Pleasure Island Closing

Last Updated on Sunday, 31 August 2008 09:51 Written by lorie Sunday, 31 August 2008 09:45

Last week I made a reservation for our 2009 trip to Disney World.  I received the following notice in my ‘confirmation email’ from Disney this week.  Apparently, Disney is closing Pleasure Island in the next few months.

It looks like Disney is closing down Pleasure Island — and will be making more restaurant and shops at the Downtown Disney area.  I kinda like this idea.  In all the times I’ve been to Disney we have never visited Pleasure Island — just haven’t had the opportunity to be alone at that time of night without kids … LOL.  We always thought we’d do it someday.  Oh well!  I do agree Downtown Disney could use a few more restaurants.

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Delete key crazy

Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 November 2008 09:00 Written by lorie Thursday, 14 August 2008 11:32

I finished going through the 1587 emails I received in the few days I was away.  And that’s just one email account.  It’s amazing the number of emails we receive — when I have this many emails to go through I often get a little ‘delete key’ crazy and blow away important information. 

Secret Shopping Information

Last Updated on Monday, 3 March 2008 08:31 Written by lorie Monday, 3 March 2008 08:25

Secret Shopping Information

Have you ever thought of secret shopping or what is also known as mystery shopping? Secret Shopping is a lot of fun. I first found out about secret shopping about 15 years ago or so. At that time, I really got into it — we were living in Florida and I only had my two older children. Several years later, I had three more kids back-to-back — and with three kids in diapers secret shopping was just about impossible. LOL

Since then I’ve done a few shops here and there — I’m a bit choosy as to what I do now — but I still enjoy a dinner out once in a while as a result of a secret shop assignment. Over the years, I’ve performed mystery shops for pizza establishments, restaurants, groceries stores, banks (a lot of banks!), pet stores, department stores — you name it and I have probably completed a secret shop for that type of business. The income isn’t too bad — it is very good if you are able to coordinate several different shops in the same location and therefore do them all in one sweep. The income is also good if you are a ‘work at home’ mom and are looking to combine the secret shopping with your regular errands. For instance, I often have a fast food shop to do and I’ll do that after the kids’ piano lessons. The thing is the secret shop is usually for a ’set’ menu item — and, of course, I need to purchase the rest of the meal for everyone else — but still, it’s a nice little way to have fun and make some income. The banking shops have been very profitable and I have often been assigned 10 banks in one day where I go around town doing the shops at all the banks — I do feel a little ’silly’ at times but it can be interesting. The terms of most secret shopping contracts do not allow mention of the exact names of the ’shops’ but let’s just say that there is a secret shop for just about every well-known bank, restaurant and store that isn’t a locally run establishment. And, even then, the competition will sometimes do a secret shop on a locally run store just to see what the experience is at that location.

If you have kids you can sometimes bring them along … it all depends on the shop and terms that go along with it. There are some shops where it is definitely not allowed — although a sleeping baby might be okay. When you sign up at a secret shop agency you will be assigned a manager who will tell you exactly what you need to do and what is allowed and what is not allowed.

One place to begin your search for more details and information on secret shopping agencies is Shadow Shopper. Now, Shadow Shopper has several membership levels — however, it is NOT at all necessary to pay any membership fees — especially if you prefer just to get some information. You can sign up for their BRONZE membership which is entirely FREE — and you do not have to provide any personal identification (just basics, like name, address and email). When I put my zip code in to get more information about 50 different possible secret shops popped up. Wow. I signed up for the regular bronze membership and within a few minutes (not instantly, it did take about 10 minutes) I received a confirmation email in which I had to activate my membership. I did that …. and within minutes I received another email from an account manager asking me to do a shop by this Thursday!

So… if you are looking to explore the world of secret shopping Shadow Shopper would be a great place to begin that research — and branch out from there. Here’s a link to their site: