Discounted tickets through Holiday House

[Tiger926]

To all Canadians who are not familiar with Holiday House, you need to check into it! Holiday House is a huge Canadian wholesale company (only available to Travel agents) that big travel companies such as Sears Travel and American Express use. The book is all in Canadian dollars and there are incredible discounts to warm destinations, such as Walt Disney World. My husband and I have been using them for a couple of years, and so yesterday we went to purchase our attraction tickets (2 adults only) from Sears Travel. We purchased the following:

1. Disney's Park Hopper Plus Passes - $440.00 CAN. p/person tax included - 7 days park admission, plus 4 options (water parks, Pleasure Island and Wide World of Sports) Bonus: Character breakfast free. These passes never expire.

2. Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure/City Walk 3 day CAN. at Par $109.00 p/p. Passes never expire.

3. Sea World Choice of Adventure $69.00 CAN. p/p, unlimited 14 day access to Sea World. Expire after 14 days.

We saved hundreds of dollars alone just with Disney passes as the same passes are approx. $340.00 US per person from Disney. For those of you who are interested, ask your travel agent for a catalogue (excellent Disney hotels and attraction tickets available, as well as rental cars). You can only book through a travel agent, but here is their website: www.holidaynetwork.ca. They also have Discovery Cove tickets, Busch Gardens and lots of Orlando hotels available. Tickets are delivered in a couple of days, they frequently throw in lots of bonuses, and they guarantee their services. Hope someone else out there is able to benefit from this excellent Canadian travel company. We will be arriving in 38 days!

 

[grover]

I absolutley agree that holiday house offers a great deal on ticket prices- I used them last October for seaworld, universal, wdw, cirque du soliel and disney quest for our family of three. I did however have big problems with their customer service, they charged my mastercard 3 times for the one transaction, my travel agent had no luck in straightening it out as the lady who processed my transaction would not admit to her mistake!! Can you believe that! I finally had to get the number and call them directly myself, after well over a weeks worth of calls from myself, travel agent and my credit card company they finally came to the conclusion that they had made a mistake and corrected it. After we returned from our trip( which was awesome!), I wrote a letter to the President of Holiday House. I recieved a phone call with an apology as well as a 50.00 credit for future use! The credit however expires in one year from issue so I won't get to use it. So in the end everything worked out but it was an extreamly stressful situation at the time because they would not fix the mistake- they even tried to tell me that I must have bought other things somewhere else that would account for the charges!! I think I would remember spending over 3000.00 !!! I probably would use them again as I think that the chances of something like this happening again are pretty slim. I would not use them for disney quest as when we tried to exchange the vouchers for the tickets the box office had no record of holidayhouse/holiday network, after much deliberation they just exchanged them for use- thank goodness!!

Grover in Winnipeg

 

[wheatenwalker]

Are those tickets only available to Canadians or is it possible for someone from the Us to buy and use them?

 

[Louise-Montreal]

Hi Tiger 926,

I went to the website, but I cannot find any prices. Is it just me or do they not put the prices on site? Any help is appreciated!

Louise

 

[1canadian]

I also used Holiday House through a travel agent. Got all the same deals except I got 21 consecutive days to Seaworld and Busch for $127. They are great deals.

I also could not find prices on their website though???

--------12 more sleeps until WDW----------!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kristas mom]

I noticed that they are offering a character breakfast with the 7 day park hopper passes. That`s really great. I do find that pass confusing though. By reading the information I understand that you get 7 days at the parks plus 4 other days at the water parks. Is this correct. Also are the water parks usually open March 1-14th, which is when we go. it was too cold this year to even think about water parks.

 

[CindyAnn]

Hi Kristas mom. The 7 day parkhopper plus passes allow you to pick any 7 days and visit as many of the 4 "big parks" (MK, AK, MGM, and Epcot) on those 7 days as you wish. You can come and go as you please, hitting 1 or all 4 parks on each of the 7 days, which, by the way, need not be consecutive.

The 4 "plus" options allow you to visit the water parks, Pleasure Island or Wide World of Sports. They are single use tickets, however. So, if you went to Typhoon Lagoon in the morning, Blizzard Beach in the afternoon, and Pleasure Island in the evening you would use up 3 of your "plus" options. You don't have to use your "plus" options on the same day as one of your park days.

Neither the major park days nor the "plus" options expire, unless you buy the special Canadian buy-1-get-1-1/2-price parkhoppers which are sometimes sold for use in the Spring. I promise you'll hear all about that on this board when the time comes. We'll start bugging the Disney stores for a date late in August, and those special tickets have historically gone on sale in September or October.

