"Ultimate Disney World Survival Guide"

[mykidsmom]

Has any purchased this guide by Beth Haworth? Would like your opinion before I do. I see she is a sponser of intercot.

[carley]

havent seen it myself but i dont think you could get any more information then you will find from the good folks here at intercot

we went on our first trip ever to wdw sept 15th and the info i read here and got from fellow posters saved me money...made our days more enjoyable and funfilled then i can imagine

[CleveRocks]

About a year ago, in preparation for my 2nd trip in 2 years as a parent, I clicked on the link for the ad for the book. I was intrigued by the money back guarantee and e-mailed a question about it. Keep in mind that for about 18 months before that I'd read all the books and been on all the websites I knew about, and gathered a near-encyclopedic knowledge of everything WDW that I felt was relevant to me.

The author's brother e-mailed back to me. He was very nice. He told me that, on my honor, he would e-mail the link to the book for free, and if I found it helpful (and thought it contained info that would save me money) I would contact him and make payment.

So I took a free look at the book. I went first to a chapter I knew a great deal about, a subject there has often been much confusion about, Disney's Magical Express. From my experiences on message boards, I was confident that I knew as much about DME as anyone except those who worked providing DME services.

Well, the book really blew it. It was all wrong about DME. It incorrectly stated that people flying on a "non-participating airline" couldn't use any part of DME at all. Imagine that, a book promising to save money probably unnecessarily cost some people some money by incorrectly telling them that they couldn't use a free service and had to pay for transportation to and from the airport!!!

I also glanced through several sections that I thought I wasn't an expert in ... I didn't find anything I didn't already know. I certainly didn't gain any money-saving tips.

So I wrote back to the author's brother. He said he understood what I was telling him, and he agreed that I did not need to pay for the book, since per our initial agreement it just wasn't helpful to me. I also gave him the CORRECT info about Disney's Magical Express, and to their credit the book was corrected within about the next week (I checked back, since I still had the link).

To be fair, the author's brother wrote to me that he thought the book would be a big money-saver for a relative novice, and that it would not save a lot of money for someone who already knew a lot about WDW.

So my opinion on it? If you are like me and you like message boards and have the time to wade through thousands of threads, then the book is unneccesary. But if you need it boiled down for you, the book seems like it would be a good resource.

I certainly appreciated the author's brother's trust in me, as well as his honesty and their apparently quick response to knowing there was at least one instance of blatantly incorrect information in the book.

[mykidsmom]

Thank you for your help. Since I've been to Disney every year since 1982, the book probably wouldn't add much to my experiences. You convinced me not to buy it. Thank you.