Pro/Con Move On-board Ressie to Dreams Unlimited

[MotherOf2Princesses]

I booked my first cruise with Dreams Unlimited to get on board credits. I never really spoke to the travel agent, Booked online, Paid, thats it.
I just got off that cruise and while on board booked my next cruise to get the discount. Booked 4nt veranda.
I emailed DU and asked if there were any additional credits from them or Visa Card. They want me to move the ressie before they will answer and of my questions.
What has been your experience doing this? Are there any benefits or worth the hassle to move my cruise ressie over to Dreams Unlimited.
Thank You

[Namsupak]

I believe that to look at your reservation they do need to be the booking agent. And the benefit would be that they could give you onboard credit.

[skierrob]

I may be wrong, and someone correct me if I am, but....

I've used Dreams Unlimited in the past. The "rule", I thought, was that you could combine your on-board booking discount and on-board booking stateroom credit with the Dreams Unlimited stateroom credit ONLY if you told the on-board booking person that you were designating Dreams Unlimited as your TA.

If you changed to Dreams Unlimited AFTER you booked, you would lose the onboard booking discount or stateroom credit.

But I can't find information on that now.

However, I'm VERY surprised that anyone at Dreams Unlimited said they couldn't provide this information to you before moving the booking to them. We've never had anything but really nice interactions with them in the past.

That being said, I am 99.9% sure you can NOT combine the on-board booking bonus and the Visa bonus. But you definitely can combine the on-board booking bonus and the Dreams Unlimited credit if you tell them on-board that Dreams Unlimited is your TA... because I've gotten both credits in the past.

From their website, here is a "schedule" of what credits you can get from Dreams Unlimited:

CRUISE PRICE CREDIT

$0 - $999 None
$1,000 - $1,999 $50
$2,000 - $2,999 $100
$3,000 - $3,999 $150
$4,000 - $4,999 $200
$5,000 - $5,999 $250
$6,000 - $6,999 $300

Robert

[Niebz]

I was told something similar when I enquired about transferring my onboard booking. In the end I decided to just keep control of the reservation for myself.

[debsters41]

I switched to DU after booking on board because I sincerely did not know beforehand that I should have mentioned DU while booking on board. The benefits of switching after the fact are:

1. I still will receive an on board credit, but significantly less than those stated. (because DU will be receiving that much less commission, from what I understand)

2. I will receive the very great customer service that DU provides. I have an agent who patiently answers all my silly questions and has my best interests at heart. When I need to change something on my ressie, she takes care of it in a matter of hours. She also arranges for me to pay pre paid tips and the like, whenever I wish.

3. In some sort of fashion (I think) I am supporting these invaluable boards

As far as cons..... I really can't think of any

[Rambler5678]

You can not combline the OBC that Disney offers to book onboard with the Disney visa offer but you can combine either with the OBC that dreams offers you to move the reservation to them.

[kcashner]

As above, you cannot combine an onboard booking with any other credits with the Disney name attached (Disney Visa, Kids Free, FL Res, *GT, etc) You CAN combing the onboard booking discount and credit with a gift or OBC from any travel agent.

If you name the agent/agency at the time of the booking, they get the full commission and you should get whatever benefit they offer fully. If you transfer a reservation to them after booking, they get a significantly reduced commission. Consequently, some agencies choose to reduce the amount of onboard credit they would otherwise give. Other agencies give their "full" OBC and hope to gain your future business. I suspect the reason that an agency may not tell you how much they will give you without seeing the reservation is that they don't want to make a bigger commitment than they may be prepared to honor.

The pro of transferring to an agent--OBC, perhaps great service.

The con--any payments and changes would have to go thru the agency. You can still make all your own on line reservations, check in, etc. If you need to make a change to your reservation and can't get the agent/agency to respond to your communications, you have a problem.

[cgolf]

One con that we lived thru on the first Hawaii cruise and recently upgrading to concierge, is that you don't have the instant communication with the agent and due to that may miss out on a room. In the case of the Hawaii cruise, we had to book the second room on our own, and then they took it from there and canceled the previous room and transferred all our info to the new room. For our upcoming cruise we missed out on the first concierge room we saw, but later that week scored one of the rooms with the big veranda.

Had we not had a travel agent we could have upgraded via the website or by calling Disney directly as soon as we saw the openings. Since it worked out in the end, no biggie, but I was frustrated when we lost the first concierge room and how we had to work the Hawaii cruise. The Pros are the extra obc, which so far has outweighed the cons.

[Lisa Lisa]

I don't mean to hijack the OP's thread, but I have a follow-up question! We'll be on the Fantasy in March, and I suspect that we may want to book another cruise while onboard. I have never worked with a travel agent. Can I designate DU even if I'm not working with a specific agent, and then find an agent when we return? Or do I need to establish contact with an agent beforehand?

[Rambler5678]

Highly recommend Kelsie Johnson with Dreams.

[pharmjenn]

Originally Posted by Lisa Lisa

I don't mean to hijack the OP's thread, but I have a follow-up question! We'll be on the Fantasy in March, and I suspect that we may want to book another cruise while onboard. I have never worked with a travel agent. Can I designate DU even if I'm not working with a specific agent, and then find an agent when we return? Or do I need to establish contact with an agent beforehand?

Yes, you can designate DU onboard, even if you are cruising currently directly with Disney. I believe you need an actual agent name, in addition to the agency. There doesn't seem to be a bad agent at DU, everyone seems to really like the agent they work with. We were assigned to Hayes Persons, and she is always very responsive to my questions.

[debsters41]

Merrie Thomas at DU is also very much on the ball

[Tinaphpc]

Highly recommend Kelsie Johnson with Dreams.

[Lisa Lisa]

Thank you for the info and recommendations. Much appreciated!

[Dis_Grk Grl]

Just as an aside note, there are agents that accept transferred reservations that will offer a larger OBC than Dreams does. You just have to look around a bit for them. They probably can't tell you how much until after the transfer though (they won't know their commission amount until then). But they should be able to give an estimate...