Booking everything separately

[Lisa1976]

We are going out to Florida for our wedding and honeymoon this December and instead of booking a package, we have decided to book everything separately this time.

We are hoping to spend two weeks in Disney and then a week split between Key Largo and Clearwater.

We know where we want to stay at Disney and will have annual passes to get the discounts, but arent sure about the Key Largo and Clearwater bit.

Also with regard to flights, does anyone have any recommendations??

If you have booked your holiday in parts, how did you find it and how did it compare price wise to a package??


Lisa

 

[Tiggernut_jadie]

We've booked the whole of our November holiday in separate bits via the internet. When we sat down with the Virgin brochure and worked out an equivilant (?sp) holiday using them, it came out that we'd saved over £1,000!!!

We booked a flight (Virgin from Manchester) and car (Alamo Gold - intermediate 4dr) combined for 3 weeks via Bon Voyage. Saving about £300+ over a Virgin Holidays flydrive.

We booked a villa via a company called Florida Five Star Vacations - which is a four bedroom (a bit big for just the three of us but it was a great deal!) Villa in Indian Ridge with pool (heated) and hot tub. When we priced up a similar property in the Virgin brochure it worked out at about £650 more than w're paying - and that was with the 'potluck' properties where you don't know which area you'll be in until you get there! We know EXACTLY which property we're in!

Even the tickets were cheaper by getting them from Omar at Maple Leaf - only by a few quid but still cheaper!

I would recommend the DIY route to anyone - in fact I've offered to help my mate at work to organise her May 2005 holiday to save her a few quid too!!!!!

 

[Lisa1976]

We thought this would be the case and it would work out a lot cheaper.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[juliebro]

Have to agree with Tiggernut_Jadie.

We don't bother with packages at all now, even for our holidays to Portugal. The main benefit is that you can pick exactly what you want - the day to travel, length of holiday (we tend to go to US for 2 and 1/2 weeks, and Portugal for 10 days), exactly which villa, hotel etc to go to.

Also, with luck and a bit of effort, you can do it more cheaply than a package.

Julie

 

[Hilary]

Even if it wasn't cheaper (and it usually is) to book everything separately, the big plus for us is that we can arrange our own itinerary and accommodation.

I'm not sure that a straight two-week Orlando trip is always cheaper by going D-I-Y (the tour operators sometimes have good deals because of their buying power), but it certainly pays to shop around.

 

[edie w]

We've tried it all ways

1996 (DH, DS, me and my DM) - booked flight (Delta), car hire (Dollar) and accommodation (villa at Indian Point) through North American Travel. Successful, but it was our first time.

1999 (DH, DS & me) booked flight (Delta) and car hire (Alamo) thro North American Travel and villa privately at Lindfields. Also a success.

2001 (DH, DS, me, BIL, SIL, & their 3) booked through Going Places and Style for flights (Monarch/Britannnia), car hire (Dollar) and accommodation (villa at Wellington, off Hwy 27). Successful, but villa location wasn't ideal and we wanted something bigger next time.

2003 (DH, DS, me, BIL, SIL, their 3, SIL's sister and their niece) booked flights (Virgin) and car hire (Alamo) through Thomas Cook Signature and villa at Indian Creek privately. The car hire was a disaster owing to Thomas Cook Signature's incompetence and we wasted most of our first day sorting it out. The Virgin flights were also not good, but more from bad luck than anything. I think we saved over 50% on the villa, and there's no way we'd have got such a good location booking that through TC.

2004 (DH, DS, me, BIL, SIL and their 3, SIL's niece and for part of the time SIL's two sisters and other niece!!) we are doing the WHOLE THING ourselves:

- Flights through Virgin (admittedly using an American travel specialist in the Wirral) using our 50% off vouchers from last time's delay.

- private villa in Indian Ridge Oaks (I hope - just doing the paperwork) - lovely villa, brilliant location and aspect, good price.

- car hire probably with the Tesco clubcard vouchers (thanks to tip on this forum)

The whole thing (minus park tickets ) will cost the three of us about £1,800. Couldn't go to Spain for that!!