SimplyGoofy
"You are not Mickey Mouse... you are a rat!"
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
The Ecstasy and the Agony of Third-Party Bookings
I will warn you in advance that this is not the most exciting post(as no pictures are involved), but I wanted to include it anyway as it describes my experience using Orbitz and Undercover Tourist to plan my vacation.
I have never paid rack rate for a room at Disney World. I actually don’t know anyone that has paid rack rate (although the DISboards are probably the exception rather the rule, as we are so well versed on how to tour Disney).
I booked my resorts in October with Disney in order to get my 180+10 dining perks (as dining is a major part of my vacation experience). In the past, I’ve been able to easily call Disney and add the room or package discounts once they were released.
And then there was this year.
I’m a proud Disney Visa cardholder. One of the best perks (other than the dining and tour discounts and the Disney Visa character photo), is most discounts are rolled out to the cardholders prior to the rest of the general population. I get email alerts when those discounts are about to go live.
This year? No such alerts. Why? They decided to roll out the spring discounts directly to the general public WITH NO ALERT FOR THE VISA CARDHOLDERS.
Needless to say, I missed the discount rollout as I wasn’t even looking for it. As such, by the time I noticed the discount was available I could only get the discount at Pop Century and the Grand Floridian – not at Port Orleans Riverside (the longest chunk of our vacation).
Great, but not quite great enough.
That’s when I started searching these boards and found out about the Orbitz/Cheap Tickets discounts on Disney resorts. I plugged in my resorts and dates , and sure enough – I was able to book all three resorts with the Disney spring discount AND an additional 15% off! Win!
Booking the resorts was very easy and I rolled the Orbucks I received onto the next booking. I saved somewhere near $1300 by booking all four resorts (including Royal Pacific) through Orbitz. It is a little painful to pay for them upfront, but on a good note, they’re fully paid for!
Many people have mentioned difficulty adding third-party bookings to their MDE account. I found a post that mentioned that Orbitz bookings included a six digit number that could be entered into MDE. Sure enough – the email confirmation from Orbitz for each resort included a fifteen digit Orbitz confirmation number as well as a six digit hotel confirmation number. I entered each hotel confirmation number into MDE and… poof! My hotel reservations were there! Easy as pie!
As an extra bonus, I also received the 12-digit Disney confirmation numbers directly from Disney Destinations via email the following day. It was very easy.
Now we reach the painful part.
As with any uber-Disney fan and crazy vacation planner, I wanted to add room requests to each of my four resort reservations.
I also needed to add my Uncle Wade to the first few nights of our Riverside reservation – he lives in Fort Myers and is going to join us for a long weekend. I didn’t add him on the original Orbitz booking as I didn’t want to pay the extra adult charge for 10 days as he’d only be there for two, but I wanted him on the reservation so he could get a magic band and I could schedule his Fastpass+ reservations.
The first call to Orbitz wasn’t bad – I added all four room requests (which involves telling them to Orbitz and then them contacting Disney to add them to your reservation). You must call Orbitz rather than Disney as Orbitz owns your reservation – Disney folks (at least most of them) can’t see your entire reservation and are unable to see all the modification screens. Orbitz told me I needed to contact Disney directly to add my uncle to the reservation.
When I called Disney, they said they were unable to reach those screens and I would need to have Orbitz contact them on my behalf.
So, I called Orbitz again. That led to a three way call between me, the Orbitz gal, and the representative from Riverside.
After tons of back and forth and my insistence that I’m happy to pay the extra adult charge for two nights but refuse to pay for ten... the Disney representative finally modified the reservation so Anika appears as a child and Wade is added for the entire period (without the charge). I’m sure the Disney guy could see my MDE account and could note Anika is listed as an adult 
, but I’m pretty sure he just wanted to get the crazy lady he was speaking with off the phone. 
I don’t think the Orbitz lady knew what on earth was going on during the entire phone call.
(For the record, I would’ve been happy to pay the additional charge for the two nights that Wade will be joining us, but I don’t understand why they don’t have a work-around for partial stays for third-party bookings. It was a racket.)
Since I was on a roll with the phone calls, I also called Disney Tours to book us for our tour (details to come!) and Magical Express to book our rides to and from the airport.