 

[Tiger926]

You are right - they do not post attraction prices, but they do post some hotel prices, as well as bonus offers. The prices sometimes change (when our travel agent called Holiday House yesterday, our Park Hoppers went down in price by $29.00 a person from brochure listing). As well, Orlando hotels are usually quite competitive and run multiple specials, so that is probably why they don't post a lot of Orlando prices. Like I said, if you are able, you can visit a travel agent who can give you a Holiday House brochure (for sure try Sears Travel or American Express) and you can get a better idea.

In regards to the Hopper Plus pass, yes you get 7 days at parks, plus 4 option choices, plus a character breakfast. Remember, the passes do not expire, and so if you go when the water parks are closed, I guess you could use those options another time. You could probably call straight to Disney, because these are Disney Park Hopper Plus passes that Holiday House sells at a cheaper rate because they are a wholesaler, they aren't special passes. This is a good point though, if you go when the water parks are closed due to weather, what would you do? Perhaps that is a question that Disney would have to best answer.

In regards to Grover's problems with Holiday House, sorry to hear about that. This sounds like a big mix-up that I'm sure would not happen again. We have been lucky and not had a problem, plus we always pay our travel agency directly and not Holiday House, and so she deals directly with them and gets immediate confirmations. Glad you got everything straightened out.

Lastly, I assume that since this is a Canadian travel wholesaler, the prices are only available to Canadians. I don't suppose that any American travel agencies would deal with this company, but I guess you could call around to find out.

Hope this info helps. Have a great night,
Tiger 926.

 

[SuAnne]

Has anyone used the voucher for the Character Breakfast that they are including yet? Can you use it for any of the Character Breakfasts? Just asking because I purchased our tickets for our August trip through Holiday House with the voucher for the Breakfast. On the voucher it says "Exchange voucher at Guest Relations inside gates at Animal Kingdom prior to actrual breakfast". I wasn't sure it that means the breakfast is only good at Animal Kingdom or that's just where they exchange the voucher for you. It also says it expires 60 days from arrival. It certainly is a good deal!!

 

[jjohns]

SuAnne, We recently got back from our WDW trip (mid-May) and our Park Hoppers were (I guess!) sourced from Holiday House.

We did get and use the CB voucher. Don't bother calling HH for more information - I tried that before we left (since the CB voucher was a big surprise for me) and their telephone people had less of a clue than I did.

We went to AK Guest Services to redeem the voucher. It gave us a ticket for a CB at *selected* (4, I think) restaurants - AK Restaurantasaurus, Poly O'Hannas, Epcot Garden Grill, MK Crystal Palace (guessing on Crystal Palace, reasonably certain on the other 3).

We ended up booking a PS at AK Restaurantasaurus - which was our least fav CB (we also ate at Chef Mickey's and Royal Table), but the price was right!

Jeff

 

[Tiger926]

Thanks jjohns for the info. I am now a bit concerned because we already made a PS at Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom because my travel agent said we could choose any character breakfast that we wished. We're not complaining since it's a free breakfast, but this is news to me. When I talked to Disney Club agent yesterday while making my PS reservation, she said we just present the coupon/voucher at the breakfast? Does anyone know for sure? We are going to the 10:30 seating, but we want to plan ahead. I guess it's best to wait until we receive our tickets later this week.

Secondly, does anyone know why we would have to exchange the coupons in Animal Kingdom? We are going to Magic Kingdom first, and so it would be a big inconvenience to have to go to Animal Kingdom to change coupons. Does anyone know why they couldn't be exchanged in any guest relations' office?

Thanks for the info! Tiger926

 

[jjohns]

Unless you're getting a different voucher than we got, I think your Disney Club agent is mistaken. The voucher we got was computer printed pull-out in a book, and we exchanged that for a Disney-printed meal ticket that listed the locations and terms of the deal.

I dunno why the voucher said go to AK Guest Services, but (guessing now) perhaps its because that's the only Guest Services that has the meal tickets that you're exchanging for!

For us, this was not an inconvenience since we had to go somewhere to exchange our Park Hopper vouchers for the actual tickets anyway, and were told to steer clear of the MK ticket windows since they typically always have a line. We arrived about noon on our first day, did check-in and then went to AK, did some resort touring, got our room, then groceries, then off to bed!

One last thought ... they tickets we exchanged for definitely had an expiry date on them, so I wouldn't be surprised if Disney rotates the restaurants participating in the freebie as a way of generating demand...

We had all of our PS planned before we left, and the voucher CB was a bonus. We had a bit of a challenge juggling our carefully-laid plans in order to use the freebie, but we managed!

