disney book flight do it your self

[emmett w.smith jr.]

If you book your own trip do you get the bag transfer or do you have to pick them up your self when you get to the airport or do you call them with the flight info. what is the pro and cons of booking your own flight with disney or not

 

[din]

COST!!!

We went with our own flight and ground transportation due to cost. We also stayed overnight at the airport using points. This would mean that you would have to spend time looking for flights and connections etc.. etc... Also you did say when you are leaving, if it is in the next three months, you may be limited to availability of flights, if it is more than a year you have pleanty of time to do some bargin hunting. Again cost was the only reason went this way.

HAPPY HUNTING....

 

[Señor Ferrari]

If you book your own flight, you can still purchase transfers from the cruise line, and they will claim your bags and transfer them to the ship, provided you arrive during their specified hours (usually the morning/early afternoon of the cruise day). You can call them and let them know your flight #, and they'll take care of the baggage.

If you fly in on your own the night before the cruise, you'll have to claim your luggage, but you can check it with the DCL reps in the morning before boarding the bus, and they'll handle it from there.

The transfers cost $46/person for airport-to-port round trip, and $63/person for airport-resort-port roundtrip.

The pros of having the cruise line book your flight are (I think): 1) Convenience, they make the reservations for you. They'll even put you up at the Hyatt at MCO if you fly in from the west coast (day before option); 2) If the ship is late, they'll take care of re-booking you on a new flight. The drawback is, as din said, COST. You can almost always find cheaper airfare yourself.

 

[TX Shelly]

Another consideration if booking airfare yourself is if your flight is delayed or you miss a connecting flight. You have to find alternate arrangements.
Here is an example:
We had e-tickets for a flight out of Houston on Friday at 6:30 pm. There was a small 20 minute rainstorm which delayed our flight 45 minutes. We then missed our connecting flight in Charlotte, NC to go to Orlando where we had reservations at the Hyatt. We could not get another flight to Orlando until 1:40 pm getting us in at 3:10pm. Remembering that it is 50 minutes to Port Canaveral that was not going to work as you need to be on board by 4 pm. The 7:40 am flight was overbooked. We ended up renting a car and driving 8 hours all night to Orlando to get our luggage, which was on the 7:40 am flight. We then had the Disney transfers. If we had Disney do our airfare I'm sure this would have worked out differently. However do to the cost, we did our own airfare. Next time I would book an earlier flight and making sure there are several more flights after in case this situation would occur again. I would also pay the extra $10 to get a paper ticket in order to get another flight on another airline.

 

[lespaul55]

I usually book my own flights for convenience and cost. I can choose the airline and flights myself. Just read these boards and you will find that the cruise lines do not care about your personal preferences for flight times or flight length or number of times you transfer planes or even if your family sits together on the flight etc. To get this flexibilty, there is an extra charge on top of the high fares that the cruise lines are charging.

I saved $300 per flight from San Diego, we have 10 in our group. Now we have to pay for our hotel room since we are flying in the night before [Disney includes the hotel in the airfare.] We have two suites at the airport Sheraton [we stayed there before, its fine] for $80 each. So I save $2840 and booking the flights and hotel took maybe an hour. Sure like that hourly pay!!! And we get a reasonable flight schedule, we leave San Diego @ 9:30am, all the teens will be happy with that!

We are taking Happy Limo too. Again because we have a large group, it's half the cost to have the limo instead of the Disney buses. Hey, we'll miss that cruise video on the bus, all my kids slept through it anyway.

The luggage never bothers us but our kids are older and all our suitcases roll. Each kid takes one and we are set.

Leslie

 

[llachance]

With the money I saved (DCL price v. what I found for myself and my daughter) we are spending a couple of days at Animal Kingdom on the way to the cruise. On the way back we are leaving on Sunday instead of Saturday - staying at the airport hotel with my mom. Still came out ahead.

 

[kfahygc]

We went ahead and booked our airfare through Disney just for the convenience. To be honest our travel agent didn't suggest that we book ourselves to save money. I'm sure that it would have been cheaper but perhaps the most troubling aspect is that we do not know what times our flights will be. They claim that we will receive this information 2 weeks before leaving, but I feel that this is not adequate. Anybody else experience this?

Thanks - Kathleen

 

[llachance]

They actually know 30 days in advance because that's when they give the information to the airlines and get the reservations back. Just keep checking some CM are more helpful then others.

 

[trishy]

Look into it (DCL booking) carefully especially if you have younger children. We asked about guaranteed seating together for our family and they told us outright that this is something they cannot guarantee - even can't guarantee a parent will sit with any of the kids. Given our scenario of 3 kids 2 parents, they couldn't guarantee our youngest 2 would sit with a parent. Connecting flights is another con if that type of thing bothers you. Flights are typically connecting.

 

[Hygiene99]

if u r flying down the day before i would say do it on your own
if u plan on flying out the day of the cruise i would book threw dcl if something happens like rain storm and flight gets delayed
they will get u there ..... if u r on your own well who knows
we actually saw people getting on to the ship after 5:00
and the ship waited left port just a little late

 

[Señor Ferrari]

Originally posted by llachance
They actually know 30 days in advance because that's when they give the information to the airlines and get the reservations back. Just keep checking some CM are more helpful then others.

You can call the DCL air desk (1-877-566-0967) 30 days prior to traveling and get your flight information. You can then call the airline to get seat assignments and try too get your whole family together. If you can't do it then, ask again when you check in at the airport, and they're usually pretty good at accommodating you.

They do sometimes hold the ship if people on flights they booked are coming in late. I don't know if they would do this if you booked your own air.

 

[PiperG]

I agree with Hygiene99.

Last year, we flew in the night before and stayed at the MCO Marriott. We awoke quite refreshed the next day and took the shuttle back to the ariport where we used our Disney transfers to get to the park. All this was planned to suit DS 5's schedule. We were able to use FF miles for both the hotel and the flight so clearly saved a lot of $$$.

However, if we were flying in the day of the cruise, I would probably use DCL in hopes of minimizing any risk. Same with excursions. I would have to lose $$ because the boat didn't dock so we will book those through DCL.

 

[kendall]

I understand Disney isn't offering as many promotions as in the past, however the Kids Fly Free promotion ended up being a money saver for us. DCL booked the air for the 4 of us, hotel and transfers - since both kids were under 10, both were free. So by using this promotion, we came out ahead versus booking everything separately.

Overall I agree with what has been posted - you can generally price and book yourself at a better price. Booking with DCL is a convenience factor - and don't forget, if for some reason you miss the boat and you have DCL air, DCL will get you to the boat. Miss the boat due to your own air, and you may be out of luck....