[[IM BACK! *sniff* :(]] The "Lets Get My DBF Addicted to Disney World" PTR

[DisneyFaeriePrincess]

Hi craig! Welcome!

I love the pics, the shoe one is my favorite!! Congrats on losing weight!! I'll be looking forward to seeing your pics when you get back! I love that they're not the normal pics!

 

[Vallie]

Hi craig! Welcome!

I love the pics, the shoe one is my favorite!! Congrats on losing weight!! I'll be looking forward to seeing your pics when you get back! I love that they're not the normal pics!

hehe thank u!! i'm definitly not normal in any way hehe but i enjoy that!

 

[DisneyFaeriePrincess]

Haha, normal if vastly overrated. Being normal is boring!

 

[Vallie]

Haha, normal if vastly overrated. Being normal is boring!

i agree!

 

[Vallie]

Not So Perfect Afterall... A Lesson on Doing Things Yourself


So as you all may or may not know, I have booked this vacation threw a travel agent, and let me tell you it has not made things any easier, between chasing her down, having to redo many of our ressies, and now this fiasco from yesterday I'm starting to wish I just did it myself to begin with!!

I was SO excited about my wonderful ADRs I had for the trip and yesterday I log onto the Disney Dining Ressie thing and type in my ADRs only to find my nice sit down dinner at Tonys on our last night GONE!!

So I call DIsney to see why this is and they tell me that someone (aka my travel agent as we found out) canceled this time and then rebooked me at 1pm instead of the original 7pm that she SENT US with the Confirmation number!! I dont care that much that the reservation was changed to 1pm for whatever reason, I just do not understand why she would sent us the wrong ressie information and confirmation number and time. I understand we all make mistakes but this is something that could easily have been avoided by sending the RIGHT information!

Now I'm happy that I caught this before we went but if we had gone down there and lost our ADR on our last night I would have been very upset. I feel that I should not have to be double checking and calling people and following up on things when I booked spacifically with an agent to avoid this!!!

We now have changed to Crystal Palace for 3ish, as we wanted something for dinner not lunch, which is OK but I'm more disappointed in the fact that we hired a TA, spacifally one that works at a Disney Only Planning Travel Agency (not the same people who own this site, a completely different one) to help us ensure things like this would not happen!! Its such a stupid mistake and I would have let it go except these little mistakes and over sights keep popping up.

Craig is also concerned as our money is due soon so he wrote an email to the owner of the agency today complaining and explaining as of right now we are not comfortable with our vacation plans and we would like someone to double check all our hotel and ticket stuff to make sure there are no mistakes on that either.

I'm not one to complain, and I felt bad that Craig sent the email because she has been nice to us and she was friendly. But I think the point is this whole process has been made stressful by going to this company, we've had to continously follow up on questions because they are not answered within a few days, we missed a seat sale because we were waiting like a week for a response about an extra day, our adrs the first time around were basicly not what we wanted, having to make changes ourselves and even make an ADR for the last day that i asked her twice to make, but she said that she thought I wanted to keep that last day open till we got there?! Which makes no sense considering I gave her my resturant choices when we added the last day. Now I feel as though I have to recheck everything and am worried. I have kept quiet about it till now because I know they have many clients and mistakes are made, but I feel now that these are just careless errors that could be avoided by double checking things. We are both very worried that there will be more stuff like this when we get down there

UGHHH! sorry just needed to vent I suppose!

 

[inkedupmomma]

Good grief.. I swore I subbed the other day Sorry about that.. I was beginning to wonder why I never saw you update LOL! Anywho, I am here, and I am gonna catch up real quick..and yes I am subbed now lol

 

[inkedupmomma]

Not So Perfect Afterall... A Lesson on Doing Things Yourself


So as you all may or may not know, I have booked this vacation threw a travel agent, and let me tell you it has not made things any easier, between chasing her down, having to redo many of our ressies, and now this fiasco from yesterday I'm starting to wish I just did it myself to begin with!!

I was SO excited about my wonderful ADRs I had for the trip and yesterday I log onto the Disney Dining Ressie thing and type in my ADRs only to find my nice sit down dinner at Tonys on our last night GONE!!

So I call DIsney to see why this is and they tell me that someone (aka my travel agent as we found out) canceled this time and then rebooked me at 1pm instead of the original 7pm that she SENT US with the Confirmation number!! I dont care that much that the reservation was changed to 1pm for whatever reason, I just do not understand why she would sent us the wrong ressie information and confirmation number and time. I understand we all make mistakes but this is something that could easily have been avoided by sending the RIGHT information!

