of preferring to price out different options on my own. I don't find it very difficult to do and I enjoy the research and planning.

 

[Grff]

But just like the marketing that told us (for ten minutes) that the mb was all you would need to bring to the parks,it was wrong. Because why would Disney want to give us something that would allow us to make good financial decisions???

I do agree it'd be nice to have as it's easy to suddenly wonder where all the money went to (LOL).

EXACTLY. It's maddening, but of course, their primary objective is to get you to spend, spend, spend all day long while you're there.

For what it's worth, I'm also a millennial. I'm just in the category of preferring to price out different options on my own. I don't find it very difficult to do and I enjoy the research and planning.

I know what you mean! I enjoy the research and planning probably at least as much as actually going on a trip. lol

 

[kennythepirate]

Just use Character Locator since it's the best available. I don't think you'll ever see anyone doing all that work for "freemium" either. It's an enormous amount of work to maintain a quality application.

 

[Grff]

Just use Character Locator since it's the best available. I don't think you'll ever see anyone doing all that work for "freemium" either. It's an enormous amount of work to maintain a quality application.

Wow, this has to be the most shameless of plugs I've seen in quite a while. Don't get me wrong, I like your app and it has solid features, but seriously? Did you even read the parts about the proposed app being about a "total cost" / "budget"? I get that you're a pirate, but come on man. A little objectivity goes a long way.

 

[mesaboy2]

Wow, this has to be the most shameless of plugs I've seen in quite a while. Don't get me wrong, I like your app and it has solid features, but seriously? Did you even read the parts about the proposed app being about a "total cost" / "budget"? I get that you're a pirate, but come on man. A little objectivity goes a long way.

I agree with Kenny. I think you are grossly underestimating the workload required. I wish you the best of luck regardless.

 

[Jen_G]

Gen-X/Millennial here, and I would probably use an app like this if one existed. It'd be nice to have something that could compare the cost difference between several flight/hotel options without my having to bounce back and forth between Kayak, Southwest, and the Disney site. (The more I think about this idea and try to plan out how you would code something like this, the more I like it, in fact.)

 

[firefly_ris]

This would have quite a hefty price tag to develop. Do you have a developer team interested in moving on this already?

I don't think it's a bad idea, I would probably have a look to see how cheap I could potentially make a trip as my budget is pretty low for vacations. I'm just curious about how it would be funded to develop and cost to maintain... ads? It's not a game so there's no in game charges, unless maybe you charge to upgrade certain features....?

 

[slpeters]

This is my first time planning a Disney trip--first time taking one too! I plan two or three major vacation trips a year though and I have to say I'm amazed by the amount of planning tools out there for Disney, far more and better than for any other destination I've encountered.

 

[fely1st]

Wow, I think I am really oldfashioned since I do my planing with a binder and coloured pen. I only use the web for the Infos like times, ... and love to plan with my pen in hand and immagination in my mind.

 

[Grff]

I agree with Kenny. I think you are grossly underestimating the workload required. I wish you the best of luck regardless.

Do I sense fear of new competition? Just kidding! (sort of?) But really, I do understand this would be A LOT of work to get this app off the ground. I don't disagree that I may be underestimating how much work it is, but once it's built I don't think it would be all that bad. I could just be totally wrong though LOL. Who knows, maybe I'll get fed up with it after a while and just post my unfinished work in a Github repo. I'd at least like to try and see how far I get. Thanks for the feedback and well-wishes!

Gen-X/Millennial here, and I would probably use an app like this if one existed. It'd be nice to have something that could compare the cost difference between several flight/hotel options without my having to bounce back and forth between Kayak, Southwest, and the Disney site. (The more I think about this idea and try to plan out how you would code something like this, the more I like it, in fact.)

With many APIs and literal bucket-loads of data. The regular travel sites are probably easy to query and I'm assuming most have a flight-time API I can use. If not, I know there are other, non-free APIs out there that can be used. This is how aggregator sites like Kayak typically work. It's mainly just Disney's site that presents the problem and therefore would require me to build a partially customized web-scraping browser extension. There's a somewhat simple answer for that: http://webscraper.io/. I think I would want to write this as a client-side app with local storage with very little server-side resources if any aside from maybe handling licensing and authentication via OAuth (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc). Either way, mesaboy2 and KTP are not entirely wrong. It would take a lot of work to do this, but it's also totally possible.

