We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Colleen Bentley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Colleen, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The team is the core of our business, so hiring the right people is the key to being successful. I’ve always believed that if you hire smart people with good values and the right personality for the job, the skills and work can be taught. Relationship building with clients is such a huge part of our business and what keeps clients coming back, so you need the right people on your team to make that happen.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Colleen Bentley, and I am the owner and founder of WDW Park Planners. I started the company in 2018 as a side hustle and went full time with it in 2020. I now have a team of Concierge Planners and am continuing to grow and expand the business to provide additional offerings.

My family grew up traveling to Disney World every year, and as the oldest child, I was always the family planner. I loved mapping out a strategy for our vacation and choosing what we were doing each day (and used to make printed itinerary books for my family!), and all of that carried over into my business model.

Planning a Disney trip is extremely stressful and overwhelming – even if you know what you’re doing! Unfortunately you need to put in the advance work to get the most out of your vacation; you can’t just show up and expect the magic to happen. Enter WDW Park Planners.

WDW Park Planners offers a unique Concierge Planning Service for Disney destinations, including Walt Disney World, Disneyland and Disney Cruise Line. We provide a premiere service, personalized to each family, so they *can* just show up on their special trip. We create customized itineraries that maps out the family’s park time to help minimize wait times and maximize their experience.

Our Our Concierge Service is unlike anything else out there in that we not only handle all of the advance booking and planning for our clients, but we see their trip through all the way to the end. That means that while our clients are traveling, our Concierge Planners are available and ready to answer any questions or provide additional support so you can focus on enjoying time with your family!

Our goal is to be a one stop shop for your Disney vacation with a seamless experience from start to finish – we can take care of the booking, the planning, and making sure your vacation is stress free and magical while you’re there! We also offer in-person tour guides as an add on to make your trip even more relaxing and fun (especially for the parents!).

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth is what took our business to the next level. When we have a client return from their vacation, they share with their friends and family, and we typically have several leads contact us.

The reason people want to pass along our name, though, is not only because of the high level of service we provide, but because of the relationship our Concierge Planners have built with that family. Our team is committed to each and every family and ensures they have a seamless planning experience and stress-free vacation.

I truly believe relationship building is the foundation for success. Our entire business model is about our Concierge Planners building relationships with our clients so we can create a personalized vacation for their family – because no two families are the same!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started WDW Park Planners back in 2018 after returning from a family Disney vacation. I always wanted to run my own business and was passionate about the Disney parks, so it seemed like the perfect fit. On that particular vacation, I noticed other families in the park who were having a “not so magical” time on their vacation. Whether it was waiting in hour long lines or looking at maps trying to figure out where to go next, their trip was different than how our family experienced Disney. And that was where I got the idea for a planning service. People needed the most help planning the day to day part of their Disney trip, and there really wasn’t anything out there that specially provided that offering.

The first two years were just me, working on the side of my full time job, trying to get clients. That was the hardest part! Once I got my first few clients, word started to spread and just took off from there in 2019. When Covid hit and the parks were shut down, the business was at a standstill for a few months, but then started to pick up again that fall upon reopening. Disney World was one of the few vacation spots that was open, and they handled safety measures extremely well so that people felt comfortable visiting. By early 2021 bookings were picking up quite a bit, and this is when I knew I needed help. I brought on my first two Concierge Planners, and it’s only grown from there! In February 2021, I also co-opened my second business, Magical Park Vacations, a sister company to WDW Park Planners. MPV handles all of the bookings, while WDWPP still handled the planning portion with the Concierge Service. The agency took off quickly and has been a great support to the Concierge Service.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wdwparkplanners.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/wdwparkplanners/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wdwparkplanners

Image Credits
Walt Disney World Disneyland