Couple of daft questions re: 2014 booking

[TCO]

Hi all I should preface this with an apology and by saying I know I could find these answers elsewhere but I like coming to (and annoying) you guys


All along we had planned to take our son for his first WDW trip next September as he'll be 3 and its the last chance to go out of school holidays, ideally we want to go on the 22nd September but wasn't sure how to book it as most of the funds for the trip are in a sharesave that pays out in August 2014.

That being said we had decided the best way would be to book late once its paid out even though we would pay a lot more that way, anyway I priced it up and to stay at Pop or AoA (on the off chance a little mermaid room was available at short notice) plus QSDP it would set us back over £5k, now I just priced up AKL out of interest and on Travel City Direct its coming out at £5400 including the full dining plan, obviously if possible it should be a no brainer

My two questions are

Is there any actual difference with booking with TCD and booking with Virgin? I know virgin took them over but I am cautious as I am one of the ones due to go with TCD when they went bust

If you had to cancel for any reason do you just lose the deposit up to a certain date?

Any advice on the best way to book welcome (22nd September 2014 for 2 weeks from Manchester, 2 adults and 1 3 year old)

Thanks guys

 

[ChipnDaleRule]

I booked with VH last year purely because DH had just started a new job and we weren't sure how it was going to turn out.The beauty of a package is you can cancel up until the day the full amount is due,only losing the deposit.However their are cheaper ways of booking, eg direct with Disney and buying plane tickets separately, but that would mean you paying a few thousand potentially eleven months out.Those dates you gave (direct with Disney) would be £2700 for AK free dining and $200 gift card,and I'm sure for those dates you could get direct flights for a decent price bringing you under £5400

 

[TCO]

But that £2700 doesn't include tickets does it? How much do flights tend to be In September? Are 3 year olds a reduced price on flights?

 

[TCO]

Anyone have anything to add at all? Cheers guys

 

[orangetiggs]

My twins are three and they are reduced flight prices but its only like 10% cheaper. We are booking our hotel and tickets with complete orlando for next year and then will book flights in jan

We just pay a deposit and then if we have to cancel im sure they will try and move it or its just the deposit we lose. Also its only £75 per room and 20% off attraction tickets so alot cheaper than virgin holidays deposit of £150 each

Flight deposit is then £100pp when you book those

 

[Laurafoster]

Generally if booking Flights direct with operator the Child pays 75% of the flight price but the full amount of taxes and charges.

 

[Elise79]

The issue you could run into is most packages payment dates are at least 8 weeks out.

You could get round this by paying by CC and then the payment due date of the credit card will be a few weeks later by which time you should have the money paid out.

You could book the accommodation now with Disney and then look for a flydrive. I would guess that would still be cheaper than a full package holiday.

 

[TCO]

Thanks so much for the advice everyone


What I'm thinking of doing is waiting till 11 months out saving as i go and if I have the cash to pay up front for the fights ill book them and book the hotel direct with disney giving me less to pay off

Although the wife has indicated she would rather stay at art of animation as it will appeal more to the little un (which it will as he adores cars) its just frustrating that once you add the dining plan you end up paying more than a moderate but such is life

 

[scoobydooby]

Thanks so much for the advice everyone

What I'm thinking of doing is waiting till 11 months out saving as i go and if I have the cash to pay up front for the fights ill book them and book the hotel direct with disney giving me less to pay off

Although the wife has indicated she would rather stay at art of animation as it will appeal more to the little un (which it will as he adores cars) its just frustrating that once you add the dining plan you end up paying more than a moderate but such is life

The pools have slides at the moderates. Values do not. Might this sway the Mrs to a moderate? The rooms are also bigger!

 

[darthtatty]

Although the wife has indicated she would rather stay at art of animation as it will appeal more to the little un (which it will as he adores cars) its just frustrating that once you add the dining plan you end up paying more than a moderate but such is life

Personally I wouldn't add the dining plan-unless you get it free or can upgrade it.
To get the true value from it, you'd have to use up all your credits and pretty much most of the time eat the most expensive item off the menu.
A lot of people don't like to use the credits for breakfast as they're poor value.
Our family tends to eat a lot on holiday, even we had left over credits.
we used most of our snack credits to buy packs of sweets to bring home.
plus there's a few other things to think about. I'm more of a savoury eater, so prefer starters but you cant swap your desserts for starters and at a few restaurants you cant share meals.

you'll find its cheaper to buy food when needed.

At the AoA resort, you'd have to pay more to get the cars room, think the cheaper rooms are the little mermaid ones.
You can always visit the Cars section-no matter what Disney hotel youre staying at.
Next year, we plan to have a day free to look around the AoA resort.

No matter where you stay, im sure you'll love it.

