Booking cruise through travel agents-need advice please

[maminnie]

For those of you that have used All Seasons, Dreams Unl., etc., do you find that their prices are better then going directly to Disney? For example, if you called regarding April or May of next year would their prices be any cheaper as the prices quoted on the same day by Disney? Prices are already so high through Disney for next year and I am assuming this is due to the frenzy created by the rumors of the boat leaving for the summer. Everyone who prefers Port Can. is having to book in fewer months.

I am wondering if these travel agents buy blocks of space from Disney at the earliest booking time/window and therefore their prices might be better.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[SeaSpray]

I priced (and then booked) our cruise for August 2004 back in August 2003, and All Seasons WAS less than Disney and Dreams Unlimited, for the same exact cruise, on the same day I was pricing them. The price will go up as time goes by though. Your best bet is to book as early as you possibly can. Our cruise has gone up about $2000. since I booked it last Aug.

You can check this yourself by going to www.disneycruise.com and getting a quote for the dates you want, then checking that price against the prices on www.allseastravel.com

We booked through All Seasons Travel and got a great price, and have had excellent service. I make a payment each month, and they send out an email verification as well as a paper verification, each time.

I'm not positive, but I do think they buy blocks of cabins so they can lock in the lowest prices. However, I was able to choose the cabin I wanted. I didn't give them an exact cabin number, but I did tell them where on the deck I wanted to be, then she put me on hold while she called Disney, then she came back and told me which cabins in that area were available, so then I got to pick the exact cabin from those.

I hope this helps!

 

[herrbeeb]

SeaSpray, i just wanted to thank you for your most excellent picture of the poly/monorail. i am now using it as background on my monitor. we are a family of 5 so we have always stayed at the poly for visits to wdw. my dh loves the access to the monorail and the casual atmosphere is perfect for us.

this year we are going to wdw post-6/26 eastern. we are staying at the poly, of course. i'm told this is a great spot for viewing the fireworks.

we did the western in april '03 and had a great time.

thanx again for the picture it really got my juices flowing.

 

[jordgubben]

I booked our April 2005 cruise through mouseearsvacation.com. They beat the quote that Dream Unlimited gave me by quite a bit (I think it was nearly a thousand dollars).

 

[SeaSpray]

Originally posted by herrbeeb
SeaSpray, i just wanted to thank you for your most excellent picture of the poly/monorail. i am now using it as background on my monitor. we are a family of 5 so we have always stayed at the poly for visits to wdw. my dh loves the access to the monorail and the casual atmosphere is perfect for us.

this year we are going to wdw post-6/26 eastern. we are staying at the poly, of course. i'm told this is a great spot for viewing the fireworks.

we did the western in april '03 and had a great time.

thanx again for the picture it really got my juices flowing.

It's a great picture, isn't it?!?!? I love it! I found it on a different web site, and liked it so much that I added it to my signature here. It really shows off the Polynesian very well!

 

[webray]

I get a few quotes and then take the best deal.

 

[sardan]

jordgubben - I'm having difficulty getting onto the site you noted - mouseearsvacation.com. Does this TA's site go by another name?

Thanks!

 

[ericamanda01]

I received a fantastic deal through Allseas last month for a Sept 04 cruise. I highly recommend them. They are sooo nice!

 

[cepmom]

HI
we used Small World Vacations to book our 4 day cruise for Aug 2005. The price they gave was tha same as all the others I tried (Dreams Unlilmited, Disney Travel etc) except for cruise.com. Cruise.com was cheaper, BUT they would charge $25 per person extra for any changes that were made to the reservation and Small World does not. I just wanted the extra reassurance that if we needed to make any changes at all we could without any penalties. Plus, Small World said that if any additional discounts were to become available between now and then I would be able to apply it to the existing registration (who knows if there will be any, but any $ saved is good in my book! ) Also, Small World was offering a rebate for trips booked by April 30 2004. I believe we will be getting a $75 rebate applied to our final payment. Between the rebate and the ability to make changes if neccesary were the biggest reasons I went with Small World. Good luck planning!!!