This would have quite a hefty price tag to develop. Do you have a developer team interested in moving on this already?

I don't think it's a bad idea, I would probably have a look to see how cheap I could potentially make a trip as my budget is pretty low for vacations. I'm just curious about how it would be funded to develop and cost to maintain... ads? It's not a game so there's no in game charges, unless maybe you charge to upgrade certain features....?

Probably not as much as you'd think, and I'm one person who would be working on this part-time. This is at minimum a few hundred hours of programming and another few hundred hours of debugging/testing (probably more), but I'm obviously not paying myself $100/hr+ to develop this so the cost is purely time at this point until I actually decide to release something. I could probably get this off the ground as an alpha release in about a year with basic features (hotel, tickets, ADRs, and some other basic options) and beta test for another year afterward primarily dealing with bug fixes and other issues. Some of the advanced stuff like the flight integration, additional activities like spa services and tours, as well as some of the more complex data integration from other resources for things like wait times and crowd levels would need to be rolled out as additional features with new releases.

Hosting the necessary web infrastructure and sites (registration, DNS, CDN, SSL certs, security, etc) obviously costs something more than just time, but I'm much less concerned about that expense than I am just about anything else. I'm also very familiar with cloud-hosting and have my fair share of professional experience with AWS, Azure, and others. Most if not all of this can be automated (and I'm very good at this). If there's one thing I'm most worried about its the regulatory problems dealing with the Android Play Store and the Apple AppStore which are far more nefarious than any hosting/server cost(s). Developing the app is one thing. Getting Google/Apple to sign off on it and put it in the store is another thing entirely.

As for monetization, that's not necessarily solved but I hate ads and I know most others do as well. In fact, 9/10 times I won't use an app if it has ads or I'll pay for the premium version to get rid of them. Free apps with a monthly/annual subscription are the most likely model with in-app or web (full desktop web browser) purchasing options available. I like the lifetime subscription option some apps offer so I'd probably do that too for a higher fee.

 

[marshallabney]

I have thought a lot about this over the past 6-8 months while planning two Disney World trips (thanks hurricane Irma). I too am a Gen X/millennial (right in the middle), ardent researcher, over planner, etc. and have found that I'll end up spending hours and hours with too many browser tabs and spreadsheets open trying to gather all of the information in one place. What I have found is that there is a level of "insider knowledge" that would be difficult to translate into a budgeting/planning app.

These forums (which are fantastic, by the way) are a real testament to the difficulty in building your app. For example, I didn't even really understand DVC point rentals until I had dug very deep into these forums and several other websites. Once I understood the tradeoffs, it makes complete sense for us, but I think a basic comparison of a DVC point rental vs. a WDW Travel Company onsite booked vacation vs. an offsite condo rental wouldn't provide the necessary information to make a wise buying choice. After a great deal of research, point rental works for us, but others probably don't fully understand the risk/reward, the housekeeping issues, the lack of flexibility, the trust required in either a 3rd party of DVC owner, etc. and an in-app comparison is going to be hard to translate that easily.

I guess what I am getting at is that I love the "idea" of your app, but I think those of us that need and will use it are doing their own research anyway (doesn't matter how well Kayak does to compare flights, I'm double checking airlines and other sites anyway), and those that don't dig that deep are comfortable using MDE or a travel agent. There is a time/cost tradeoff for most people, I enjoy the research (as one comment mentioned that is half the fun!) and those that don't enjoy the research are probably willing to pay a slightly higher price for their vacation to avoid it or let an agent do it for them. I'm sure there are many that can and would use the app/website, but I don't if it is enough to make your efforts worthwhile. I would use and pay, but it would really have to bring together a lot of sources in a strong comparable format. Best of luck!

 

[labdogs42]

So, when I do my vacation planning, I do a few things -- I run the numbers on the Disney site for a few different hotels and hotels with dining plans and tickets. I plug those numbers into a spreadsheet. Then I read through AllEars and figure out where I probably want to eat and I input the cost of those meals into said spreadsheet (we pretty consistently eat the same things at certain restaurants every time, or at least the prices are close). Then I compare the value of paying out of pocket for food vs the dining plan. I also have a spreadsheet for travel costs. Then I pick the combo of travel, food, and hotel that fits my budget. I think building the whole thing as an app or something would be overly cumbersome and would require way too much effort.

Or, for the average planner, they can just call a travel agent and they will do all that stuff for them!