advantages to booking hotel/tickets seperately

[newmouse82]

I am officially booking my trip tomorrow morning off Disney's website and was wondering if anybody knows if I am better off to book everything separately, or if it's cheaper to book all together. We are staying at the DH from Sept. 20-26, and getting 6 day park hoppers, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[DahliaRW]

I wouldn't book yet. Wait until the fall specials come out.

*Usually* booking seperately is cheaper. Especially if there is a room discount going on. What I would do now is call and make a ROOM ONLY reservation at the DLH for your dates. At any point you can convert it to a package or apply a new discount to it, just by calling.

 

[jitterbug]

I agree with PP, wait to see what the specials are for the time you're going. I know it's hard waiting. My friend and I were on edge waiting until the packages were posted for our travel. If you haven't already, check out mousesavers.com; it is a great website that has advice on saving money for Disney related stuff. I think they even had estimates of when past deals were released to get an idea of how long you need to wait. I think it was on a FAQ page.

If you're a Costco member, be sure to check their Disney packages as well. It's typically the same package (included TTMM and preferred seating vouchers) with some additional perks (for ours it was character dining and $20 gift card) at a lower price.

If you go separate, getawaytoday has good ticket prices. If you're only buying tickets from them, you don't have to pay the package fee.

We initially thought separately would be cheaper, but with the taxes added in, it ended up being a better deal going with the Costco package.

 

[sonnyjane]

I wouldn't book yet. Wait until the fall specials come out.

*Usually* booking seperately is cheaper. Especially if there is a room discount going on. What I would do now is call and make a ROOM ONLY reservation at the DLH for your dates. At any point you can convert it to a package or apply a new discount to it, just by calling.

I agree with this. I'd book a room-only reservation now, but then change if something cheaper comes along.

 

[aristocat65]

I am officially booking my trip tomorrow morning off Disney's website and was wondering if anybody knows if I am better off to book everything separately, or if it's cheaper to book all together. We are staying at the DH from Sept. 20-26, and getting 6 day park hoppers, any advice would be appreciated.

I agree with PP's that it is really too early, but you really have to price out both options to see which is cheaper (when the specials come out). Keep in mind that price that initially shows for room only reservations don't include tax, but the packages do (I think)

One thing you should do if you haven't already is register on the Disneyland website to get all their promo emails and newsletters. Also when you go into price out trips make sure you are logged in and Save your trips. By doing this you "May" get a PIN code sent to you for a discount. Nobody really knows how they decide who gets these codes, but this seemed to trigger them for me

 

[newmouse82]

Thanks for all your advice. I broke down and called the reservation line. I booked the trip and tickets under the assurance that I can change the reservation in April when the better deals come out for a full refund. I just couldn't wait, sad I know.

 

[babyruth]

I have found it's cheaper to book separately, that is what we are doing for this trip. I registered and got a PIN a few days later. I get PINs all the time for WDW but had to go register for DLR and then they sent it. The PINs are never good for travel dates with school aged kids though

 

[chrissiecutie]

I always book separtely because it IS cheaper. However, we've never stayed at the DH so I couldn't tell you if it would make a difference with an onsite property.

Did you book airfare too? I know this is always cheaper to do yourself and with so many airports near Disney, some are indeed cheaper then others.

Hope you got a good rate, waiting sure is hard!

 

[newmouse82]

oh yeah we booked flights seperately DH flies 4 times a month for work so all our flights our free.

 

[DahliaRW]

The other advantage (for anyone else pondering this) is a room only reservation is fully cancelable, whereas a package you have to pay extra for insurance and the ability to cancel. Our last trip, booking seperately at DLH (and taking advantage of the 35% off room only rates) was about $400 cheaper than booking seperately. We did a room only ressie and then bought our tickets online about 48 hours before our trip.

 

[TheColtonsMom]

The other advantage (for anyone else pondering this) is a room only reservation is fully cancelable, whereas a package you have to pay extra for insurance and the ability to cancel. Our last trip, booking seperately at DLH (and taking advantage of the 35% off room only rates) was about $400 cheaper than booking seperately. We did a room only ressie and then bought our tickets online about 48 hours before our trip.

This isn't exactly true. We booked our trip in August 2010 for our visit in December 2010. You can't cancel outright but you can make changes without penalty up until 30 days before your vacation. Once you are 30 days from arrival you can still make changes however if any change makes the total cost of your package go down they charge a $50 change fee thus when 2 weeks before our trip the DLH closed the laundry facilities and we decided to switch hotels and our package rate reduced we used the difference to buy our character meals & dining vouchers to avoid the $50 cancellation fee, the CMs at WDTC were wonderful with helping me to "use up" the difference so that we wouldn't get the change fee. Oh and I did not buy the insurance on our package.