When You Wish Upon A Star.....

Apparently, I've just been trying too hard.  As soon as I started painting my kitchen and stopped worrying about attracting potential clients for travel, they came out of the woodwork.  I have a wealth of new clients this week who all called or emailed while I was busy painting the kitchen and breakfast room.

Just based on the inquiries I am getting I'll tell you that it is apparently the time of year to start thinking about Disney.  I have to confess that although I see the attraction, I am not a big Disney girl.  I never went as a child.  In fact, I've only been once and it was on a work related trip.  Actually, I was at Epcot watching fireworks on my birthday that year.  It was the last Personal Best trip I went on, so it was probably about my 44th birthday.  I only remember that it was my birthday because as I sat on a bus being transported back to the hotel on either Thursday or Friday night, my brother, Ronnie called to tell me happy birthday and when he asked how I was spending my birthday I felt a little guilty saying that I was spending it at Disney World.  I actually felt the need to explain that I hadn't paid for the trip.  I was there on business... over my birthday weekend.

Me and Melissa Swarbrick with Mickey and Minnie!

 On Saturday of that weekend, the former employer who shall not be named gave us tickets to go to one of the parks for the day.  My friends and I chose Epcot.  We had fun and it was clean and very cool.  I liked it.  If I had been there as a kid I am pretty sure I would have been awed.  I think that one of the things I learned about Disney while I was there is that they understand who their customer is.  They are aware that their customer might not be the wealthiest American or the most successful person in the world.  Most of them are just regular people who want to take their kids on a vacation they will never forget.  On those Personal Best trips, there was always one day in which we worked.  It occurred on Friday.  They would have speakers come in or there would be team building seminars.  At Disney, it was easy because they had PR people from Disney come and speak to us.  They told us about the parks themselves and gave us a little bit of history.  But then they went into a thing about knowing their customer and their expectations and meeting those expectations.

One of the things that Disney understands better than just about any company out there is that they are asking for a pretty big chunk of your money when you come for a visit and if they don't deliver your money's worth, not only do you not come back, but you tell your friends about it too.  They told us about how their customers save literally for years to be able to take their kids to Disney World and then they spend days at the resort visiting each park, eating all their meals on sight, using Disney transportation and staff for their every need.  If any single one of those people get something wrong during that customers visit, they can potentially lose a customer for life.  With that in mind, they coach every person from the guy sweeping the floor in an employee breakroom to the girl currently playing Snow White at the front entrance to go out of their way to make this the best day of someone's life.

While the PR person talked to us, she told us about customers with illnesses who had saved for 5 years to bring their family of 4 to the park and when they finally had the money the illness had progressed to the point that they thought they would have to cancel but working through Disney team members the family was able to take the trip and the people at Disney made sure that it all went off without a hitch.  If you talk to various people at Disney, they can tell you countless stories like that because they are in the dream making business.  They don't make dreams come true through discounting or through doing extraordinary things daily.  The dreams come true because the parks themselves are extraordinary and the people who work there are taught to treat every person in an extraordinary manner daily, regardless of the situation.

After lunch on that Friday we were given the rest of the day to ourselves.  We had choices to go on 4 or 5 different little tours or excursions.  But we could only choose one.  My friends and I chose to go on the behind the scenes tour of Magic Kingdom.  Let me tell you, it was not disappointing.  They took us down below Magic Kingdom.  We went past breakrooms, a medical facility, locker rooms, dressing rooms and offices.  Everything they need to run the park is below it.  One of the most interesting things I learned is that there are multiple people running around in each of the character costumes.  But only one of each is allowed to be above ground at any given time.  If Sleeping Beauty starts to break a sweat, then she comes down and another Sleeping Beauty goes up to take her place since we all know that Sleeping Beauty doesn't sweat.  But there can never be any two Sleeping Beauty's above ground at any one time.  In their minds, it would be tragic if a little girl was talking to one Sleeping Beauty and another one walked by in the distance.

So if they feel that they need a character in one part of the park and he or she is too far away to get there easily, then he or she just goes to the nearest area to get below ground which are strategically hidden everywhere and as soon as they are below ground another one comes up in the part of the park where they needed him or her.  It's pretty ingenious.

It is the attention to detail that makes Disney stand out.  That's why I really want to go on a Disney cruise.  Cruising is all about attention to detail and if Disney can make a trip to an amusement park the experience of a lifetime, imagine what they could do on board a luxury cruise line!  It's gotta be amazing, right?  So, I'm going to continue to try to book clients on a Disney cruise so that they can come back and tell me if it was everything they expected and then as soon as possible, I'm going to go on one myself so that I can tell all of you that it was even better than expected.  But in the meantime, I'll research and book these trips to Disney for my lucky clients who are planning on going in the next year.  Have a great week!