Aussie Disneyland Planners come on in and lets plan together :)

:offtopic: but I am a little excited, and not about Disney. BUT

I have just rearranged our return flights, originally we were going to Hawaii for 6 nights at the end of our holiday, but we had trouble getting a good price for a flight from Honolulu to Sydney ($1350 one way with Jetstar:scared1:) I know it was because it was at the end of the school holidays but it was sooo expensive, so I fished around on the net for a while, got some flights from Honolulu to Fiji with FF points and a cheap price for the other flights we needed, so now we have 4 nights in Hawaii and 4 nights in Fiji:dance3:

Then I got an amazing price of $122 night for the Radisson on Denaru Island, so it ends up we are saving close to $3000.:cheer2:
 
It'll come back up, I am certain :flower3:

I am just glad that I have a few months to wait until it gets good again. And I suppose .79c is not too bad, was .60 something when we booked. I am just waiting for after tax time then the moment the dollar does really well I am off to the bank to get my Travelcard :banana:

xxx
 

great job on the fiji saving sounds good.

I am hoping the dollar is just taking a breather, as it has been really going up very quickly in a short space of time, something like 5c a week at least. You just never know as all the so called experts are really only guessing. They are as good as weathermen :laughing:

Last week they were saying it would finish at 84c but instead it lost 3c and went to 79c. One minute they are saying it should go to 90c then a day later that for some reason the US dollar may get a boost. I figure it is a bit like the stockmarket, it is impossible to pick the absolute top or bottom. When it is at a rate you are happy with then go with it, if is happens to go higher in the meantime, get some more, or be happy that you will be better off with the stuff you buy on a credit card.

I am happy right now though, it was 62c when I booked our trip, so 80 is a huge bonus.
 
Marvel - have you booked your hotel for Hollywood yet??? I am planning on booking The Renassiance Hotel (which from memory you were too) but will wait till the last minute waiting for the highest rise in the $$$
If you haven't booked, when do you plan too and will you book direct with hotel?
 
hi czarda,

No I haven't booked, I was also going for the Renaissance but for our dates it they could not confirm 2 queen beds, which is not really an option with two kids. So I have looked at a lot of reviews and I am going to book the Holiday Inn Walk of Fame, it is top 10 on tripadvisor and the fully flexible rate is $217USD and that includes breakfast. I will then just monitor the other rates and book an advance fare then. I think the advance fully paid rate is around $187 or so. If I happen to be able to get the Renaissance closer to our dates then I will switch to that. It was coming up for $269US.

I was also considering the sportsmans lodge that aussiegirls were staying at. It was heaps cheaper, just not too sure about it being family friendly, but it was $600US and included Universal passes and parking!!

Oh, we will probably not book a car for the 4 days we stay in LA as well, looks like it is pretty easy to get to Universal etc from Hollywood for those 4days, we will then pick up our car to drive to Vegas. Thanks to the poster about National Car rental it was pretty close to yescarhire.com in terms of price.
 
hi czarda,
Thanks to the poster about National Car rental it was pretty close to yescarhire.com in terms of price.

Marvel,

I must have missed it. What info do you have about National Car Hire. We have decided to hire a car to drive to Vegas also.
Thanks
Gogo
 
Someone posted that national car hire from the US has good rates for International drivers that includes all the insurance and they were right. The price we got was pretty good. We have used yescar and usacarhire before as they are UK based and their prices also include all the insurance. The other US based websites don't include the daily insurance that we have to have, and the prices are way higher. You can also basically have a reservation without a credit card from what I see. They are holding my reservation now with just my name, I suppose you pay a deposit closer to the travel date.
 
Someone posted that national car hire from the US has good rates for International drivers that includes all the insurance and they were right. The price we got was pretty good. We have used yescar and usacarhire before as they are UK based and their prices also include all the insurance. The other US based websites don't include the daily insurance that we have to have, and the prices are way higher. You can also basically have a reservation without a credit card from what I see. They are holding my reservation now with just my name, I suppose you pay a deposit closer to the travel date.

Thanks Marvel,

Got very excited until I saw a $250 drop off fee:eek:
We are planning on picking up in Anaheim and dropping off in Vegas
We also need a large 4wd or minivan as we will have skis and a snowboard with us.

Oh well,

Avis wasn't to bad about $150 still better than bus or flying
 
Someone posted that national car hire from the US has good rates for International drivers that includes all the insurance and they were right. The price we got was pretty good. We have used yescar and usacarhire before as they are UK based and their prices also include all the insurance. The other US based websites don't include the daily insurance that we have to have, and the prices are way higher. You can also basically have a reservation without a credit card from what I see. They are holding my reservation now with just my name, I suppose you pay a deposit closer to the travel date.

marvel we have never had to pay a deposit. From memory they sent another email a week or so before our travel date to confirm we still wanted the vehicle, and that was it.
 
I think it was me that suggested National.
After you mentioning the other sites I went and had a look, but there was no option to pick up in Manhatten with them, so I stuck with National for NY. Then I can't remember what the deal was with the Anaheim bookings, it may have even been an inability to do a one-way hire, or higher cost or something. Anyway, I ended up sticking with National for all 3 hires.
 