All of this only took about four hours of my time (if you include the wait time on both Orbitz calls and all three Disney calls).
Thank goodness for quiet Sunday afternoons with free cell phone minutes.
Another third party that I used with great success for this vacation is Undercover Tourist. I bought 10 Day Park Hoppers with the Waterpark Fun & More option and 3-Day Park-to-Park Tickets for Universal for Anika and myself. It was super easy and I got the tickets just one day after their expected delivery date. The Disney tickets were also easy to add to MDE – you just click the “Link Tickets” button in your MDE account, punch in the ticket numbers, and assign the ticket to someone in your party. Super easy!
I bought Wade's ticket directly from Disney as there was a special "Discover Disney" ticket available for Florida residents. I couldn't order the ticket online as my credit card does not have a Florida address, but it was no problem to get it via phone, enter the number into MDE, and then link Wade to the ticket. The agent stayed on the phone with me to ensure the process worked. I bought this ticket rather than a regular 3-Day Park Hopper as it was less than half the cost of a regular ticket. All Wade needs to do is show proof of Florida residency before we enter our first park! I purchased the ticket early as it's a limited time ticket and I wanted to be able to book his Fastpass+ reservations before arriving. It worked!
Now, the important question… would I use these third party services again?
Orbitz
The initial booking was very easy and the savings were spectacular! Calling to add my room requests through Orbitz was annoying (but it worked – as my request appeared on my Pop Century reservation when I did online check-in!). The big negative was attempting to do unique things with an Orbitz reservation. If you have people joining you for only part of your vacation and they will result in an extra charge, I would book with Disney as I think they’re easily able to separate and categorize these types of reservations. If your reservation is pretty straightforward, I don’t think there’s any downside to booking through Orbitz. I’ll be sure to report back if I have any issues during my trip!
Undercover Tourist
I have nothing but good things to say! It was easy, painless, and saved me a lot of money. In case you don’t already subscribe to Mousesavers, go out and subscribe to get their monthly newsletter to get a special Undercover Tourist link for even more savings! I would absolutely use them again!
Up Next for 2015: The Most Important Thing - The Food!
I will warn you in advance that this is not the most exciting post(as no pictures are involved), but I wanted to include it anyway as it describes my experience using Orbitz and Undercover Tourist to plan my vacation.
I have never paid rack rate for a room at Disney World. I actually don’t know anyone that has paid rack rate (although the DISboards are probably the exception rather the rule, as we are so well versed on how to tour Disney).
I booked my resorts in October with Disney in order to get my 180+10 dining perks (as dining is a major part of my vacation experience). In the past, I’ve been able to easily call Disney and add the room or package discounts once they were released.
And then there was this year.
I’m a proud Disney Visa cardholder. One of the best perks (other than the dining and tour discounts and the Disney Visa character photo), is most discounts are rolled out to the cardholders prior to the rest of the general population. I get email alerts when those discounts are about to go live.
This year? No such alerts. Why? They decided to roll out the spring discounts directly to the general public WITH NO ALERT FOR THE VISA CARDHOLDERS.
Needless to say, I missed the discount rollout as I wasn’t even looking for it. As such, by the time I noticed the discount was available I could only get the discount at Pop Century and the Grand Floridian – not at Port Orleans Riverside (the longest chunk of our vacation).
Great, but not quite great enough.That’s when I started searching these boards and found out about the Orbitz/Cheap Tickets discounts on Disney resorts. I plugged in my resorts and dates , and sure enough – I was able to book all three resorts with the Disney spring discount AND an additional 15% off! Win!
Booking the resorts was very easy and I rolled the Orbucks I received onto the next booking. I saved somewhere near $1300 by booking all four resorts (including Royal Pacific) through Orbitz. It is a little painful to pay for them upfront, but on a good note, they’re fully paid for!
Many people have mentioned difficulty adding third-party bookings to their MDE account. I found a post that mentioned that Orbitz bookings included a six digit number that could be entered into MDE. Sure enough – the email confirmation from Orbitz for each resort included a fifteen digit Orbitz confirmation number as well as a six digit hotel confirmation number. I entered each hotel confirmation number into MDE and… poof! My hotel reservations were there! Easy as pie!
As an extra bonus, I also received the 12-digit Disney confirmation numbers directly from Disney Destinations via email the following day. It was very easy.