Now I'm happy that I caught this before we went but if we had gone down there and lost our ADR on our last night I would have been very upset. I feel that I should not have to be double checking and calling people and following up on things when I booked spacifically with an agent to avoid this!!!

We now have changed to Crystal Palace for 3ish, as we wanted something for dinner not lunch, which is OK but I'm more disappointed in the fact that we hired a TA, spacifally one that works at a Disney Only Planning Travel Agency (not the same people who own this site, a completely different one) to help us ensure things like this would not happen!! Its such a stupid mistake and I would have let it go except these little mistakes and over sights keep popping up.

Craig is also concerned as our money is due soon so he wrote an email to the owner of the agency today complaining and explaining as of right now we are not comfortable with our vacation plans and we would like someone to double check all our hotel and ticket stuff to make sure there are no mistakes on that either.

I'm not one to complain, and I felt bad that Craig sent the email because she has been nice to us and she was friendly. But I think the point is this whole process has been made stressful by going to this company, we've had to continously follow up on questions because they are not answered within a few days, we missed a seat sale because we were waiting like a week for a response about an extra day, our adrs the first time around were basicly not what we wanted, having to make changes ourselves and even make an ADR for the last day that i asked her twice to make, but she said that she thought I wanted to keep that last day open till we got there?! Which makes no sense considering I gave her my resturant choices when we added the last day. Now I feel as though I have to recheck everything and am worried. I have kept quiet about it till now because I know they have many clients and mistakes are made, but I feel now that these are just careless errors that could be avoided by double checking things. We are both very worried that there will be more stuff like this when we get down there

UGHHH! sorry just needed to vent I suppose!

Hey hun.. tha is RIDICULOUS! I can agree, that a few mistakes here and there are harmless, but what she did was careless! If I were you, I would call disney myself and double check everything!

 

[DisneyFaeriePrincess]

Hey I'm so sorry about all of your trouble with your TA! It's so annoying having to make sure everything is right when you hired someone to do it for you! I think sending that email was a good thing, this is your vacation that you're spending a lot of money on and you want it to be great so yeah they should get everything right, especially since they specialize in disney vacations. I'm so sorry this all happened. And don't appologize for venting, we're all here to listen! I hope everything works out and there's no more mistakes!

 

[craigclark]

Hi, babe.

I miss you and our trips gonna be great I promise.

Also, thanks to everyone who said hello.
Go on over to my posts and let me know what you think.

Thanks

 

[Sarah84]

Oh no im sorry to hear the problems you've had with your TA, when you get a profressional to do it for you you don't really expect to have mistakes and need to look over everything yourself and makes checks. I mean whats the point in that? you may aswell have done it all yourself from the beginning right?
Hope you have no more problems

 

[inkedupmomma]

Hi, babe.

I miss you and our trips gonna be great I promise.

Also, thanks to everyone who said hello.
Go on over to my posts and let me know what you think.

Thanks

Post a link

 

[LOVEMY3KIDDOS]

So We made some changes to our itinerary since we added that extra day!
I'm prettty excited about it! I'm gunna start my planning binder this weekend!
I have added some questions within the itinerary so any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as always!

We also Booked our flights and got a GREAT price!!! $330 for both of us! return flights!! woooo!!


So here is it!!!


Sat Aug 22 - Arrival day
Flight leaves around 7ish and we get to Orlando around 11ish
Nothings going on this night except we're checkin in and maybe check out the resort.

Sun Aug 23 - Sea World
We're gunna start off our vacay at Sea World! I'm excited as I've never been before and i LOVEEE dolphins!! We'll probably grab some CS POP breakfast this morning! We're plannning on using Mears Travel unless someone has another suggestion?!

We’ll grab lunch or a snack there OOP and then use a CS for a late dinner when we get back.

Mon Aug 24 - Epcot
We're spending the day at Epcot, and we have a lunch ADR at Chef De France. Sooo excited to see Remi!
We’ll do a CS for dinner.

Tues Aug 25 - Free Day/Shopping/Spirit of Aloha
We're gunna spend the day relaxing, swimming and gunna hit up Mall of Mellenia or the outlet stores, Which do you suggest?!

We’ll be using a CS for lunch.

