Is anyone else disappointed?

[nunzia]

I get what that means. It's the difference between Disney Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean. But if the difference in cost between the 2 cruise lines was $2,000, I'd be sailing Royal Caribbean!

I'm totally with you in that I'm trying to figure out how Disney justifies a $2,000 difference for that 'magic' when itineraries are identical.

The one I'm looking at is unique to Disney (Backstage Magic), so I'm ok with paying top dollar for it, because you can't get the same tour anywhere else. But I see that the prices have gone up and I can't get the dates I wanted due to group space that has been blocked.

I'm looking at what -- $5,000 for my DH and I for 5 nights. Um...that's $1000 a night!!! No one should pay $1,000 a night for anything unless beforehand he is onstage with his 4 brothers.

I'm trying to see if fellow DIS'ers feel it is worth that kinda money.

I didn't realize Backstge Magic had gone up much. That said, we went on this trip in January (I think it was about 4,500) and thought it was a good value. The hotels would normally cost between 300-400 a night..that's almost half the cost of the package. Most meals were included and they were good meals, with several including beer and wine. The Italian meal the first night and Steakhouse 55 would have easily been 60-75. The access, though is what is amazing for this trip. From the very knowledgeable El Captian guide, to the enthusiastic train buffs at Walt's Barn, to the amazing puppeter at Henson and the top notch Imagineer tour guide, this trip was not to be missed. Then consider all the extras, like Park Hoppers, friendly and helpful guides who are regular CMs and were happy to talk about their experiences, and tons of extra touches...loads of fast passes, dinner with an Ambassador, the tour of Walt's apartment, backstage views, being escorted up the exit on rides, etc. We felt like VIPs for the whole time. So..YES, as far as Backstage Magic is concerned anyway, it is worth it.

 

[nunzia]

I agree that the guides are great. I have nothing but positive things to say about my guide. But notice, I use the singular. There were 12 on my trip, therefore, ABD only sent us with one guide. I just wanted to put it out there that this is a possibility. Everything was fine with one guide, but it lost a little of the "magic" when our guide got sick. He soldiered on, but obviously was not able to maintain the same enthusiasm that he had while healthy.

That being said, I might still consider ABD for a London/Paris if it weren't for the fact that they are not offering any Adults Only during the fall, which is when I like to travel.

I am still sort of afraid of booking with another company. I just don't feel the confidence with other brands that I felt with Disney. That is what allowed me to plop down the big dough with them the first time. <Sigh>

Wow..that's the first time I've heard of that happening and I'm sorry..to me that is a big selling point, have ing 2 guides. There were only 12 on our trip and we had 2 guides.

 

[pipch]

I'm going to vent a little in this post in the hopes that someone from ABD is still monitoring the board. Disclaimer first. I love ABD trips. The guides are fantastic. The people who plan the itineraries do a great job. I have taken ABD trips in 2008 and 2009 and planned to take more trips in 2010, 2011, etc. Since ABD's price increase this year, I've been registering at other travel company's websites and requesting brochures. Some of the other companies have sent personal emails asking how they can help with my vacation planning. I have sent emails to some with questions and have gotten responses within 15 minutes. They aren't small companies with a handful of itineraries. I'm talking about ABD competitors like Tauck, Austin Lehman, Thomson, etc. On the other hand, there's ABD. First, I didn't get the email with the loyalty discount. So if I weren't on this board, I wouldn't know about it. I sent an email a week ago expressing my concern over the discontinued EBD, and got an automated reply saying I would get a response within a week. Well, it's been a week. Where is the response? I have spent a lot of my hard-earned money on ABD vacations. They cancelled my 2009 trip and I booked a different trip instead, when I could have just asked for a refund and taken my business elsewhere. So why aren't they treating me like a valued customer? I would love to see them offer us something more substantial than a $100 discount, but they could at least acknowledge that they appreciate the business I've given them in the past. I want ABD to give me a reason to travel with them again. It's not the price that is bothering me now, it's the lack of service. It's too bad ABD management isn't as dedicated to creating a magical experience as their guides are.

I like you travel with an only young son and have loved our two disney adventures. They have been truly life time experiences that we were ready to repeat.
However until Disney sorts out their service and stops cutting corners that they think "us" their regular customers will not notice - we will took will be taking our business else where.
I agree with many - having travelled pre children on our own in some extraordinary places that we cannot beat the group activities and "perks" but I disagree with some - Disney is not the only one that gets you to the front of the line and provide similar experiences - So does Tauck and lehman!! I too since the new releases on the 11th have been doing some research and we do have an alternative and can, as they say - talk with our feet and take our business else where.
No one would be more delighted than me to be able to revert back to disney if things change because I love the product but as I said on page 9 - this just seems to be corporate suicide in this climate.
Good luck to them if they don't respond to this sort of negative response!

 

[fivebyfive]

I was so incredibly excited, and was telling everyone about my plans to travel with ABD.

That's exactly how I feel. I was ready to give up my yearly WDW stay for the Backstage Magic in April/May. Now that it's not available, I am re-thinking the entire thing. At this point, I don't want to return to WDW, as this has left a very bad taste in my mouth for the Disney brand.

I didn't realize Backstge Magic had gone up much.

Sorry, I should of be more clear. I honestly don't know how much Backstage Magic has gone up (don't think I want to know lol). I was referring to the '$2,000 difference' on other itineraries that posters were complaining about. We had planned on the BSM tour, but given the fact that it was sold out for our dates, we were thinkingof taking a European one instead. So, my question was is ABD worth that difference?

So..YES, as far as Backstage Magic is concerned anyway, it is worth it.

Thanks. Unfortunately though it's sold out for my dates. Yeah I am BEYOND ticked about that!

Thanks to everyone who answered my question. I really appreciate the insight and honesty! Usually it's like no one wants to badmouth Disney, drives me nuts.

 

[kristilew]

I agree that the guides are great. I have nothing but positive things to say about my guide.... Everything was fine with one guide, but it lost a little of the "magic" when our guide got sick. He soldiered on, but obviously was not able to maintain the same enthusiasm that he had while healthy.
<Sigh>

We had two guides, but they were on their third back-to-back trip. They clearly needed a rest. They were still wonderful, but I think they were vicitims of the cut backs as much as we were.

If you are a confident traveler and book hotels yourself, you can very easily do a trip such as ABD's Italy by hiring a private guide in each city who will also provide airport-hotel-train transfers. We have used private guides in many European cities and have had FANTASTIC experiences. ..... Group tours can be wonderful but for a really magical experience, try a family adventure with the help of private guides to fell like a local.

I totally agree with this. When we realized that half the guides on the ABDs are actually local tour guides, not Disney trained, that emboldened us to hire a private guide on our Paris trip this year. What an amazing experience! We started with the basic tour plan as "sold" by the company, but our Guide was able to tailor her tour and information to my family's exact interests. We could linger where we were fascinated, explore a side street that caught our eye, and she constantly tied in her tour information to what else we were planning to do that week. It was really fantastic, kind of like an ABD day times 10. And yet, we could have done that every day and still not paid what we would with an ABD.

As for transfers, DH travels all over Europe for business. He always arranges for a driver to meet him at the airport, and that's what we did on this trip. Totally painless: the driver met us as we exited customs, took our bags, and whisked us to the hotel. We had paid ahead of time with a credit card, so didn't need to deal with currency and jet lag at the same time.

But how do you know how & where to book these private guides? How do you know they are any good or reliable? How do you get from one town to the next? Isn't it a lot of work to keep track of who's doing what in each place, and assuring that everyone is where they are supposed to be at the right times? Who shleps your luggage? This is all a big part of what ABD does for you. Yes, I *could* do this, but I don't necessarily want to, especially in a foreign country. I like having someone else do it for me.

Sayhello

Sayhello, it's great to have ABD do it for you, but it was surprisingly easy to arrange the same level of service on our own. Once we knew what we wanted, thanks to having done an ABD, it was easy to recreate with a little bit of time on the internet.

The one thing we didn't get on our own was the group interaction. But we also found out with our second ABD this summer that "good" group interaction is not always a given.

 

[Turtlemom]

Hi Kristilew!
Sorry to hear your group interaction was not necessarily "good" on the second time around! Any specifics??? Did the guides help to smooth things over?

Second question--how did you go about researching/finding your local guides??? Did you wait until you got to the hotel through the concierge--or did you do this ahead of time? Just curious.

Turtlemom.

 

[kristilew]

Hi, Turtlemom,

It was how our family fit in with the rest of the group. Not anything bad, just regional personality differences. There was nothing to smooth over at all, we just didn't bond in the same way we did with the group on our 2008 Adventure. So we ended up keeping more to ourselves and not seeing quite the same benefit of group travel this time around. otoh, DD11 had a fabulous time, as there were a lot of kids on the trip. And everyone else on our trip DID bond big time: they are all going on a cruise together this winter. So, obviously, it was us.


As for finding local guides, I didn't start out to find one, actually. I had read a blog about a family who lives in Paris part time and it mentioned booking a guide once in a while. That led me to search for family guided tours online, which led me to Paris Muse. They had lots of neat tour offerings, both in groups and for individual families. They were great about answering my questions via very quick email responses, and really put my mind at ease. I especially liked how they asked questions about my child, to help them pair us with the best guide for her. The fact that the guidebooks I bought for Paris all listed Paris Muse as a good company helped as well.

I especially liked how it worked out that we spent a full morning with our guide. She gave us great lunch suggestions and pointed us to nearby things we could do on our own in the afternoon that would build on our morning. I also liked that the company website had a reading list for their tours. It helped us prepare DD to appreciate everything we would see. (Tauck does this too, and it is an area I think ABD could learn from. I've put together my own list for both our ABD trips, but it was sooo nice to just click on the Amazon links!)

We are planning to do London and Edinburgh on our own next June. I will probably start with a guide book then go online to look into whatever tour companies it suggests. We will definitely book MORE private guides on that trip, after our good experience in Paris.

 

[Turtlemom]

Thanks for the info! I agree that having the private guide probably allows you to see more in a shorter time than travelling with a bigger group. That was certainly true of our pre-trip wildlife safari on Q4TW, where we saw many animals, versus the bus--where we did spot some bison and the occasional elk, but the animals could obviously see us coming and get out of our way!

I think that our 2 DD's would really miss the interaction with the other kids on the trip though. Both times, they have found friends that made the trip very special to them.

Turtlemom.

 

[Grifdog22]

You know, the one positive thing that has come out of this Disney debacle is that thanks to all of you I have discovered a lot of other tour companies that provide really good family tours. I want my kids to have interaction with other kids - and was blissfully ignorant about how many tour companies outside of the Disney brand that actually are available that offer the experience we want. I should have researched the issues far better long ago. Now I am a bit more educated and see trips that I otherwise would have missed.

Nothing against travel agents, but our personal experiences were never very good so I searched for trips on my own. Again, thanks to all for pointing out things like the travel+leisure rankings, etc. which opened my eyes to "a whole new world..."

As I read more and more reviews, I am grateful for the ABD experience, but now have found what appear to be incredibly satisfied other families with smaller tour groups (Costa Rica ABD last year was >40 with lots of schedule changes...). I especially like the Austin-Lehman guarantee - if you're not satisfied with the trip, refund your money a la LL Bean. Not the same as ABD, we're making lots of schedule changes, but our cancellation policies still apply....

So to answer the question posted - anyone else disappointed with ABD 2010 - initially yes - but now glad to go!

 

[glassslipper2004]

We just got back from Southwest Splendors and it was fantastic. Despite my general agreement with all of the concerns about next year's trips (mainly that the price has gone up and the early booking discount is gone) the magic of a Disney trip enchanted us once again. Maybe we are just well suited as a family to this type of trip, but it was definitely worth it, and I am considering doing another ABD next summer (which is not how I was feeling a few weeks ago). If Flavors of France was still there, I'd be booking now! My kids had a great time with the other kids, and the guides were great, which are two aspects of both of our ABD trips which make them particularly special to us.

By the way, Disney is definitely aware of the disboards and peoples' concerns. There were even some changes made which seem to be in response to comments - like the guides making sure we understood that that Thunderbird was a two star hotel with a five star view, and adding kids' meals to a group meal that previously didn't have kids' options.

 

[kristilew]

glassslipper, I am soooo happy that you had a good time!

 

[glassslipper2004]

Thanks. I'm glad I had the benefit of your comments - having proper expectations is a great help. Our guides were also fresh (both had not done the Southwest trip in a few months) but knowledgeable, and they definitely added a lot to the excitement of the trip.

 

[lugnut33]

I'm going to vent a little in this post in the hopes that someone from ABD is still monitoring the board. Disclaimer first. I love ABD trips. The guides are fantastic. The people who plan the itineraries do a great job. I have taken ABD trips in 2008 and 2009 and planned to take more trips in 2010, 2011, etc. Since ABD's price increase this year, I've been registering at other travel company's websites and requesting brochures. Some of the other companies have sent personal emails asking how they can help with my vacation planning. I have sent emails to some with questions and have gotten responses within 15 minutes. They aren't small companies with a handful of itineraries. I'm talking about ABD competitors like Tauck, Austin Lehman, Thomson, etc. On the other hand, there's ABD. First, I didn't get the email with the loyalty discount. So if I weren't on this board, I wouldn't know about it. I sent an email a week ago expressing my concern over the discontinued EBD, and got an automated reply saying I would get a response within a week. Well, it's been a week. Where is the response? I have spent a lot of my hard-earned money on ABD vacations. They cancelled my 2009 trip and I booked a different trip instead, when I could have just asked for a refund and taken my business elsewhere. So why aren't they treating me like a valued customer? I would love to see them offer us something more substantial than a $100 discount, but they could at least acknowledge that they appreciate the business I've given them in the past. I want ABD to give me a reason to travel with them again. It's not the price that is bothering me now, it's the lack of service. It's too bad ABD management isn't as dedicated to creating a magical experience as their guides are.

I've never taken a ABD and probably never will, but this thread has been very interesting because it really shows what the mentality is at Disney right now, which is make as much now and the future be dammmmed. It also shows a lot about how we as Disney fans feel as there are some who are upset by the constant price raising, and others who turn a blind eye to it.

I'll tell you why they don't care about you as a previous customer..... it's because they still made almost a BILLION dollars (half came from the theme parks) last quarter and they don't need you. They know there will be a constant stream of customers and they just need to get them to part with more of their money.

Theme park attendance is not down, but spending is. So what do they do? Charge more to get in. Raise all the prices inside the parks so people spend more. Same mentality at ABD, if you are not going to spend the money, then get more from the people who are spending. If ABD can get people to spend more then it makes total profits look better.

The number one thing driving all this is "shareholder value". That's the number one driver in American business.

 

[pandafan]

As a shareholder I have greatly appreciated the rise in the stock price. However, as a repeat ABD customer I can foresee exactly what everyone is talking about. My family completed our second ABD trip recently and decided that there would not be a third. We just did not feel the same Disney magic. Disney has an outstanding brand but needs to be cautious of becoming stale. I have already cancelled my 2010 Baltic cruise because of my experience on the last ABD trip.