Now we reach the painful part.
As with any uber-Disney fan and crazy vacation planner, I wanted to add room requests to each of my four resort reservations.
I also needed to add my Uncle Wade to the first few nights of our Riverside reservation – he lives in Fort Myers and is going to join us for a long weekend. I didn’t add him on the original Orbitz booking as I didn’t want to pay the extra adult charge for 10 days as he’d only be there for two, but I wanted him on the reservation so he could get a magic band and I could schedule his Fastpass+ reservations. The first call to Orbitz wasn’t bad – I added all four room requests (which involves telling them to Orbitz and then them contacting Disney to add them to your reservation). You must call Orbitz rather than Disney as Orbitz owns your reservation – Disney folks (at least most of them) can’t see your entire reservation and are unable to see all the modification screens. Orbitz told me I needed to contact Disney directly to add my uncle to the reservation.
When I called Disney, they said they were unable to reach those screens and I would need to have Orbitz contact them on my behalf.
So, I called Orbitz again. That led to a three way call between me, the Orbitz gal, and the representative from Riverside.
After tons of back and forth and my insistence that I’m happy to pay the extra adult charge for two nights but refuse to pay for ten... the Disney representative finally modified the reservation so Anika appears as a child and Wade is added for the entire period (without the charge). I’m sure the Disney guy could see my MDE account and could note Anika is listed as an adult , but I’m pretty sure he just wanted to get the crazy lady he was speaking with off the phone. I don’t think the Orbitz lady knew what on earth was going on during the entire phone call. (For the record, I would’ve been happy to pay the additional charge for the two nights that Wade will be joining us, but I don’t understand why they don’t have a work-around for partial stays for third-party bookings. It was a racket.)
Since I was on a roll with the phone calls, I also called Disney Tours to book us for our tour (details to come!) and Magical Express to book our rides to and from the airport.
All of this only took about four hours of my time (if you include the wait time on both Orbitz calls and all three Disney calls).
Thank goodness for quiet Sunday afternoons with free cell phone minutes.Another third party that I used with great success for this vacation is Undercover Tourist. I bought 10 Day Park Hoppers with the Waterpark Fun & More option and 3-Day Park-to-Park Tickets for Universal for Anika and myself. It was super easy and I got the tickets just one day after their expected delivery date. The Disney tickets were also easy to add to MDE – you just click the “Link Tickets” button in your MDE account, punch in the ticket numbers, and assign the ticket to someone in your party. Super easy!
I bought Wade's ticket directly from Disney as there was a special "Discover Disney" ticket available for Florida residents. I couldn't order the ticket online as my credit card does not have a Florida address, but it was no problem to get it via phone, enter the number into MDE, and then link Wade to the ticket. The agent stayed on the phone with me to ensure the process worked. I bought this ticket rather than a regular 3-Day Park Hopper as it was less than half the cost of a regular ticket. All Wade needs to do is show proof of Florida residency before we enter our first park! I purchased the ticket early as it's a limited time ticket and I wanted to be able to book his Fastpass+ reservations before arriving. It worked!
Now, the important question… would I use these third party services again?
Orbitz
The initial booking was very easy and the savings were spectacular! Calling to add my room requests through Orbitz was annoying (but it worked – as my request appeared on my Pop Century reservation when I did online check-in!). The big negative was attempting to do unique things with an Orbitz reservation. If you have people joining you for only part of your vacation and they will result in an extra charge, I would book with Disney as I think they’re easily able to separate and categorize these types of reservations. If your reservation is pretty straightforward, I don’t think there’s any downside to booking through Orbitz. I’ll be sure to report back if I have any issues during my trip!
Undercover Tourist
I have nothing but good things to say! It was easy, painless, and saved me a lot of money. In case you don’t already subscribe to Mousesavers, go out and subscribe to get their monthly newsletter to get a special Undercover Tourist link for even more savings! I would absolutely use them again!
Up Next for 2015: The Most Important Thing - The Food!
Last edited:
), but the Grand Floridian is all for her. 
Amber! Thanks for joining in and I'm excited to have you here!
ME, TOO!!! I don't think I've seen (or noticed) too many people from here - how fun! 
)
(And honestly, I'm pretty exited to stay at a monorail resort, myself!)
