the spreadsheet

Years ago, when I let Dreams Unlimited do my planning for me, the travel agent would prepare a spreadsheet showing park times, parades, etc., as well as all of our flight/hotel/dining reservations.  She'd also throw "dinsey travel tips" onto the spreadsheet. 

(Loved my DU agent Linda, she was great ....too bad she had a falling out with the boss man....)

So now that I'm doing my own planning, I made a spreadsheet of my own. 

So D. showed it to his housemate Marc....D. hasn't been to WDW since 1987, when it was only 2 parks and we didn't do any sit-down dinners, and Marc has NEVER been to the World....

and Marc said "she must have OCD...."


and D said "aren't you supposed to just go with the flow on vacations?"


and I laughed....

the DIS -- the good, the bad and the ugly

My parents' friend's sister is a travel agent, and she planned our first WDW trip in 1998.  I discovered the internet around the time of our first trip, and found a great little site called wdwinfo.com, with a message board at disboards.com.  It was a nice little site run by a man named Pete werner.  Disney was his hobby, and he loved to chat with other Disneyphiles.  Eventually he started a Disney-only travel agency , Dreams Unlimited.  Eventually his forum and his business grew to a point where he no longer had time to pursue his hobby of posting on his own message boards. 

I was a DIS member in good standing from 1998 until 2001, and used Dreams Unlimited to plan four of my WDW vacations. 

I got banned from the message boards by the great man himself, I'd said something sarcastic and he took offense.

You can read my posts about the DIS on my regular blog here  and here and here and here.

but it wasn't all bad.  I met lots of lovely people -- on one trip I met a fellow DISer on Maint Street in the MK, and she gave my girls pins.  I went to DIS meets here in NYC and met people who are still my firends. 

and I learned a lot about Disney planning and how to make the trip as enjoyable and magical as possible..