 

[herrbeeb]

SeaSpray, i just noticed you are a jersey shore girl. i grew up in south plainfield but we spent every summer in poin pleasant. when my parents were alive the entire family vacationed in ocean city.

my dh says "you can take the girl out of jersey but you can't take the jersey out of the girl."

leslie

 

[ksumom]

I have found that booking throught Sam's Club Travel saves me over $300 on 3 rooms for 12 people. I have also read on here that Costco is great on prices too.

Anyone know how Sam's compares to Costco? Are they about the same prices?

 

[KAMLEM]

Does anyone know if you can book category 1, 2 or 3 rooms through these other TA's or can they only be done through DU or DCL?

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

We booked our Nov2004 cruise thru Disney, paid it off and just last week transfered it to AAA travel,plus upgraded our room from cat 7 to cat 6. The price of the upgrade was $100 less to upgrade via AAA instead of Disney. We also get a lot of little extra perks by using AAA, like a free refillable mug for everybody in our party. If you transfer your cruise to the group we are booking with we can still do category guarantees for cat 6 (which means at least a cat 5 since they are all booked unless a ton cancel at the 60 day mark). We have 3 of those. Or we can get the cat 5's still too.
They are only another $200 for the room, $100 for each adult, and they have a few of those left too.

 

[maminnie]

Thank you everyone for your help. Next time we book I'll look into the various travel agents that you suggested and see what happens.

 

[SeaSpray]

Originally posted by herrbeeb
SeaSpray, i just noticed you are a jersey shore girl. i grew up in south plainfield but we spent every summer in poin pleasant. when my parents were alive the entire family vacationed in ocean city.

my dh says "you can take the girl out of jersey but you can't take the jersey out of the girl."

leslie

I have to agree with your DH!!

 

[Hygiene99]

U Say Next Time???

Makes Me wonder ??

Does that mean that u have a cruised planned ???

It would not be to late to Transfer it to one of the Agents
mentioned and still Get any savings u might find ...

Peter

all u have to do is give them your reservation # and the will take care of it...

 

[maminnie]

Hygiene99:

No we do not have a cruise scheduled yet. We were thinking of '06 but the week we were going to go is Easter week - too expensive and/or too many DVC points to go this week. Oh well.

 

[jjpounds]

I just booked my 7day Disney Eastern Cruise through Costco. I checked with all the other sites mentioned in this post and still found Costco with the lowest price. They book directly through DCL so you have all the same options as you would have if you went with DCL, pick your exact stateroom, deposit, cancel with 100% back with 60 days notice, etc.... The only thing negative I would have to admit is the waiting time on hold when I call can be very long if you don't call first thing in the morning or just before they close. They are located in Washington State and are only open from 8:30-5:30 PT. This is the second cruise I've booked with them and have no problems thus far. Hope this helps!

 

[StuartMI]

I just got off the phone with all seasons. I spoke with some guy named Keith and he was totally rude. He didn't ask for any information at all and was just like "Oh, well take your Disney price and subtract $100 per reservation". Gee, thanks.

Then, I tried calling MOUSEEARVACATIONS.COM who apparantly are in Washington, and the forwarded me over to some guy in Dallas named "Chet" who said that they couldn't provide any discounts on 2006 cruises yet. Um, alrighty.

So, I'm waiting for a call back from Dana at Cruise Planners (who wouldn't let me finish a sentence without interrupting me ) and after that I've gotten a price from Costco already and sofar they've been able to quote about $1500 less than DCL.

 

[mamalle]

I was quoted a price from costco for $2507 for a 4 night cruise cat 5 in feb 2005 for me, dh, dd-4, ds-3. I was getting higher quotes elsewhere and emailed one of the agencies back and told her I was going with costco. she called me back and said they could match costco's price. so I went with them instead since the costco rep wasnt too knowledgeble when I asked him questions regarding the cruise.