Booking question for land and sea from a newbie

[holbrookfam]

Hi there! I'm new to this fantastic board and have a question about booking a vacation for both land and sea. We are planning on going August 2007 and would like to spend 7 days at the park and take the 4 day cruise. Does anyone have any advice about how to book, i.e., should I book the land and sea portions separately? or should I book and land and sea package and add on days to the land portion? Also, what about airfare? Should I book that through Disney or do it myself? Help! I'm so overwhelmed right now. Thank you!

 

[fluffykim]

Hi-

We just did that package. We own at SSR, so we are doing Sunday to Sunday BEFORE the cruise at SSR, and then the 4night cruise.

We are booking air seperate because I know I can get cheaper..oh yeah, and the travel agent said the same thing.

If you book land seperate, you can do the Dining Plan, but NOT if you book with the cruise.

Even booking land seperate, you can still get the transfers to the boat.

My 2cents.

Kim

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

We have done the land/sea package alone and also have added days on to the package and have also booked land and sea separately. As far as cost, it is probably cheaper to book land and sea separately if you are staying at a value or moderate resort. However, when we stayed at a deluxe resort (Poly), the package was cheaper for us than if we had booked each portion separately. So, in a nutshell, if you are staying deluxe, you might want to get the package and if you are staying value or mod, you might want to book each portion separately. That is the way it worked out for us. Compare prices booking it both ways to be sure.

About the airfare, I have booked air with Disney for two different cruises. Never again. The first trip turned out great, but on the second trip we had a connecting flight that was scheduled within 35 mins of our first plane landing. Everyone that needed that connection missed it. We didn't get home until 1am - that was more than 12 hours after we left Orlando!!! It wasn't a good experience at all and I vowed never to book air with DCL again. We use SWA now. DCL air is also pretty expensive. I might only recommend it during major holidays if you can't get anything else.

Tink

 

[holbrookfam]

Thank you for the tips. I have looked into it a little bit and it appears that doing it separately is less expensive, but I didn't know if anyone else had done it and what their experience was. Thanks!

 

[Briege]

Having done the Land Sea Package last Thanksgiving, I think if we were to do it next time we would book the land & sea separate so we could get the dining plan. I could not believe WDW is so expensive for food. The meal plan would have saved us a bunch. You can still get the Disney Transfers to the ship. We booked our airfares separately for 2 reasons. It was significantly less than Disney cost (we had booked initially through Disney and then cancelled when we found out we could save approximately $300 each for our roundtrip airfares by booking with US Air - we saved $1200 on this). Secondly, we were able to get our plane tickets many months earlier than we would have from Disney. Also, we knew well in advance what time we would be leaving.

Just my 2 cents

Briege

 

[lbgraves]

Be sure that you take into consideration the fact that as of January 2006 you will receive a 7 day park hopper MYW ticket that starts the day your land portion begins. It use to be that you just received LOS tickets. In order to add the 3 days to the pre cruise stay, you will have to do this thru DCL so that you can use the 7 day pass from the first day. If you have APs or old tickets you could do the deal seperately.

 

[matsterrocks]

We are doing 4 days before our crusie and 3 days after. We booked deluxe for the first 4 days GF and cruise Cat 6 and are free to stay at wahtever resort we fell like after or even offsite if we wanted but won't. We can take advantage of all 7 parkhopper tickets. We will be eating alot on the ship so aren't worried about not having the dinning plan for resort days as we don't need 14 days of glutiny

 

[Jake & Crew]

First, wihtout a doubt I agree with everyone else ~ book your own airfare! much less expensive and you have control over it. That said b/c I was recovering from surgery I was able to call EVERY TA when palnning our land/sea and disney with all sorts of scenarios. Bottom line Disney was within $100 of the most comparable TA, which was AAA. Figured would book with Dis at that point, then while on the phone with them told them I wanted to add the no expire to the package ( we can only do 3 days before the cruise and the passes are for 7) no deal, would not let me add on the no exp. Called AAA and they told me I could, had them fax me a letter stating that and booked with them ( plus received shipboard credit which made it even with the Dis pricing). In Jan went to make my final payment and add the no exp my TA ( who knows less about Dis than I do) said oh, we can't do that. Just gave them my letter and I now have another letter saying it is to be done and who to contact at the world if I have any trouble, trip is first week of may, will let you know what happens. My intent is if no exp can be added, AAA will be buying our family four day passes!!! Just be careful booking packages, and no we have no dining plan But bet your bananas we will have a rocking time and get our 4 days back!