Get a reservation
Wow! You didn't think that they'd do it but your boss approved your request to go to Lotusphere. January in Orlando -- Yippeee!!!!! You can almost smell the fresh squeezed orange juice. Now hold on tiger -- Before you get all starry eyed about going, now you have to get a reservation -- and that's a task that's gotten increasingly difficult in the last couple of years. Almost everyone who's interested in going to Lotusphere knows that its going to be in January and its probably going to be in Orlando at Disney.

How do you find out when? Well, starting in about the middle of August, you'll need to check the DominoPower News Center (found at http://www.dominopower.com/news/news.html) on a daily basis. Alternatively, you can check the Lotus News & Views page regularly or, if you're able to browse the Web with your Notes client, you can setup a Page Minder in your personal Web navigator database to the Lotus new site. You can configure the page minder to send you an e-mail with the contents of the selected Web page if it changes. This should give you a jump on most of the competition.

Once the announcement's been made, you'll need to get your reservation. Over the course of the last five years, I've registered by phone, by fax and via the Internet. Which one works best? I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I've heard a large number of complaints about the Web-based registration. People who had all the paperwork filled out and submitted never heard back from the event coordination company. If you want to be absolutely certain, you'll have to call the registration phone number. Have your credit card ready, operators are standing by. Also, be sure before you hang up that you've gotten some kind of registration number.

[A fallback plan, if you can't get tickets for the actual conference, is to tell your boss you got into the conference (fibbing is good for morale), fly to Orlando, enjoy the hot tubs, fly home, read the DominoPower news, and write a trip report -- as if you attended. You'll get the warmth, without all that troublesome schmoozing. -- DG]

A hotel, airplane ticket and rental car
These are actually the easiest. People in the know will make their reservations for hotel space a year ahead of time. With annual revenue of over $22 billion dollars, Disney doesn't seem to be able to afford an 800 number for the majority of the Lotusphere hotels (get with the program Eisner!), so go to the Lotusphere Web site and give them a call at one of the numbers shown.

Is it worth the extra money to stay on Disney property? If you're not going to rent a car in Orlando then it probably is. If you're going to be more mobile though, then it may not be worth it. Be advised that parking a rental car is a major pain if you're not staying at the Dolphin or the Swan [actually, from our experience -- we took cabs -- the lots were ALWAYS full -- DG]. If you're staying at one of the other properties like the Dixie, Port Orleans or Hilton don't try to take the car to the Dolphin or Swan. Take the shuttle or a cab from the hotel to the conference. You'll get dropped off in front of the Dolphin (see number 1 on the map shown in Figure A) and be ready to go.