Jason Davis at the Planetary Society is a journalist, and has issues with the lack of transparency of SpaceX's public relations operation. He has a relevant article about why SpaceX won't deliver on this announced flight schedule:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2017/20170302-spacex-tourists-2018.html. He says the relevant comparison is not with Apollo 8 (i.e., lunar orbit and return), but with Apollo 13 (without the explosion). He mentions a NASA-ese concept called the Joint Confidence Level (JCL), which (supposedly) has to exceed 70% before NASA approves a project. I hadn't heard that before.
As long as I'm writing, here's my take on the proposal. Some folks here clearly have negative attitudes toward SpaceX's approach or Musk's personality. I don't think that's helpful in analyzing a proposal like this. Anything new starts with a vision and has to be expressed as a goal. Once a goal is defined, the hard work of project planning, cost estimation, and scheduling can start. Project planning proceeds by identifying tasks that will lead to the goal, and subtasks that will lead to the tasks, subdivided as far as necessary until they are small enough to manage. Only then is it possible to allocate resources, and estimate schedules and detailed costs for the steps in the project.
SpaceX has announced a goal. They know (even better than we do) the major tasks to reach the goal, and clearly have some confidence that the major dependencies (booster, spacecraft, procedures, testing, training, etc.) will be completed and demonstrated before they attempt the flight. Note that their announced timeframe ("in 2018") is part of the goal, not necessarily a result of detailed planning. The uncertainties in aerospace projects are so great that nobody should ever take seriously a projection like this. Delay is inevitable, but ambitious goals serve can help to motivate an organization's members. If anyone wants to bet real money on SpaceX achieving their goal by 2018, I doubt they will find any optimists on Orbiter Forum.
I am skeptical on the schedule, but optimistic on the technical objective. Musk has a track record of achieving technical goals, even though his goal timeframes are over-optimistic. I can set aside his personality, as I do most entrepreneurs'; they seem to be (nearly) all jerks*. We don't have to like them (or work for them); but think of the benefits we all have received from the accomplishments of jerks.
* I could have used a stronger word, but this is a family-friendly post.