After that we'll be getting ready and heading off to Spirit of Aloha for our date night! We're very excited for the all you can drink beer! hehe

After SOA we will be heading over to the boardwalk to walk around and check out the piano bar and street preformers!

Wed Aug 26 - Free Day/Recovery/Downtown Disney
Depending on what time we wake up we may or may not play some minigolf at WinterSummerLand or just swim all day!

We have ADRs at Raglan Roads for 8:30pm and we'll be checking out downtown Disney today as well! hoping to grab a CS late lunch at one of the resort CS as we're hoping to check a few of the nicer ones out! and I also am dying to try a Doh Bar from Cookes of Dublin. Oh and we also are making sure to pop by TRex for some drinks and check the place out!

We also wanna make sure we do the make your own potatoe head thingy! Where is that located?!

Thurs Aug 27 - Hollywood Studios
Fantasmic is this night so we have ADRs for dinner at the SciFi for early evening.

We’ll probably grab CS when we’re hungry for lunch.

Must see is Sorceror Mickey and Buzz! I also wanna try and do the animation class as well!

Any star wars type things you can suggest would be great as Craig lovesss Star Wars!

Fri Aug 28 - Animal Kingdom
We decided to just do Animal Kingdom in one day. We made an ADR for Yak and Yeti which I’m suppperrr excited to eat at cause it looks sooo yummy! So we’ll be having lunch there! We’re hoping to get everything done by parade time so that we can get home and get ready for our special princess dinner tonight!

We have a 7:50 reservation for 1900 Park Fare which I’m also super excited about!!!

Sat Aug 29 – Universal/Islands of Adventure
We’ll start with CS breakfast at Pop then be taking Mears to get to the park. We plan on getting the two day/one park option. We’ll start off with Universal and do Simpsons, Mummy, Twister and the other bigger rides then spend the majority of the day at IOA, Spidy and Jurrassic Park! This day is def gunna be a poncho and hat day cuz Universal has soo many wet rides and my hair is gunna end up a frizzy mess!

We’ll grab lunch or a snack there OOP and then use a CS for a late dinner at Earl of Sandwhich when we get back.


Sun Aug 30 – Magic Kingdom
By far the day I’m most excited about. We will grab a CS for lunch and we have ADR at Tonys Town Square for 7pm. Theres also EMH from 9-12pm! WOO! What a great way to end the vacation!

Monday Aug 31 – Departure day
Our plane leaves at 6pm so to end the vacation off with a little bit of magic, we changed our ADR at Chef Mickey’s to this day at 11:20am! We haven’t figured out what we’re gunna do this day! Any suggestions?! We will have to be back at Pop by 3pm for ME.


Whew!! That took a while! But I’m glad I got it all written down!


Total CS: 9
Total ADRs: 8

hi! I am getting ready to do a pre-trip report myself (my first) and thought I would check some others out. Started reading yours and went the whole way through!! You seem like a lot of fun! I am subscribbing! can't wait to see your actual trip report soon too! I saw this section of the report and didn't see where you got many answers to the questions you had. I thought I could do that for you quick just in case!
1. I would think about taking a cab to Sea World instead of Mears (unless you already did it and it's non-refundable). We did Mears when we went to SW and the guy from Mears told us himself that it was WAY cheaper just to take the cabs. It should only cost like $10 or so to take the cab.
2. Spirit of Aloha is great!! The food is really good, the show is fun and the included drinks are always a plus!! One suggestion: if you want to get your money's worth out of the included drinks, keep up with your waitress!! When we ate there, my DH and I only got two drinks each in the whole meal, because she wasn't around very much!! The food is brought out and there is so much, you don't really need to get refills so much. Then they bring out a big dessert and that was all that we really saw her! So, since you have allowed a day for recovery (lol) take advantage!!
3. The potato heads are great!! My DS has I think all from the parks as well as ones you can get in the stores!! Buy the head itself somewhere else. We got ours at Wal-mart. The head itself takes up so much room. Without that in the box, you can fit that many more parts!! We just keep getting boxes of parts every time we go now to add to his collection! There are also some sets there of Star Wars Potato Heads. I think there are a storm trooper, vader, luke and leia?? DS has all of those also...along with a transformer one, spiderman, indiana jones......
4. At the Star Tours ride in HS, you can get your photo done as one of the characters. It is in the gift shop on the way out. They basically put your face on the actor's body. It may be fun for DBF. Plus, there are lots of Star Wars thingys in the shop when exiting. There is also the Jedi training show and the photo op on the speeder bike outside of the ride.
Hope some of this helps!! Looking foward to more! When I get mine started, I'll put a link in my sig and hopefully you can follow me too!
Erin

 

[Vallie]

TA Situation Update

So, Craig emailed the owner of the Travel Agency and explained our worries and frusterations and asked her if someone else could double check our plans to be sure that everything else was okay. It was a polite email, I read it. The lady called him back, apparently according to her she was disheartened about our email and said that it was not fair of us to accuse our TA because she made the correct reservations and DISNEY itself is bad for keeping ressies and thier online system is faulty and that other costumers of thiers have complained of the same thing.

