About TourGuideMiKE

Meet Michael J. Hewell, the Creator of TourGuideMiKE

Greetings! I am the President and founder of MICHAEL'S VIPS, an exclusive Private Guide service to Walt Disney World and the rest of Central Florida, and the creator of the TourGuideMiKE Automated Vacation Planner™.

Our typical VIPs are very successful, financially comfortable people who want the very best possible vacation experience. And they repeatedly tell us that they will never return to Central Florida without a MICHAEL'S VIPs Private Guide!

Until April, 2001 we also provided a separate Custom Itinerary planning service for $45 per planned day. The average guest invested about $225 to have us personally design their day to day itinerary, select their attractions, provide them with my tips and trivia for each one, provide a daily order-of-the-day summary, and to recommend and secure all of their dining and activity reservations. Whew!

Believe it or not, we had to discontinue this service because we couldn't possibly keep up with the demand! These guests were spending several thousand dollars or more on an important vacation and knew that using an expert's years of experience as a VIP tour guide, guests relations host, and vacation planner was money well spent. Unfortunately, it was taking too long to do all the necessary planning for them!

I was searching for a way to speed up my own vacation planning process so I wouldn't have to lose this profitable portion of our business when a well known software developer I was hosting on a VIP Tour asked me, "Have you ever thought of putting everything you know about Walt Disney World into software? How many people are in the parks today? Instead of only helping one family in person you could be helping thousands."

My immediate internal reaction was, "Doh! If I can invent a process that simplifies all this work for me, it'll be simple for them too. They won't need me!" TourGuideMiKE, a helpful online personality, was literally born that same evening! I barely slept for the next two or three nights as my mind spun with all the possibilities. (That's a fault I endure when I have a really good idea ...)

That brief conversation with my guest outside a store at the Disney-MGM Studios was in October, 2000. It took me 25 months to bring him to life for the public, but we finally opened in November 2002! TourGuideMiKE's Automated Vacation Planner (AVP) looks at every characteristic of your party or family and automatically determines what's best for everyone. It then presents the best choices, and everything I know about them, in your own interactive vacation planning web site.

Not only do I provide the public information available to anyone with the time to search for it, I also share all of the secret "in's and out's" that only an experienced personal tour guide like myself knows about: When and where do you visit each day to avoid lines and crowds? How do you design an optimal day-to-day itinerary? When are the best times to dine to avoid a lengthy wait for a table? Which rides and shows are truly the 'best of the best' for you? What might frighten your child? Where are the best seats? How do you secure the best view? And so much more!

And because the AVP is actually sophisticated software, I can now accomplish all of this in seconds, 24 hours per day, seven days a week. The Internet is a wonderful creation isn't it? The same service that cost my guests hundreds of dollars is now available to you for only $21.95. That's an outstanding bargain I hope you will take advantage of! (You actually get more than my past clients because they didn't receive their own interactive web site.)

So ... how did I become a Walt Disney World Planning expert? Through the following experiences:

• An operations cast member in the Magic Kingdom for four years of holidays and summer breaks from college. (Go Colorado College Tigers!)
  
  
• A Walt Disney World guest relations host for over five years. These are the cast members that solve guest challenges, answer questions on every possible topic, help with daily itinerary plans, make dining and activity reservations, sell and advise ticket options, and provide guided tours for adults and families.
  
  
• A Walt Disney World Resort VIP Tour Guide for over five years. I escorted families, executives, and world famous celebrities through all the parks, attractions, shows, and restaurants. I also arranged every detail of their itineraries, from arrival through departure, to ensure the best possible vacation.
  
  
• A Private Guide and Custom Itinerary planner to many families for two years through MICHAEL'S VIPs

You can do this! You can design a wonderful vacation itinerary. You can have fun-filled days exploring the best attractions and shows without long lines and crowds. You can dine at the most enjoyable restaurants. And you can have a great time that everyone will remember for many years to come!

All you need is a little help from your personal, friendly expert and his amazing TourGuideMiKE Automated Vacation Planner™. Have fun with the AVP, and I wish you a wonderful, memorable, magical vacation to Walt Disney World and Central Florida! :>)