Are you expecting to be working while you’re enjoying an extended vacation with your family on your next Disney Vacation? Here are some planning tips to help you get the most out of your “down time” while you’re connected to the complimentary WiFi services at the resort. Remember, everything you need to work remotely can be available from Office 365’s https://portal.office.com website.
WiFi
Remote school. Remote work. Remote internet provider? Not to worry, even if every member of your family will be relying on Wi-Fi for their respective responsibilities, your chosen vacation club home away from home supports your Microsoft Office 365 connectivity needs.
Before booking your resort choice, be sure to read the reviews prior guests have left. Therein lies clues to your potential experience. You can also contact the resort before you book to inquire as to whether the Wi-Fi will support your remote working needs. You might want to ask whether the Wi-Fi reaches every room in the house, for example, and what bandwidth their service supports. A necessary consideration should you have two or more video conferencing calls taking place at once. Also ask if they know the latest 5G reports for your area. You may be able to rely on your mobile device within your room. Check out Ooklas 5G rollout map.
Consider changing your time zone while you’re gone
This is super simple, and can work across all applications from one spot. You can temporarily change your time zone in Office 365 from the following link. Remember to change it back when you return to your normal workplace. Since you’re planning to stay on property a while, no reason not to sync your life up to your current time zone.
How you work best—and if your Villa will accommodate your needs
If you’ve been working from home since the start of the pandemic, you’ve likely already established your remote work routine: where you work (e.g., your dedicated office, dining room table, standing desk in your bedroom, etc.); when you work (e.g., creative work in the morning, emails over lunch, administrative tasks in the afternoon); and how often you work (i.e., learning to set healthy boundaries in an always-on, virtual world).
If you’re planning to work from your Disney Vacation Club home away from home, you’ll want to think through how to make your DVC studio, 1, 2, or 3 bedroom space work for you. For instance:
- Do you need an office with a door, or can you work in an open floor plan with other family members around? If you’re in a studio you’re going to need to set some ground rules around when it’s quiet time. It’s a great idea if nothing else to bring some noise cancelling headphones. I’m a big fan of my Jabra Evolve 75 noise cancelling headphones plugged into the bluetooth of my laptop.
- Does your work require quiet for writing or presenting (without interruptions) on video calls? If so, does the vacation rental layout lend to that need?
- If your kids are doing remote schooling, will they have the space they need in a vacation rental to get their work done, too?
Tools you can’t work without
If you’ve stayed at a DVC before you’ve probably identified the comforts of the office you’ll be away from at your home office set-up, that said, you’re willing to trade that for the new vacation view and sounds outside of your sliding door \ deck. Whether that was your ergonomically-designed desk chair, extra monitor (or, a monitor to begin with!), wireless keyboard, or standing desk, there were adjustments you had to make—and gadgets and tools you had to buy—to make working at home sustainable. Well at your DVC you’ll have a comfortable laptop desk in each bedroom to work from, and every room has at least one cozy chair to sit on.
When considering a working vacation you’re likely going to want all of those comforts on the road, too. Need that second monitor? There are some great portable monitor options available to you now.
Set Microsoft Teams to forward your calls to your cell phone, if you can’t or choose not to answer, you’re still going to capture your call with a voice mail and transcribed email after the fact. Ask if your IT department support call queues in TEAMS before you leave. Perhaps if you can’t answer a call, it can go into a Call Queue for your colleagues to answer while you are away.
Meet with Anyone While On Vacation – FREE
You and your business guests don’t need to sign in or download anything to have a video meeting with Skype. Visit the Skype site to create a meeting link, then share the link with participants—you can invite up to 50 people—then, when you’re ready, join the call. If you don’t have Skype installed, your meeting will open in Skype on the Web.
Work in the Cloud
Collaborating with colleagues, syncing
documents, and backing up files is simple with
tools like OneDrive, OneNote, Power Point,
Excel, and Word. Make your documents virtual
and accessible on the web and across devices.
Did you know you have a Scanner in your pocket?
Scan written notes and physical documents
right from your phone using the
Office Lens app.
Booking your next Disney Working Vacation?
If you’re a DVC Member, you already know how to book your vacation. If you’re not a DVC member, and are interested in great pricing for a DVC Resort Stay, head on over to Dave’s Vacation Club Rentals.
Many have saved THOUSANDS of dollars on their Disney vacations using DVC Rentals and you can too! No membership is required. Guests pay $19.00 per point for all stays within 7 months! Reservations booked beyond 7 months are calculated at $19.00 or $20.00 per point based on the DVC resort.
Dave’s Vacation Club Rentals has available to them, inventories of rooms located on Disney property at the Walt Disney World Resort Florida, Disneyland Resort California, Aulani Hawaii, South Carolina and the Florida Atlantic coast, for rent.
You can reserve one of these rooms directly through Disney Central Reservations, or you can experience DVC Rentals to book the very same room through members of the Disney Vacation Club, at prices that will leave you asking “HOW CAN THAT BE?”.