Now this makes no sense to me because all of my other reservations were fine and the guy i spoke to on disney that helped me figure everything else gave me the user name that was used to cancel and rebook my ressie, and also gave the dates AND times, which were 10 mins apart from each other.

Maybe she did not fully understand what the problem was, i'm not sure, because Craig spoke with her not me. Also our TA was not in the office yesterday so I guess she was not around to explain either.

I dont feel any better about the situation, and I'm hoping and praying everything goes smoothly from here on out and I wont find any more problems like this.

I was going to call myself and explain more in depthly but I feel like I dont even want to deal with it anymore because its making me upset so I am going to leave it as is, keep checking my ressies online and just let Craig deal with them for the final payment arrangements and such.

I just hate this whole situation because Im not one to complain and our TA has been nice, I'm just more concerned that we will get down there and something will not be booked correctly.

 

[Vallie]

Hey hun.. tha is RIDICULOUS! I can agree, that a few mistakes here and there are harmless, but what she did was careless! If I were you, I would call disney myself and double check everything!

Im glad your subbed now
I have been double checking all my dining ressies and so far everything else is okay. I am going to continue to keep an eye on it. The only thing I cant check is my actual ticket and hotel Ressies because it belongs to them under Florida Law

Im not too worried about that tho because the price we are paying is the same we would pay online for the same package.

Hey I'm so sorry about all of your trouble with your TA! It's so annoying having to make sure everything is right when you hired someone to do it for you! I think sending that email was a good thing, this is your vacation that you're spending a lot of money on and you want it to be great so yeah they should get everything right, especially since they specialize in disney vacations. I'm so sorry this all happened. And don't appologize for venting, we're all here to listen! I hope everything works out and there's no more mistakes!

I agree its very annoying I'm glad u guys are here to listen!! and I deinfitly hope the rest works out!

Hi, babe.

I miss you and our trips gonna be great I promise.

Also, thanks to everyone who said hello.
Go on over to my posts and let me know what you think.

Thanks

hello babeh, i miss u too i get to see u tonight! woopwoop!
thank u for calling and evertything yesterday.

Oh no im sorry to hear the problems you've had with your TA, when you get a profressional to do it for you you don't really expect to have mistakes and need to look over everything yourself and makes checks. I mean whats the point in that? you may aswell have done it all yourself from the beginning right?
Hope you have no more problems

My point exactly! Im starting to wish I had

I hope so too!

Post a link

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2206278

hi! I am getting ready to do a pre-trip report myself (my first) and thought I would check some others out. Started reading yours and went the whole way through!! You seem like a lot of fun! I am subscribbing! can't wait to see your actual trip report soon too! I saw this section of the report and didn't see where you got many answers to the questions you had. I thought I could do that for you quick just in case!
1. I would think about taking a cab to Sea World instead of Mears (unless you already did it and it's non-refundable). We did Mears when we went to SW and the guy from Mears told us himself that it was WAY cheaper just to take the cabs. It should only cost like $10 or so to take the cab.
2. Spirit of Aloha is great!! The food is really good, the show is fun and the included drinks are always a plus!! One suggestion: if you want to get your money's worth out of the included drinks, keep up with your waitress!! When we ate there, my DH and I only got two drinks each in the whole meal, because she wasn't around very much!! The food is brought out and there is so much, you don't really need to get refills so much. Then they bring out a big dessert and that was all that we really saw her! So, since you have allowed a day for recovery (lol) take advantage!!
3. The potato heads are great!! My DS has I think all from the parks as well as ones you can get in the stores!! Buy the head itself somewhere else. We got ours at Wal-mart. The head itself takes up so much room. Without that in the box, you can fit that many more parts!! We just keep getting boxes of parts every time we go now to add to his collection! There are also some sets there of Star Wars Potato Heads. I think there are a storm trooper, vader, luke and leia?? DS has all of those also...along with a transformer one, spiderman, indiana jones......
4. At the Star Tours ride in HS, you can get your photo done as one of the characters. It is in the gift shop on the way out. They basically put your face on the actor's body. It may be fun for DBF. Plus, there are lots of Star Wars thingys in the shop when exiting. There is also the Jedi training show and the photo op on the speeder bike outside of the ride.
Hope some of this helps!! Looking foward to more! When I get mine started, I'll put a link in my sig and hopefully you can follow me too!
Erin

