Is it better to book with a travel agent or on your own going to Disneyworld?
February 23, 2010 by GroovieT
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We went to Disney in March and are planning to go back March ’08. It seems like booking the trip on your own is cheaper. Adding up air, hotel, and park tickets. It seems like the agent is around 0.00 more than what we come up with. We’ve always gone with the agent…any suggestions??
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Disney’s web site is very user friendly. It is easy to book your trip and travel arrangements on line. Also they have discounts available for using their site.
They also have a live chat feature if you have questions or get stuck and you can save your plans (without booking) to see if you could get a better deal elsewhere but I betting you won’t.
I just recently booked our reservations through them and it was super easy and I played around with it a lot so if you have any other questions feel free to message me.
PS. Get the Meal Plan IT IS SO WORTH IT!
Best of luck!!
Well, if you want to make it easy on yourself then you use an agent. They do all of the work for you… but charge you for it. If you are looking to save some money, then do the work yourself (much cheeper). It all depends on where your priorities are… time or money. Good luck and enjoy your vacation.
We always book our own vacations and find great deals. Part of the fun for us is doing all the research- we actually spend months on each trip! Last year, we had 2 adults and 2 kids at Disney World for a total of 9 nights (including driving time- 2 days each way), 5 days at the Parks, drove to Clearwater for a day at the beach… this included all of our hotels, gasoline, food, admissions and even souvenirs…. and we spent LESS than $1500!!!! We just got back from an 11 day trip (9 nights at hotels ) to England- 5 days in the Cotswolds and 4 nights in London- also everything included such as airfare, trains and busses, loads of entertainment and sightseeing, food (expensive there), etc. also for 2 adults and 2 kids and we spent a grand total of $7000. That is only $1750 per person for almost 2 weeks in one of the most expensive countries for Americans to visit in the world! Do your research as a family and the trip will mean so much more to your children. Also, when you spend time really getting to know a place before you get there AND know exactly what you’re going to do there, you’ll have less stress and a generally more peaceful time as a family- which is what vacations are all about, right?!
To be honest, the Disney website itself is great with prices if you do a magic your way package. Choose your hotel, tickets (get the park hopper) and the dining plan. Definitely ask for the magical express transportation to and from the airport.
Get your airline tickets separately. I got mine on Air Tran and they were incredibly cheap. You can go with orbitz, travelocity, cheaptickets, etc. but remember that they charge a small fee in there. For example, my Air Tran flight on the Air Tran website was $99/person. On the other websites, that same flight was $105. They are charging you more because you are paying for the convenience for them to search many airlines. Use them to search, but when you find a flight go to that airlines website, and see how much that flight is from the website, often times it is cheaper
Since you are staying on property you don’t need to rent a car because Disney provides transportation to all the hotels, parks and the airport. If you need to go to Universal Studios, Sea World, or somewhere off property use Mears Transportation services. You call them 24 hours before you need the service and they will provide roundtrip service. 407-423-5566
Because it is Disney, you will spend around 2 grand, but if you get the dining plan (which I believe is free for trips through Sept 22) you will save tons of money because you will not have to pay for lunch and dinner.
To utilize your plan properly and get the most out of eat. Use the counter service meal for lunch, the table for dinner (try and go with the more expensive restaurants) and if you can use the snacks to buy cereal and milk in the morning or a snack during the day.
In your luggage, pack a 24 pack of water and bring the bottles to the park. Water in Disney costs around $4, so if you bring a bottle per person you can fill it up at water fountains. Plus you can use the empty suitcase at the end of the trip to bring home souvenirs.
Get the Disney Credit card for your trip and your trip only. You get 0% apr for the next 6 months, so you can pay off your trip in 6 months with no fees! Also you get Disney Reward points. You can then trade these in for Disney reward Dollars, which is basically a gift card that you can use in Disney. This means that your trip just gave you money for souvenirs and other stuff to use in the park.
One more tip. Start saving your change. Use this as the souvenir fund or another fund that you will need money for. You will be surprised how fast your change adds up. We have been saving since March and we have $80 and we almost never use cash!
Disney has 5 different seasons for 2007. based on the hotel you are looking at the seasons change slightly, but not much. they are Value Season (when there are the least crowds, regular season, summer season, peak season, and holiday season. based on these seasons you can tell when the crowds are heaviest. Value season is when the hotels are the cheapest and Holiday is the most expensive. everything is is in order from lowest to highest.
