So I'm relatively new to this forum, but I've been scouring them trying to find tools for planning a trip. Being constantly immersed in data, technology, and software all day in my job, I can't help but think that the tools we have available for planning a Disney vacation from top to bottom are...lacking...A LOT. I don't particularly care about news, content, reviews, crowd levels, wait times, etc as the main feature, since there are plenty of resources for that. I'm talking about well-designed and well-written software specific to planning a Disney trip (or possibly for other Orlando parks).
Here are some tools I'm NOT talking about:
I'd love to hear thoughts from this community if I'm just insanely obsessed for pondering all of this or if some think I'm on to something that the community would find useful. Really, I'm mostly looking for some sign that this would be a valuable tool and not just an effort in personal satisfaction for my own trip-planning usage.
Here are some tools I'm NOT talking about:
- Disney's own first-party software such as the MDE sites and apps which are clunky and slow. No data-entry but also mostly an "after you've decided to go, and set a budget" tool.
- TouringPlans which is decent but also slow, and not well organized IMHO. Although this software is mostly focused on planning the trip, it's more about planning ride times and planning around crowded days of the week/month/year and less about budgeting or overall planning of the entire trip. No what if scenarios with comparisons without LOTS of manual data-entry.
- My Disney Visit which is very new and lacking in functionality but seems to have good potential the way it is being built. It's also focused on when you're there in the parks. Also lots of manual data-entry.
- Spreadsheet Templates for Excel or Google Drive. I already have a spreadsheet template I created that has over 80 columns, hundreds of formulas, and a bunch of scripts. This doesn't lend itself to good information/data management for more than one person in my opinion. Once again, data-entry, data-entry, data-entry and writing formulas, high-learning curve for most people, can be intimidating to non-stats/math folks, just generally NOT the best solution although data portability can be excellent.
- Software that has been written specifically from the point of view of planning a trip down to the dime, before ever putting in a CC # to make a reservation (hotel, ADR, others), purchase tickets, pay for flights, etc. Basically, to see a full overview of the budget with details and do what-if scenarios similar to TouringPlans own "Optimize" button.
- Data portability (including exportability) possibly even running and storing data client-side (on the device) but also has the ability to sync back to services such as Google Drive (which I believe has a decent API, never developed with it though) while maintaining decent data security. I don't think this tool would store much beyond basic PII, but certainly not things like SSN, CC#, banking info, etc. Mostly just names, DoB, reservation numbers, flight info, etc.
- Roles and Groups. Think "master trip planner" and subordinate role classes with granular permission sets (or even custom groups with custom permissions). This might be used to gather feedback from family members on activities they must do, want to do, wouldn't mind skipping, where they want to eat, etc. Could also be used to enable "democratic" features like voting for rides, restaurants, activities, etc.
- Some level of integration to other services that leverage existing data. I know this is vague but my best example would be a web-scraping service/browser extension that scrapes data from MDE and populates your "trip plan". It could also mean an API to offer and receive data from other services such as ride names, wait times, addresses, reviews, menus, etc, etc.
- An easy way to define your budget, plan against the Dining Plan promotions (again, compare and see what-if scenarios), plan against Disney's own master-calendar for accomodation-based promotions other than the "free" Dining plan, and an overall budget view.
- Native iOS/Android apps would be a must as planning the entire trip from a well-designed tablet UI/UX is paramount, with additional features available in a desktop web-browser for power-users.
- Generating a PDF "binder-set" and/or business-card-size summaries of each day's events. I see a lot of people doing the binders. Not sure about the business-card summaries though. Might be a good feature?
- Google/Apple Calendar Syncing and export to "click-and-populate" an entire calendar of events you just planned out using the app.
- My head is so full of other ideas this is probably getting too long already.
I'd love to hear thoughts from this community if I'm just insanely obsessed for pondering all of this or if some think I'm on to something that the community would find useful. Really, I'm mostly looking for some sign that this would be a valuable tool and not just an effort in personal satisfaction for my own trip-planning usage.