So you’re on the phone with your travel agent. And you’re in
the process of planning out your family’s next Walt Disney World vacation. And
because your kids really love to swim, you’re then asking this agent about the
various themed pools that can be found around the Resort.
Which is when your travel agent launches into this detailed
description of how the Mardi Gras-theme pool at Disney’s Port Orleans (which
can be found in the French Quarter section of this WDW Resort) compares to the
Luna Park Pool at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn.
Mind you, if your family is fans of Disney’s “Pirates of the
Caribbean” movies, this travel agent then tells you that you should definitely
consider staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort. Which has recently reimagined
Old Port Royale’s central pool complex as the sort of Spanish Fort that Captain
Jack Sparrow and his crew would love to lay siege to. Complete with crumbling
towers, antique cannons and a waterslide
…
The newly rethemed pool area at
Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort.
Photo by Steve Griswold
As you sit there on the phone, listening to these
hyper-detailed descriptions of various aspects of the Walt Disney World Resort,
do you ever wonder how it is exactly that your travel agent knows all this? Has
such an intimate, encyclopedic knowledge of Disney’s WDW’s four theme parks and
24 resorts?
I wondered the same thing myself. Which is why I recently
reached out to Steve Griswold of Pixie Vacations. Who then told me about the
travel agent education program that the Walt Disney World Resort runs.
“Last month, a bunch of our agents flew down to Orlando to
take part in this 5-day-long program,” Steve explained. “It’s pretty extensive
training. Mixing hours of classwork with site inspections of virtually every
Disney hotel on property. By the time they graduate from this program, these
agents have an in-depth knowledge when it comes to which resorts would be
really best for the type of Disney vacation that you’re looking to have, the
various vacation packages and admissions media. “
The classwork portion of WDW’s
Agent Education Program gets underway as
Cast Member Rita welcomes her latest
class. Photo by Steve Griswold
So in the tradition of Disney’s Cast Members (i.e. “We work
while others play”), these travel agents flew into Central Florida and
immediately put on their walking shoes. As they then began trooping down resort
corridors to check out the various categories of rooms found at the Disney
Resorts.
“Take – for instance – our trip to Disney’s Coronado Springs
Resort. The Agent Education Program facilitators who were handling this on-site
tour made sure that the agents who were taking part in last month’s training
program got a good sense of what this WDW hotel was really all about. So we
toured the convention center not to mention this resort’s Mayan Grill
restaurant as well as its Pepper Market food court. We also visited one of the
suites and did a site inspection of the lobby. Just so we could then get a
sense of how all the pieces fit together,” Griswold continued.
And this pattern repeated over the course of that week. With
the 40 or so agents (8 of which worked for Pixie Vacations) visiting hotel
after hotel. Touring different room categories that are available for booking
and getting a sense of the sorts of amenities that each WDW resort offered. Not
to mention the specific vibe that each of these hotels gave off.
Rita explains some of the features
of the rooms at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
Photo by Steve Griswold
“I have to admit that I was really impressed with what I saw
of the Bay Lake Tower. That new DVC property is so sleek and modern. It’s a
wonderful addition to Disney World’s roster of resorts. Not to mention being a
great companion for the Contemporary, which is really looking great these days
following its most recent reinvention.” Steve said.
Now please keep in mind that not every travel agent gets to
take part in the Agent Education Programs. Disney only offers these classes a
couple of times a year. More to the point, they keep the class size small and
then work these travel agents really hard – cramming their heads with Disney
World-related info – while they’re on property.
Mind you, it wasn’t all classwork and walking tours. Steve
and his co-workers from Pixie Vacations did manage to have a little fun while
they were down at Walt Disney World.
Guests at Epcot’s World Showcase
wait for Reflections of Earth to get underway.
Photo by Steve Griswold
“They treated the agents who were taking part in this round
of agent education training to a performance of La Nouba at Downtown Disney.
Though – to be honest – that probably wasn’t so much to entertain us as it was
so that we could then speak knowledgably about this Cirque du Soleil show should
our clients ask about it,” Griswold stated. “We also got to experience a
dessert party along the shores of World Showcase Lagoon while we watched
‘Illuminations: Reflections of Earth‘ at EPCOT one night.”
But in-between these brief bits of play, it was back to
learning about all the Walt Disney World Resort
has to offer for the crew taking part in this training. This included
getting up early, early one morning so
that these agents could then drive out to Port Canaveral and then tour the
latest addition to the Disney Cruise Line fleet, the Dream.
“We actually got on board the ship before they started
loading the next group of passengers. So
as we were touring the Dream, we were able to see many of the different state
rooms,” Steve said. “But we also got to visit a lot of the public areas – the
kids’ club, the teens-only area at the front of the ship. We even got to have
lunch in one of the ship’s restaurants before we then headed back for Walt
Disney World.”
Getting to tour the Disney Dream before the next group of passengers came on the ship
was one of the highlights of this round of WDW Travel Agent Education.
Photo by Steve Griswold
Does that sound like it’s an awful lot to take in in a
single 5-day span? Not to worry. Disney World provides these travel agents with
lots of Web support. So that – through exclusive use of online tutorials &
assets – they can then keep on top of recent changes at the Resort, new
vacation packages and travel incentives like Disney Dining.
“Mind you, we’d seen some
of the characters early in the week when they’d taken us all over the Cape May
Café at Disney’s Beach Club Resort so
that this group of travel agents could then experience character dining,”
Griswold laughed. “But it’s just not a trip to Disney World unless you get to
see Mickey Mouse. Which was why it was nice to see Mickey before we then all
got our graduation certificates.”
Dina is presented with Walt Disney World
Agent Education Program diploma
by Mickey Mouse. Photo by Steve Griswold
So there you have it, folks. If the travel agent that you’re
talking with as you book your next Walt Disney World vacation sound like a real
expect when it comes to the Resort, there’s probably a reason. Mostly likely
they just went through what Steve Griswold and the team from Pixie Vacations
did.