 

[Tinkerpeas hubby]

Personally I wouldn't add the dining plan-unless you get it free or can upgrade it.
To get the true value from it, you'd have to use up all your credits and pretty much most of the time eat the most expensive item off the menu.
A lot of people don't like to use the credits for breakfast as they're poor value.
Our family tends to eat a lot on holiday, even we had left over credits.
we used most of our snack credits to buy packs of sweets to bring home.
plus there's a few other things to think about. I'm more of a savoury eater, so prefer starters but you cant swap your desserts for starters and at a few restaurants you cant share meals.

you'll find its cheaper to buy food when needed.

At the AoA resort, you'd have to pay more to get the cars room, think the cheaper rooms are the little mermaid ones.
You can always visit the Cars section-no matter what Disney hotel youre staying at.
Next year, we plan to have a day free to look around the AoA resort.

No matter where you stay, im sure you'll love it.

See I have a completely different opinion on this to you, unless strictly on about the QS as I wouldn't pay OOP for that!!

On our 1st family trip we stayed at POP for 2 wks we had twin 16 month olds and a 3 nearly 4 year old plus myself Dw & her mum,
we did not get the DDP as even though my wife has been over 20 odd times she had never stayed on site and so we didn't know about the plan,
Bearing in mind that we ate QS meals at least one a day sometimes twice so as to not eat up all our spending money, and the only meals we did was Crystal palace twice, Germany TS Italy TS ( that was just Dw & I) plus maybe 2 or 3 others over the whole trip non of which was signatures and we spent over £1500 in food & drinks!! We also don't drink that much and hardly ever with meals!

The next trip was our wedding and we went with our twins which was then 3, oldest 5 myself Dw her mum plus my parents and on that trip we paid for the DDP OOP so we could get the TS meals, and not have anybody worrying about money for food especially with my parents coming too,
Although we took home loads of sweets from the snack credits it was because we actively saved them for this, we had enough snack credits to by a drink between the kids when they wanted one, ice-creams when they wanted them, which wasn't often due to getting dessert with each meal.
Plus my mum would get breakfast with her snack credit,the kids would share and so would DW & I at breakfast and lunch if it was QS, we only ended up with 3 QS credits not used and 1 TS every meal we ordered what we wanted without worrying about cost! It was brilliant and made the trip way more enjoyable for everybody due to not worrying about money for food!
It even covered the meals for our wedding breakfast at Grand Floridian Cafe apart from our 5 friends who came over and stayed DTD.

We loved not saying no to the kids when it came to them wanting sweets/ slushes etc
And from that trip on we have always had the DDP for free but if we couldn't get it free we would def pay for it!

The value in the plan depends on what you eat and how you eat, my wife is the planner and a serious one at that she trails through menus looking at reviews and prices for hours on end, and honestly without the plan there is no way our kids would have done the amount of character meals which they love!
Just 1 of our meals last trip would have been around $300 for Arkushus Imagine paying that every day for 1 meal, I would hate to tell them they could only pick 1 or 2!

 

[Sunset_Princess]

Hi,

We have booked with TCD for the last 3 years (also years ago when they weren't part of Virgin). We have never had any issues with them Thame last three years we have booked. Virgin do own them but their prices do come out a little cheaper than going straight with Virgin. When ever I have questions though I email virgin and deal with them direct and they still treat the booking as if it was with them.
I booked and paid my deposit in April 2012 for sept 2013. I believe I have to pay the full balance in July.
I agree that the £5400 package is good and definitely would only go for the dining plan when it's free. We got 2 weeks in sept at Saratogo with Dining plan, 14 day park tickets and car hire for £4000. Pricing that same package up now was coming out at over 7.5k so definitely pay to book early when the dining plan is free.

 

[TCO]

Thanks again everybody


The plan if we stayed at AOA would be to try for a little mermaid room but they can be hard to come by, failing that we would stay at pop and then be able to wander over the bridge whenever he wanted to walk around the cars area

I'm more than happy doing that it just grates on me when you know that you could get a much better deal if things were slightly different

The dining plan is something I'm not sure about yet, we got it free on our last stay at Coronado Springs and enjoyed it but wasn't overly keen on being tied down to a predetermined plan, ill have to have a look how much it works out per person per meal on the QSDP and try and see if its worthwhile

 

[Disney Princesses LW]

See I have a completely different opinion on this to you, unless strictly on about the QS as I wouldn't pay OOP for that!!


We loved not saying no to the kids when it came to them wanting sweets/ slushes etc
And from that trip on we have always had the DDP for free but if we couldn't get it free we would def pay for it!