welcomeee!! glad to have ya here! thanks for all the great info!
we havent booked with Mears yet and if a cab is that cheap maybe we will do that instead!

i know craig will definitly make sure he gets lots and lots of beer! u dont mess with that boy and his beer hehe

i like the idea of buying the head somewhere else! thats agreat plan. sound like ur DS and Craig would get along hehe

and Im sure craig will love all those star war things cuz hes a huge nerd! i will make him take the actor pic for sure! he will have no say in the matter! hehe

and definitly post a link and i will follow! and hopefully be of some help too!

 

[shordiebecka]

that stinks about your TA...as long as you double check that everything was done correctly, you should be okay, but thats what she is supposed to do! you're not supposed to have to worry about all this!

Hope things work out for the best. You will have an amazing vacation either way!

 

[LOVEMY3KIDDOS]

The funny thing is...my son is only 5!!! So, if he wanted to hang with a 5 y.o., they would get along great!! LOL Actually, he IS a cool 5! (Of course...he has a cool mom to teach him!!) Can't wait for more! It's all going to be great and a wonderful memory!

 

[DisneyFaeriePrincess]

Hmm, now I think the lady who called you back was being kinda rude. If you want them to double check then they should be glad to do it, you are a customer after all! Perhaps it was disney or maybe it was your TA, it doesn't matter, it should be no problem for them to recheck everything! I know I've bugged my TA to death with all of my questions and rechecking things and she has been very polite and done it all for me and we're not even paying her! (We used AAA and their travel agency is free) I don't even think they should second guess you! Well I hope there is no more problems for you guys! And hey maybe it was all just a breakdown in communication and everything will be ok.

 

[meli121824]

Hi started to read your PTR at work and you sound like fun so I am going to sub... My DD, DBF, and I are staying at POP August 5-12th. DBF has never been and I can't tell if he is excited or not yet. Hopefully he will love it when we get there. If not I will still drag him with us whenever I want to go ... can't wait to read more

 

[Vallie]

The funny thing is...my son is only 5!!! So, if he wanted to hang with a 5 y.o., they would get along great!! LOL Actually, he IS a cool 5! (Of course...he has a cool mom to teach him!!) Can't wait for more! It's all going to be great and a wonderful memory!

haha im sure he wouldnt mind! little kids love him! i love kids that age!! I run a before and after school program and this year we dont have any little ones, mostly older ones who think they're just too cool! hehe

Hmm, now I think the lady who called you back was being kinda rude. If you want them to double check then they should be glad to do it, you are a customer after all! Perhaps it was disney or maybe it was your TA, it doesn't matter, it should be no problem for them to recheck everything! I know I've bugged my TA to death with all of my questions and rechecking things and she has been very polite and done it all for me and we're not even paying her! (We used AAA and their travel agency is free) I don't even think they should second guess you! Well I hope there is no more problems for you guys! And hey maybe it was all just a breakdown in communication and everything will be ok.

i really hope so too! i just wanted a double check u know.. sheesh! I would do it myself but unfortunatly they own the ressie under florida law, except for the dining ressies, those I can (and will!) check!

Hi started to read your PTR at work and you sound like fun so I am going to sub... My DD, DBF, and I are staying at POP August 5-12th. DBF has never been and I can't tell if he is excited or not yet. Hopefully he will love it when we get there. If not I will still drag him with us whenever I want to go ... can't wait to read more

welcome!!
glad you're enjoying it so far! you'll be at PoP right before us! I'm sure he will love it! Im hoping the same thing from DBF but my back up plan is to also just drag him along if he doesnt (Which he will... right Craig?!)

 

[WelovMickey!]

Great PTR so far! My husband was the same way when he first went and before we left he said when are we coming back!

I can tell that ya'll are silly and like to have fun so he will love Disney. I hope for you

And you only have 63 more day!! Lucky!!! I have 169

Can't wait to hear more!