Booking a Disney resort on Hotels.com or Expedia

[Hannah nz]

Hi

If I can't find availability direct with Disney what are the cons of booking with a third party website like Hotels.com etc?
A plus is I can book in my own currency.

Thanks

 

[dansdad]

Hi

If I can't find availability direct with Disney what are the cons of booking with a third party website like Hotels.com etc?
A plus is I can book in my own currency.

Thanks

The only con that I know of is, just like booking with a Travel Agent, you don't own the reservation. Meaning you can't call WDW and add any requests to your reservation for say room location preference. Whoever you book through would have to do that.

 

[Hannah nz]

The only con that I know of is, just like booking with a Travel Agent, you don't own the reservation. Meaning you can't call WDW and add any requests to your reservation for say room location preference. Whoever you book through would have to do that.

Thanks for your help. I don't think I would want to call and request anything as its a long distance phonecall.
Can I still do adrs and fps? And magical express.

I would prefer to book direct but I can't find availability at Pop for my dates

 

[dansdad]

Can I still do adrs and fps? And magical express.

Yes, yes and yes. Those perks are granted to every on site stay no matter how it is booked.

 

[Hannah nz]

Yes, yes and yes. Those perks are granted to every on site stay no matter how it is booked.

Awesome. We might have to go that way then. Assume we must buy tickets and link them on mde? We arrive after 24 hours of international travel at 11.30pm so really want a smooth arrival

 

[Hannah nz]

Awesome. We might have to go that way then. Assume we must buy tickets and link them on mde? We arrive after 24 hours of international travel at 11.30pm so really want a smooth arrival

Also forgot to say we are planning spilt stay to save some $ and wanted pop then Coronado but there is nothing at pop for our September dates

 

[Chrisizzle]

Hi

If I can't find availability direct with Disney what are the cons of booking with a third party website like Hotels.com etc?
A plus is I can book in my own currency.

Thanks

Pro Tip:
I booked a Disney stay with Expedia to use my Expedia Points for a room discount.

Everything went smoothly but the booking does not automatically show up on the Disney app for Fastpasses or Magical Express.

Expedia will provide their own booking/confirmation number that has nothing to do with Disney. I needed to call Expedia to get the Disney booking reference number and link that to the app. It was an easy thing to do and then you have the full support of Disney and their bonus features.

 

[mom to minnie&mickey]

You cannot add the dining plan if you book anywhere but Disney. Aside from that, for us at least, it is always a win win situation as we always get a better deal. We just booked with Travelocity for this March and cancelled our Disney reservation and saved $100 US ($135 CDN) for another All Star room. Once you link your reservation on MDE everything else remains the same such as Magical Express, 60 day fp, adrs etc. Link your tickets on MDE and you are all set to go.
As a pp mentioned some third party vendors do not give you the res. number which links to MDE, just their res. number for your booking. In our case I called Travelocity and she put me on hold ( 800 number so no charge) while she called Disney and they gave her the number for MDE. I used that new res. number to link to my MDE.

 

[Rob Troxel]

Pro Tip:
I booked a Disney stay with Expedia to use my Expedia Points for a room discount.

Everything went smoothly but the booking does not automatically show up on the Disney app for Fastpasses or Magical Express.

Expedia will provide their own booking/confirmation number that has nothing to do with Disney. I needed to call Expedia to get the Disney booking reference number and link that to the app. It was an easy thing to do and then you have the full support of Disney and their bonus features.

I too used Expedia for the All Star Music resort inasmuch as it was the only availability I could get for a December 12th trip. Same issue where I had to call to get the Disney resort ref number. Otherwise I could not book the Magic Express transportation to and from airport. It all fell into place once this number was known

 

[fla4fun]

Pro Tip:
I booked a Disney stay with Expedia to use my Expedia Points for a room discount.

Everything went smoothly but the booking does not automatically show up on the Disney app for Fastpasses or Magical Express.

Expedia will provide their own booking/confirmation number that has nothing to do with Disney. I needed to call Expedia to get the Disney booking reference number and link that to the app. It was an easy thing to do and then you have the full support of Disney and their bonus features.

I found mine on a page I hadn’t seen before, so it may be new. When you go into your Expedia itinerary, there Is a place that says Manage Your Booking, and it showed the hotel contact info and the Disney confirmation number. The confirmation number didn’t show up right away, but did show up about six months prior to check in. I have also called to get the confirmation number.

I book about half my reservations third party and half direct with Disney. It just depends on who has the availability and the best deal. I don’t see any difference doing it either way in the quality of the experience.

 

[etail]

For hotels.com I just submitted a request for the booking number in one of their support forms and withing 3 days got the number. I was using rewards points to get my adult son his own room at an affordable rate in addition to our Disney reservation. The only byproduct is MDE has me in both rooms.

 

[m3000]

The only con that I know of is, just like booking with a Travel Agent, you don't own the reservation. Meaning you can't call WDW and add any requests to your reservation for say room location preference. Whoever you book through would have to do that.

Hmmm I was able to do that with my Orbitz reservation to request connecting rooms. I did have to give Disney my MDE number and not the Orbitz confirmation number. Now if I wanted to cancel the booking or something like that I'd have to call Orbitz, but for room requests Disney should be able to handle that in my experience.

 

[dansdad]

Hmmm I was able to do that with my Orbitz reservation to request connecting rooms. I did have to give Disney my MDE number and not the Orbitz confirmation number. Now if I wanted to cancel the booking or something like that I'd have to call Orbitz, but for room requests Disney should be able to handle that in my experience.

Wow, times are a changing then.

 

[m3000]

I just checked and Orbitz actually tells you do contact the hotel directly for requests: "Special requests (e.g. Roll-away beds, late check-in) are not guaranteed, and additional charges may apply. We recommend confirming your request with the hotel just to be safe."

Also for OP, make sure to check Orbitz when booking, their 10% off codes (currently BOOKNOW) always work on Disney properties and can save up to $150 for each booking, plus then Orbucks to spend immediately on the 2nd booking since you're doing split stay. If you use their smartphone app to book you get an extra 2% Orbucks too. Managed to save over $300 for two rooms at Pop over the official Disney discounted price this way, and on dates that Disney didn't have at the time.

 

[bfost87]

Hi

If I can't find availability direct with Disney what are the cons of booking with a third party website like Hotels.com etc?
A plus is I can book in my own currency.

Thanks

Just be cautious, as while it may show the local currency, often times it'll still be booked in USD and subject to foreign exchange fees (not always the case, but some websites employ this).