I can chime in and say that I tried to book with
Dreams Unlimited for a Disney Wish cruise. I had sailed on the Dream once prior maybe 5-ish years ago and booked that directly with Disney. This time I thought i'd throw some support towards disboards and take advantage of the on-board credits.
I put in a request to book a sailing on the Wish. I sent the request in on Sun Mar 13th in the PM as a new customer. I didn't hear back from anyone until Wednesday March 16th.
On March 14th evening, after not hearing back from anyone for 1 business day, I placed a request with Small World Vacations for the cruise. I heard back from them within an hour with a quote, a hold on my potential reservation, and a ton of info...plus a phone number to setup payment. I pretty quickly called the Agent, got them on the phone immediately, and placed my deposit that evening.
Finally on March 16th, I heard from an Agent from Dreams Unlimited. There wasn't any information about the cruise I had requested...just more of a "got your request, i'll send you a quote soon..." sort of email. I replied immediately back saying that I had already found a different agency and booked with them already. To be fair to the agent, I don't think it was their fault. I think they just found out about the request shortly before they initially emailed me back. I don't want to name them because I don't think it was their fault.
I'm guessing the issue lies in the "Triage" process of new incoming requests for people who don't select a specific agent on the booking form. I didn't know who to pick, so on the booking form I didn't pick a specific agent. I think there was an option for "Any" or something like that. I'm guessing that goes to a queue somewhere and then someone has to check that queue and assign requests out to agents. I think I was stuck in that queue for a few days.
To put it simply: The fact that an initial request took 2-3 days to get me any personalized response back...and not even an actual quote...put me off. In the time it took me to even get an initial response back from Dreams Unlimited, I had gotten frustrated enough to find a different agency, found a different agent, placed a request, heard back, and got a deposit in on another reservation from a different agency...
I don't want to discount what folks have been saying on the boards for a long time: Dreams Unlimited is probably a good agency for
Disney Cruise. I heard those recommendations on this very message board and acted on them as a new customer looking to do a Disney Cruise with an agent, without a relationship with an existing agent. After it took 3 days to even get a "hey we're working on it"...it felt like perhaps they didn't need/want my business?
I'm sure some of the individual agents are great at what they do...but as a new comer the initial impression was not good. Initial impressions are lasting.