Advantage booking through disneyland.com?

[dinotorrid]

Hi there. I'm planning a March trip and I've looked at the Good Neighbour Hotel: Motel 6. However, I notice that it is much more expensive booking through disneyland.com as a package deal, than it is booking the hotel direct through Motel 6 web site and buying the tickets individually.

Is there much of an advantage to booking direct through Disney that you don't get otherwise?

 

[disney-super-mom]

There's really no advantage to booking through Disney.

Every once in a while there will be a package deal that you can book through Disney that turns out to be cheaper or a better deal than booking seperately, but often you will find it is cheaper to book your hotel room through whatever website and purchase tickets seperately.

I hope that made sense.

 

[disney-super-mom]

Oh, I also wanted to say that if you're looking for a place that's fairly inexpensive, but clean and right across the street from the front entrance to Disneyland, look at the Park Vue Inn.

 

[dinotorrid]

Oh, I also wanted to say that if you're looking for a place that's fairly inexpensive, but clean and right across the street from the front entrance to Disneyland, look at the Park Vue Inn.

Awesome. Thanks I'll be sure to look into it.

 

[MagicalMomAZ]

I went through the same thing. We WANTED to stay on-site but for a suite a DLH it was going to run me $550/nite!!! So I learned that by going seperate (as opposed to a Disney pkg) I was saving more. We're staying at the Desert Inn across the street on Harbor (443 yds away - YES! We measured!!) & I'm getting a 2 bdrm suite for $129/nite!!!!!!

Plus through getwawaytoday.com I got 2 EE days even tho I'm not staying on-site .... so I'm VERY happy not going through Disney.

 

[bumbershoot]

The one advantage when booking a package with someone who is, or who uses, Walt Disney Travel Company (so...disneyland.com, costco travel, AAA, and I think getawaytoday.com, and maybe others) is that you get the little perks of the package.

With our costco package, we got vouchers for lanyards and pins for each of us, a 10% off merchandise coupon, vouchers for Mickey's ToonTown Morning Madness, Preferred Seating vouchers for 4 shows, a coupon for Marceline's Confectionery, and an almost overlooked coupon for some bus transportation over to a shopping mall. If those things sound like fun to you, figure out how much they might be worth, and then see if the price for a package makes sense.

Of course, it's possible to get some of those things from other people, whether it's through ebay or the sweet people here on the Dis who offer their unused ToonTown MMadness vouchers to those who might use them before they expire...but that's not a sure thing.

Look at all you get through a package, check out that package through other places (when I was booking our trip, after i delayed booking and saw a big price jump, the cost of booking with Costco, AAA, and disneyland.com were almost the same, with some factors being taken into consideration). Oh, and that parenthetical thought reminds me that if you're a member of Costco and use their travel service to get a package, they include a character breakfast, too. For me, when I booked, that was not free, as the package was almost exactly that cost OVER AAA and disneyland.com, but for others it has been less obviously charged for, LOL. It still worked for us, though.

Hope that helps!

But hey, if you do see a good price, JUMP on it. I delayed, and when I checked in the evening one day, the prices jumped up fairly significantly and so we paid hundreds more than we would have paid, if I had booked that particular morning. (and it jumped across the WDTC-using sites)

 

[flyinshirer]

The other good thing about doing a package is that you can make payments on your trip if needed. We have done that twice and it helped us so much more and we felt like we could splurge a little because it wasn't so much money at one time. We enjoyed all the perks that came with it too. Especially if you are going on a busy time, those priority seating is pretty great to have!
Good luck!