Authenticity

Our Mission

We Are Guests exists to help families plan trips with confidence. We cover Orlando's theme parks, cruises, European travel, Ireland and the UK — hotels and resorts, restaurants, attractions, and the deals worth knowing about. We started as a way to share what we learned from our own holidays, and that is still the point: practical, honest travel advice from people who have actually been there.

We operate as an independent, family-run publisher. We serve readers who want to plan a trip without wading through marketing copy dressed up as advice, inflated review scores, or "best of" lists assembled by people who never left their desks.

Editorial Independence

We Are Guests keeps a clear separation between our editorial judgement and our commercial relationships. What we recommend, how we rate it, and what we choose to cover are decided on merit and reader value — not on which hotel chain, cruise line, or booking partner pays the best commission.

We earn money from affiliate links and advertising, and we are direct about that. A commercial relationship with a booking partner never buys favourable coverage, a higher score, or a place on a recommendation list. Where a relationship is relevant, we disclose it — see Editorial Standards for how this is enforced, and Trust for the full conflict-of-interest picture.

How Our Content Is Produced

We Are Guests publishes two kinds of content, and we never blur the line between them.

First-hand reviews and guides

Our reviews, comparisons, and destination guides are written by us — Steph and Jamie — from our own visits, our own photography, and our own opinions. When you read that we stayed somewhere, sailed on something, or ate somewhere, we did. This content is not produced by automation.

Travel news

Our news coverage — theme-park announcements, cruise-line updates, route and pricing changes, travel deals — is produced with an AI-assisted newsroom system under human editorial oversight. It lets a small team keep pace with a fast-moving industry without cutting corners on accuracy. The full detail of how this works is on the Technology & AI Policy page.

Every AI-assisted article carries the We Are Guests Newsroom byline, so you always know which kind of content you are reading. Reviews and guides carry our own names.

What our automation does NOT do

• Write our hotel, resort, restaurant, or cruise reviews
• Invent first-hand experience or pretend we visited somewhere we didn't
• Decide our opinions, scores, or recommendations
• Generate commentary or analysis without a named human author
• Create content without clear source attribution
• Replace human judgement on what is worth covering and how

How We Label Our Content

Every article carries a badge so you know exactly what kind of information you are getting:

• We Stayed — first-hand experience. We visited and reviewed in person, with our own photography and genuine opinions.
• Researched — based on detailed research, verified guest reviews, and official information, where we have not visited in person. Clearly distinguished from first-hand content.
• Ad — clearly labelled affiliate links and commercial partnerships. We only point readers at services we would use ourselves.

This labelling is the heart of our authenticity commitment. We would rather tell you plainly that a review is research-based than imply a first-hand visit we never made.

Content Standards

Every piece we publish must meet these standards:

Accuracy first:

• Names, prices, dates, opening times, and details must be verifiable
• Claims are attributed to credible sources
• Speculation is clearly identified as such
• Prices and offers are dated, because they change

Source attribution:

• News from another outlet is credited to that outlet
• Direct quotes are properly attributed
• Operator announcements are identified as such

Fair representation:

• Coverage gives relevant context, not just the upside
• Headlines reflect what the article actually says
• A poor experience is reported as honestly as a good one

Verification

We check what we publish before it goes out:

1. Source selection: news is built from credible primary sources — operator announcements, official park and cruise-line information, tourism bodies — and from established travel-news outlets with their own standards.
2. Cross-referencing: significant claims are checked against more than one source.
3. Price and detail checks: prices, dates, and offer terms are verified against the operator or booking partner at publication.
4. Update monitoring: developing stories are watched for changes.
5. Reader feedback: a reader-reported error triggers immediate review.

What We Don't Do

In service of authenticity, We Are Guests explicitly avoids:

• Fabrication: we never invent reviews, visits, quotes, or experiences
• Misleading headlines: clickbait has no place in our coverage
• Plagiarism: we credit the sources our news is built from
• Marketing as advice: a press release is a source, not a story — coverage adds context and verification, or it doesn't run
• Pay-for-praise: no payment, free stay, or commission ever buys a better review or score
• Hidden commercial content: affiliate links and partnerships are clearly labelled
• Manipulation: photos are never altered to misrepresent a place

The Human Element

We use automation to keep up with travel news at a scale a two-person team could not manage by hand. But We Are Guests is, at its core, the product of human judgement — real people who have planned the trips, stayed in the hotels, and want to save you the mistakes we made. Technology only serves that mission; it never replaces it.

Accountability

Real people take responsibility for everything published under the We Are Guests name. Editorial accountability sits with the founders; the team is introduced on the About page. Errors are handled under our corrections policy.

Questions about our authenticity commitments, or concerns about content that falls short of these standards, can be sent to editorial@weareguests.net. We read and respond to every substantive message.

This Authenticity policy is part of our wider standards framework. See also: Trust, Editorial Standards, Technology & AI Policy, and Corrections.