Value season: Jan 1-Feb14, Aug 5-Oct 3, Nov 25-Dec 19
Regular season: April 15-May 23, Oct 4-Nov 24
Summer Season: May 24-Aug 4
Peak Season: Feb 15-April 14
Holiday Season: Dec 20-Dec 31
If you want to avoid crowds, try going during the value season
This is the cost that we paid for 2 people to go during value season. September 22-28 2007, booked in February 2007
Hotel for 6-night 7-day in a value resort (pop century)/Disney Park 6-Day Tickets w/park hopper/Transportation to parks/Transportation to Airport/Disney Dining Plan: $1,378.74
Tickets to Universal: $132.08
Flight from Philadelphia to Orlando on Sept 22 @ 7:00 am: $218.80 ($109.40/person)
Flight from Orlando to Philadelphia on Sept 25 @ 2:30 pm: $71.80 ($35.90/person)
Transportation to Universal: $32.00/person round trip
We are using the counter meal for lunch and the table meal for dinner and we are bringing cereal/pop-tarts in our luggage for breakfast.
We are also going to Typhoon Lagoon which is like $30/person
The places we are eating for table meals (we are paying $ for one of them) are
Coral Reef Restaurant
Crystal Palace w/ Pooh & Characters
Cinderella’s Castle
Cinderella’s Gala Feast @ Grand Floridian
Sci-Fi Dine In
Akershus Princess Breakfast
Hope this helps!
Personally I think going straight to the source (Disney) is the best way to plan your trip as far as hotel and tickets go. Try the travel sites like expedia and priceline for airline tickets.
So simply put…book on your own!
I have been to Disney so many times that I have honestly lost count. I know the parks just about as well as my own home. And I still use a travel agent, for every trip I take. A few years ago I found a travel agent that specializes in Disney and it is the best thing that has ever happened to me as far as traveling. It makes things so much easier for me to plan, but yet I am still involved.
My agent is an online agency, but not an online discounters(like Expedia and Orbitz) these are two completely different things. First of all, an agent will not cost you more to book with. If you plan to stay onsite, which is what I recommend, you are going to get the same price with Disney as a travel agent. But here are the benefits. First, if you have ever worked with Disney, you know how many mistakes can be made. I worked with them years ago and it can be a nightmare, they haven’t really changed since then. They still make just as many mistakes. Now that I use an agent, there are no problems, if there is, she takes care of them. And I can assure you, she has done several things during these past few years that would have never been done had I booked directly with Disney. She is able to get more than I can because of how much she works with Disney.
She also books all my dinings and any recreation or tours I do. When you get one of Disney’s meal plans, you may have every meal planned, so it can be a lot of work. Everything is then typed up and ready for me when I leave for my trip. I have a schedule she has written and I just follow it.
She also has all the knowledge that you can find online and in books, but it doesn’t come from a 100 sources, it comes from someone that visits Disney often, is in direct contact with Disney and knows just about everything there is to know about Disney. If you get a good agent, they will be honest with you, there is a difference between an agent that is there for their client and one that is there for the money. I like using her because if I have a question, for example about a new package, I send her an e-mail and in a few minutes I have a response, an accurate response, that is priceless. Sure, you could book the trip on your own and then search through guidebooks, online sites, ask friends and other people on the internet, but you will likely get different answers from each source. Then you have to take the time to go through all the different answers, then research which ones are correct, which are not, etc. It is a lot easier just to be able to send off an e-mail and get the correct information at one time.
Just one other thing (trust me, there is so many other benefits), if I book in advance, which is what I usually do, my agent lowers the rate automatically if a special comes out for my dates. I don’t have to watch the internet for promotions, call Disney, wait on hold because of the long waits and then take care of it myself.
Can you book on your own, absolutely, do I recommend it, not really. If you plan to do everything seperate, stay off site, etc. you could book yourself, this is the only way you may save some money. But I recommend an agent because they will help you get the most out of your trip. You can be involved as much or as little as you like in the planning. When I’m busy with other things, I send off an e-mail to tell my agent what I want and to put it on my credit card. She sends me my info in the mail, takes care of my dining and things, then e-mails me when the rest of the money is due (depending on what I booked, the price may be lower if a special comes out) she charges my balance, and then the next thing I know I’m on vacation enjoying myself, not having to worry about anything. On the other hand, if I have some extra time, I can be a little more involved, taking care of my dinings and things like that, but I definitely don’t have to.