The value in the plan depends on what you eat and how you eat, my wife is the planner and a serious one at that she trails through menus looking at reviews and prices for hours on end, and honestly without the plan there is no way our kids would have done the amount of character meals which they love!
Just 1 of our meals last trip would have been around $300 for Arkushus Imagine paying that every day for 1 meal, I would hate to tell them they could only pick 1 or 2!

totally agree weve stayed off iste twice and vowed wed return onsite with the dining it means less stress for us as meals n snacks are paid for, and we too love charcter dining so can do everyone if we like and the kids can have ice cream every day. I know if you saved up this wouldnt be an issue and staying and eating off site is cheaper but it definitly suits us with young children who love disney xxx

Glad to know even with a snack used for drinks at the parks we wont run out too quickly jus tbreakfast to plan for now

 

[gru00]

Tom
Suggested answer 1 - get yourself a 12 month interest free credit card
or
Suggested answer 2 - contact a travel agent

Good luck and have a great vacation, I`m sure your DS will love whichever room you manage to book

 

[TCO]

Me again


I've decided I want to book early and take the small risk of losing the deposit should we have to cancel, applied for a interest free card today and can't see any issues getting one, my current options are:

Travel City Direct, With full dining plan and flights from MCR (2 weeks 2 adults and a 3 year old in September)

Coronado / carribean beach £4795
Art of Animation £5180
Animal kingdom Lodge £5293

WDW travel company room, tickets and dining plan

Coronado / CBR £2956
Art of Animation £3220
Animal Kingdom Lodge £3586
Saratoga / OKW £3026

I've had a cursory look at flights for this September and they seem about £800 or so each return is that roughly what you would expect (give or take a rise for inflation next year)

The AKL price is tempting when you consider we will be looking at £2000 or so for flights for the 3 of us

As always any tips and info much appreciated

Can you tell I'm not the mega decisive type, it doesn't help when its not an exact science and a gamble either way

 

[TCO]

I'm convinced Travel City Direct are dafter than I am!


Just priced it up again as pretty much ready to book and its coming out at £4795 (carribean beach resort with upgrade to full dining plan - we decided CBR looks more to our taste and Arlo loves pirates) when I say I'll make my own way from the airport, then accidentally I clicked on the shared coach option and it brings it down b £90

Basically its cheaper to book on a coach than it is to do nothing at all, no idea how that makes any sense but there you go!

 

[crabbie1]

I'm convinced Travel City Direct are dafter than I am!

Just priced it up again as pretty much ready to book and its coming out at £4795 (carribean beach resort with upgrade to full dining plan - we decided CBR looks more to our taste and Arlo loves pirates) when I say I'll make my own way from the airport, then accidentally I clicked on the shared coach option and it brings it down b £90

Basically its cheaper to book on a coach than it is to do nothing at all, no idea how that makes any sense but there you go!

Remember with WDW you get the extras listed and the $200 free gift card. You also get 3%cash back if you book through quidco. You can also book Magical express
for free so if the shared coach is coming up cheaper if you decide to book through TCD then take it for that price but book magical express at a later date.
We have just booked 5nights out of our 12 at CSR for next september and like you pondered over a moderate or AOA. It is not a deal breaker for us as we have the TIW card which gives 20%off some qsdp resturants. However for just over £600 we have 5nights 14day tickets free qsdp the $200 gift card and the extras WDW are offering. We will still book the odd TS meal but will do them mainly when we stay at our dvc resort.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[TCO]

Remember with WDW you get the extras listed and the $200 free gift card. You also get 3%cash back if you book through quidco. You can also book Magical express
for free so if the shared coach is coming up cheaper if you decide to book through TCD then take it for that price but book magical express at a later date.
We have just booked 5nights out of our 12 at CSR for next september and like you pondered over a moderate or AOA. It is not a deal breaker for us as we have the TIW card which gives 20%off some qsdp resturants. However for just over £600 we have 5nights 14day tickets free qsdp the $200 gift card and the extras WDW are offering. We will still book the odd TS meal but will do them mainly when we stay at our dvc resort.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Well after noticing on another thread that Thomas Cook have released flights for 2014 I have another option to ponder, looks like booking flights with Thomas Cook and hotel / tickets with WDW we can save around £400 and get the $200 etc as well as a bonus

Never flown long haul with Thomas Cook before though so not too sure what to expect there

 

[TCO]

Interest free credit card with £5000 limit sorted, now just the tough part - making a decison! Every time I feel close to it then I change my mind ha ha

We have decided on CBR because Arlo will love the pirate themed pool but the current dilemma is:

Book with TCD for £4795 all in with full dining plan. Pro's - just pay deposit and sort the balance later, lower risk factor. Cons - paying a bit more and no $200 spends

Book room and tickets with WDW for £2956 and take the gamble on waiting for flights for 2 adults and a child for less than £1700 or book Thomas Cook flights for £1400. Pros - potentially cheaper, $200 spends free. Cons - risk / stress factor, have to pay up front for flights

Just can't wait to get it booked now and let the planning commence!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr