- Joined
- Feb 11, 2007
As wdw vacations get more and more expensive there will be less of this. I think there are very few people who will just fork over thousands without doing some basic research on what they are buying! This is why I started looking at the dis so much. I heard about a family of six that spent 12K on their vacation and I thought, "it can't possibly NEED to be that expensive. There must be a better way.". And there is. You may have to do some work but there are more economical options. The dis, mouse savers, and others are available to everyone.
I don't think the numbers are necessarily as small as you might think. Travel agents still exist, and plently of people use them to plan their trips. But how the airlines, hotels, etc. treat the travel agents has changed, such that you can generally get as good a deal online as you can from a TA - but they still go to the TAs so they don't have do deal with the hassle.
Vacationing at WDW however can be complicated, and it takes a seasoned, knowledgeable person to plan it well. I believe "certified" Disney TAs take classes on it...but of course details change given that Disney doesn't seem to train the CMs in certain areas on this very well, I have my doubts that some of the TAs get it right either. I'm sure there are some excellent ones...the ones you hear about on the podcasts, like Dreams Unlimited, tend to be among the most knowledgeable.
The use and purchase of hoppers and non-expires is completely subjective and depends entirely on the habits and intentions of the persons buying. For some, who wont' be coming back for a long time, and know they will go to the parks exactly 3 days during their trip, the no-expire isn't really needed. But a hopper may be very worthwhile.
For those who KNOW they will return again and again, but each time they go they may only go the parks a few days, then non-expire are very good investments if you buy in bulk.
It's cheaper to buy 10 NE PH tickets in one shot, and use them over many visits, than it is to buy just the amount you plan on using each visit (say 3-4) without the NE option.
But you have to be very careful. Unless you can finish a vacation without buying another ticket to do so, or just repeatedly get 10-day NE tickets over and over, it can be MORE expensive to use a NE ticket + another ticket than it would have been to get the right-sized tickets to begin with. Of course, if you can squeeze 3-4 trips out of a single NE ticket, you can really make out.