As far as booking with sites like Expedia and Orbitz, this is something I feel strongly against, for several reasons. First, I have found that these sites actually run higher when booking Disney hotels, not by much, but definitely not making it worth booking through them. And second, there are just so many mistakes with these type sites. You may arrive at your hotel and discover your reservation was never made, generally they won’t do anything about it. I’ve read so many cases where this happened, and even knew some people that experienced this. They may have the wrong dates, room, hotel, etc. You can just run into a lot of problems. Then, when you discover the problem, you try to call and get it taken care of and it can be almost impossible to get a hold of a human and the problem taken care of. It can end up being hours on hold. I just feel these sites are a waste of time and cause a lot of problems and headaches. I know several people that tried using these type sites for different things and different reasons, and several of them (more than it should have been) had problems, some of them having more serious problems where they ended up having to pay for everything again.
Finally, I used to book with AAA, they do offer you a small savings if you book with them. However, if you book at an onsite hotel with Disney and they come out with a promotion, it doesn’t save you much and you are actually not saving as much as what Disney offers. You have to watch for the promotions to come out, they don’t inform you, they don’t book dinings, etc. And generally they aren’t very knowledgeable in the product, my experiences with them wasn’t very good. I found that booking with them I was doing more work than the were. Depending on your local agency you may get lucky, but for me, the two agencies I used, I never had much luck.
My agent always runs the same prices as Disney when I book my trips. In the end it probably ends up being less because agents can usually provide tips and info to help you save money in different areas. Most likely the reason your price was a little lower on your own was because of the air. Most agents only book the air through Disney, which is much higher than what you can get booking directly with the airlines, they don’t offer discounts on the air. If you were to take the air away, the agent will most likely be the same. If you booked your air with Disney, you may have had a different flight to make the price different. Some where a long the line there was something different that was causing the agents price to be higher because most agencies don’t charge anything to book with them. A few may charge for certain things, but certainly not $500, it definitely sounds like a price difference in the air.
I think a lot of people are misinformed or think that an agent will cost more, but that really isn’t the case. Not only do they not cost more, but you usually will get adivce on how to save money, and tons of information.
Sorry this is so long, but I just want to give you a complete answer. My recommendation is to find an agent that specializes in Disney, you won’t regret. A good agent that specializes in Disney is a priceless asset to have for the planning of your vacation!
I recommend you to do your own booking for your trip. Like you I used to use an Agent, I completely do my family Disney packages on my own now.
First thing if you know where you want to stay, flight, rental, etc.
Check for the availability. Once you confirm availability check your credit card to see if you are signed up for the rewards program, if so your credit card company only needs to know what you want to apply your rewards to (e.g. Continental, Delta flights, or rental car agencies who participate in the rewards program, etc…..)and they will book it for you. You can get free airline tickets or rental cars check it out. After you have done that if there is anything left to do go online and book the rest yourself. If staying at a Disney resort get the package tickets, hotel. In addition you will receive free parking at all Disney theme parks and early access into the parks before the regular crowds.
If you are buying Universal tickets they always have great ticket deals currently for just $86.00 you can get tickets to both parks"islands of adventure and Universal studios" for 7 consecutive days (that’s 12.00 per day.) (All Day Parking not included $10.00)
Have Fun & Save Money!!
Book it on your on! It’s cheaper and travel agents will screw you every time!
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hahahaahaha. nah, i think if you can handle it yourself, just do that! Planning a disney vaca isnt that hard, & travel agents arent genius’s at that anyways. i think you should do it yourself & you’ll save some cash as well! good luck & have fun! hope it helped
Do your price checking on the Disney website to get an idea of what your going to pay, then when the time comes to book call Disney to book your trip and ask if they have any specials. The worst thing that can happen is you pay the price you got online. You can book well in advance and put down a $200.00 deposit and pay the rest later also. Book your airfare on your own using one of the discount websites like cheaptickets.com I have noticed Disney is quite high when it comes to airfare. Look into the dining plan to save money on food also. Use Magical Express for your ground transportation to and from the airport, if you need a rental car you can get one on property, or if you know the dates you will want a rental car you can always book it in advance, even with an agency off property but you want to make sure they will pick you up or you wont save any money.