Book seperately or a package??

[nun69]

Do you perfer to book seperately or with a package? andanother question, what do you think the odds are that AAA can get the same rate for the HoJo as the Ent rate for when we would like to go? Aug 20-28th? Aug 23-27 we can get anywhere from $59-$79 a night and then it would be regular price for the other 4, but the 4 discounted nights seem to be REALLY good....just curious!

 

[pixiewings71]

We book seperately, it's cheaper. And no, AAA will not be able to get you anything close to the Ent Rate. Your best bet is to book now and just watch the rates to see if they add it for the rest of your stay. Be sure to ask them for any other discounts you may qualify for, they offer AP discounts, a standard Ent discount, Disboards discounts......

 

[wwomant]

For our last trip this January I decided to price compare doing it separately (booking directly w/hotel and buying tix from Disneyland.com), through Costco, or through AAA at the Desert Palms for 4 nights, 3 3 day park hoppers, and going to one character meal. AAA & Costco rates were the same, but offered different perks, AAA free Disneyland parking (which we didn't care about) and Costco a gift card and a couple other things like pins that we didn't care about.

All things considered, tax, resort fees, gift cards, etc., It was around $230 cheaper to book it all separately, plus I got the flexibility to be able to cancel the reservations up to 48hours in advance, which you can't when you get a package! After that price comparison I probably won't bother to even look into packages again.

 

[trodrigue]

I always price compare and it is always $200-$300 cheaper to book it myself. That and the flexibility make it a no brainer.

 

[SeattleTink]

Good question!

I have done it both ways. I have used Costco, Disney Travel and Alaska Airlines for packages to Disneyland. The past 3 trips I have done it all myself and have saved quite a bit of money by doing it separately. Plus, I just LOVE all that planning and the thrill of getting a great deal.

If you like to plan and the challenge of "getting the best deal" do it yourself. Stay connected here on the DIS boards for great tips on how to get the best deals...and research, research, research.

If you don't have the time or the patience for all that planning, use the package deals. You will pay more, but you will save a lot of time.

The other posters are correct about HoJo's. The Ent. Rate cannot be beat by anyone.

 

[DahliaRW]

Likewise, I compare and do what is cheaper. With our last trip and 6 people, it ended up being slightly cheaper ($100 pp or so) to book the AAA package for where we wanted to stay. Plus we got the perks like free parking and priority seating. If we'd only needed a standard hotel room rather than a suite or adjoining rooms, it would have been cheaper to book seperately.

 

[bumbershoot]

About the non-entertainment rate nights...don't forget that as a disboards member you have a 15% discount off rack rate at hojo. Or if you're an AP holder you can have a 20% discount off rack rate. And you can switch a day's rate to entertainment, should that rate be added for that day in the future.

there have been some combinations and times and choices where some people have found that a package is better, but I haven't found that for myself. We did book a package for our first BIG trip, but I realized later that even with the same hotel choice, I could have done better by using the AP rate on the hotel (we were already planning on upgrading our hoppers to APs) and doing things separately.

Just run the numbers, see if anything in the packages is worth paying however much more for, and have fun!

 

[rszdtrvl]

I compared everything before we booked and it was cheaper for us to book everything all together.

We had a specific airline, flights, and cities we wanted also though :

PDX to SNA - NO exceptions. No other airports - just these two. And with Alaska Airlines - NON-stop flights.

If we were willing to tinker with going from SEA to LGB with a different airline we would have gotten a cheaper flight. And if we were willing to tinker with this we probably could have tinkered with hotels and booking stuff separately. But there was no point because it was all non-negotiable.

We got 4 nights at Hojo, 4-day park hoppers, transfers (to/from airport) for under $2,000.00 for our family of 3.

We were/are happy with that price, and so happy that we do not have to switch planes this time (from PDX to SNA it makes no sense to switch planes - the trip is just down the coast.... Thus why we chose Alaska Air instead of Southwest Air for our trip this time...)

 

[tracer]

It really depends on what promotions are being offered and what time of year. Our trip in Dec was booked through a package. It was cheaper for us to go that route on that trip. We got a $100 GC, free character b-fast (close to $100 for our family) and we were able to stay at the DLH with a rate comparable to the AP7 rate. I was unable to get that rate on our own because our AP's had expired. So I think it depends on where you are staying, promotions being offered and when your going.