Jeff

Jeff

 

[SuAnne]

Thanks for the replies.We have made PS for Breakfast at AK for our last morning there anyway...so the voucher will come in handy!

 

[Tiger926]

Thanks Jeff for the info! You are probably correct about me receiving the wrong information, so I'll just wait until my tickets arrive. I had no idea that I would be receiving vouchers for my tickets. Last year we got tickets at CAA and we received actual tickets, so thanks for the heads-up. I'm sure everything is going to work out fine - my husband says that I plan too much, and so this means that I might have to do a little fine-tuning to our itinerary. It won't matter though, because I'll be in my favourite place! Thanks, Tiger926

 

[1canadian]

I also have the 7 day hopper voucher and cb voucher from Holiday House. Mine also says to exchange it at Animal Kingdom Guest Services. Thats part of the reason I booked the Restauntasaurus. Sorry to hear it was the least fav for poster. Darn!

-----------------10 more sleeps!!!!!!-----------------------

 

[CJ]

The rate for the 7 day Park Hopper plus passes is now $459 Canadian. Still includes a free character breakfast as well!

I had originally intended on purchasing Unlimited Park Hoppers once we arrived, but $391 U.S. apiece was WAY too much to pay! (this worked out to about $2471 Canadian using these passes)

Instead, using the Holiday House passes we're only paying $1836 Canadian!!!

Saving $635, plus a free character breakfast!! (even if we had just gone with the regular 7 day park hoppers we still ended up saving over $200 with Holiday House, plus the breakfast would have cost us about $85 U.S.!) WOOHOO!!

Thank you Tiger for the great savings info!!

 

[Tiger926]

That's too bad that the price has slightly increased - but, you still saved money! For all of you who have ordered through Holiday House, make sure that your travel agent requests the free character breakfast voucher in order to avoid the mix-up that I had on Friday. When I went to pick up my tickets, I (not my travel agent) noticed that the breakfast voucher was not present. She called Holiday House to be told that she needed to request the voucher and so it should arrive by the end of the week. Regardless of this fact, I believe that Holiday House just forgot to include the voucher, and so to avoid multiple trips to the travel agent, make sure that your breakfast voucher has been ordered at the time of booking. By the way, I would suggest making your PS arrangements while waiting on tickets and breakfast voucher (even though they only take a few days to arrive), that way you are guaranteed the restaurant of your choice.
Tiger

 

[CJ]

I just picked up our Holiday House vouchers from our TA today. There is one voucher for the four of us for our 7 day park hoppers, listing all 4 of our names and saying that we will need to show ID to exchange the voucher for tickets at any of the 4 major parks.
The second voucher is for the character breakfast, which is to be exchanged at the AK prior to the actual breakfast (which works out fine for us because we are eating at Breakfastasaurus).

first question: we are arriving on August 19 (date is written right on the vouchers) but we are not planning on going to the major parks until the 20th. Does that matter? You don't have to redeem both vouchers on the actual arrival date, do you? We won't be at the AK until the 21st for the breakfast and I don't want to exchange that one until then.

Second question: I was hoping to put my park hopper passes onto my CBR room key. I'm guessing that will not be possible since I will be checking in before going to any of the major parks. Is there any way to exchange the park pass voucher at the CBR???

 

[Tiger926]

Holiday House asks for an arrival date because the vouchers expire after 3 months. I specifically checked with my ta, and she said that these dates only pertain to the actual vouchers, so I think that you should be o.k. If you are worried, I would have your ta phone Holiday House, and they most probably will reprint your vouchers for you. They just reprinted ours because they forgot to include the character breakfast voucher.

As for putting your passes on your room key, I was under the impression that you had to pay for all Holiday House tickets at time of booking. So, how did you book without paying for your tickets? I am looking at my voucher as I write this, and it says that these vouchers detail services that have been prepaid by the customer, and if there are any discrepancies to contact them. I am curious because I know that all Holiday House attraction tickets, are non-refundable for this reason, and the top of each of my vouchers is stamped with "Prepaid Voucher." I don't think that you are going to be able to put your passes on your room key because you purchased from Holiday House and the vouchers allow you to redeeem for your tickets only, and that is why they expire after several months. As well, this is why you don't have to redeem all vouchers at once. Holiday House prints up separate vouchers so that you can redeem on different days, as long as you do so before the expiry dates.

If you have any doubts, I would have your ta check with Holiday House since only agents are able to communicate through to Holiday House. They do have a website www.holidaynetwork.ca, so you could check there as well. Good luck, and have a wonderful trip.
Tiger

 

[cottontail]

Hello:

Are the wdw passes purchased thru holiday house good for a lifetime? Thanks,

Deb.