A question for you experienced travellers:-

Do you book everything online yourself if you are planning on flying within the US as well?

I ask this because we are planning to fly to LA, and from there would like to fly to San Fran and then to Vegas and then probably home. Do you use Expedia to book those internal flights also?

And what about transfers from airports? Do you do that yourself for each place?

Or is it better to book everything through a travel agent?
 
Yes, everything ourselves. I've been to agents before and never got deals as good as I could get myself online. Although the exception last trip was 2 out of about 10 hotels, so I booked just those hotels through the agent.
Transfers, I do myself.

This is my ex-agent perspective: contrary to what they would like you to believe they are not experts at every area, they might know a handful of destinations well, the rest they are flying almost as blind as you (almost, because they have others around them to help them fill in the blanks... plus what they have picked up as they went along) So when you walk into an agency and ask for a quote, for the most part they will send your entire booking to the wholesalers who will quote it. The wholesalers have inspected most of the hotels and negotiated good bulk rates at them.
No-one at all will be spending any time checking the details of this hotel and that hotel to see which one is better for you. Or this transfer and that transfer to see which one saves you 15 minutes. They will look at the basics of your requirements and suggest a hotel that they know that will fit your criteria and the transfer company they always use. Now if you are going to Fiji or Anaheim, likely you will get pretty much what you want because they have more knowledge and options in those areas. But the further you go off the beaten track, the less they know, and that includes the wholesalers.

When we flew to Seattle and then did a Washington road trip last trip, the agents prices for the hotel we used were almost double what we paid and they knew nothing about the motels etc in the little towns, all they could suggest was a motel pass which would have been more painful than useful. The rental car prices they gave me were hundreds more than what I got myself quoting online direct with Avis and Thrifty.

Having said all of that, all the places you are going are fairly common places for Aussies to go, and the agents and wholesalers should have a reasonable number of well priced hotels at them. As to whether you can get cheaper yourself online, well I'd say the chances are pretty good. There's nothing to stop you getting a quote from the agent but ask them to itemise the costs so you can just take bits of their quotes if you want.

The way I see it there are 3 reasons to use an agent:
1/ you don't have time to do it yourself, because it's definitely lots more time consuming than using an agent
2/ you don't have the confidence to do it yourself
3/ you don't much care about the details and are happy to let someone else handle them.
 
A question for you experienced travellers:-

Do you book everything online yourself if you are planning on flying within the US as well? No, not always. I have a corporate travel agent so she often has some really good deals. So sometimes she has deals that I can't find online and doing mulitple destinations sometimes she can get better prices for me.

I ask this because we are planning to fly to LA, and from there would like to fly to San Fran and then to Vegas and then probably home. Do you use Expedia to book those internal flights also? I would go to the airline direct and expedia and a travel agent to see the best fares

And what about transfers from airports? Do you do that yourself for each place? Again, sometimes this is organised by the travel agent but often I do it myself, depends on where I am going, eg my last trip to Europe I booked the airport transfers.

Or is it better to book everything through a travel agent? No, not always, it is easier sometimes, if you have a very good travel agent and very experienced it can sometimes be easier to book everything through an agent, but it's still important to do your homework as it is true, they don't know everything. Sometimes you can get things through agents that you can't get yourself. EG: Last year to WDW, we wanted AKL, had our dates and it was booked out through WDW website and by phone direct with WDW, we could not get anything, so rather degected that we would not be going on our trip as planned, I was walking past a Flight Centre and was killing time waiting for my son to finish his afternoon activity. So in I went and said, there isnt any chance of getting accommodation at AKL, gave our dates, savannah view room, dining package tickets etc and she put in a request and called me the next morning and said she had it, so off we went on our wonderful holiday, but my usual agent was not able to get that either (she still did our flights).

So always do your own homework, your own research to see where you get the best deal, if it's through an agent, then you book that part with them.
 
I was thinking more about the agent thing. There is a massive difference between an average agent and a good agent. If you want to use an agent I'd look for one that other people you know have used for multiple trips. One booking to Fiji done well does not a good reference make.
 
A question for you experienced travellers:-

Do you book everything online yourself if you are planning on flying within the US as well?

I ask this because we are planning to fly to LA, and from there would like to fly to San Fran and then to Vegas and then probably home. Do you use Expedia to book those internal flights also?

And what about transfers from airports? Do you do that yourself for each place?

Or is it better to book everything through a travel agent?

Ms Shuttergirl,

I use both a travel agent and myself.
I do most of the research and then let her know what prices I can get things for, if she can match it then I book with her, however I am finding more and more that I get most things cheaper doing it myself.
For internal flights I will check with expedia or best flights, they will give you an idea of what airlines fly to that destination etc I then always check with the airline direct, as they don't have booking fees like expedia, and 9 times out of 10 the airlines direct are cheaper.
I also use kayak.com -a good comparison site for flights, hotels, car hire etc and also hotelscombined.com, who also compare hotel prices

With the internal flights always check with virginamerica and southwest as they generally are not sold through the other websites.

If you book internal flights make sure you check the baggage conditions, most US airlines now charge for all baggage. So you need to factor that into your calculations.
Southwest is one of the few that don't charge for baggage.

Hope that helps a little, :)
 















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