My ABD Wish List for 2011 and Beyond

[Bobo912]

As are many of you, I'm thinking about 2011 already, even though I haven't taken my 2010 trip yet! ABD lost my business to Tauck Bridges this year and, although I would love to travel with ABD again in the future, the days when I didn't even consider another company are over. So just in case anyone from ABD cares to take note, I would like to list some things that would influence me to return to Disney. If nobody from ABD cares, I'll go ahead and spout off anyway for my own enjoyment. One small thing that I was going to suggest was including the Photopass CD as part of the package, but it appears that they've done that already this year. My dear fellow DISers, please add your comments and suggestions. I'm sure I'll think of something else later, but here's what I have for now...

1. A better loyalty program. I really like the idea of a progressive discount system. Something like 10% after one or two trips, 15% after 5, etc., or something similar. There are companies that do this already and with at least one that I've seen you can eventually earn a free trip.
2. If not a progressive reward, at least combine the loyalty discount with any other incentives ABD may offer and do away with the expiration date on the loyalty discount. Before any of you chime in with "nobody combines discounts", let me say that ABD themselves combined the loyalty discount and the EBD in past years. When I booked the Alaska trip last year the two discounts together amounted to $800 savings for the 2 of us (1 adult, 1 child). I received offers from Classic Journeys and National Geographic this year that combined discounts, and some of the less luxurious tour companies like, Insight, also combine discounts. There may be others, as well.
3. Find a way to help out with airfare. Many other companies do this. I realize ABD doesn't have a tremendous amount of volume, but they're Disney, for goodness sake, surely they have some clout!
4. Put their best offer out early, like in August when they release the new itineraries. The PINs and Gateway trips that ABD released this year, came out after I had already booked with Tauck, which was more than 5 months after the ABD 2010 itineraries were announced. I know a number of you were in the same situation. In my humble opinion, that was not a smart move.
5. On a positive note, keep up the great job of planning wonderful itineraries and hiring absolutely fantastic people to serve as guides!
Updating, since I forgot one that is particularly important to me...
6. Give a discount for booking two trips within the same year. There are other companies that offer this. I really want to do back-to-back Europe tours next summer, so this would be a biggy for me.

Do you get the feeling that I need a discount? I would ask for new itineraries if there weren't so many great ones already that I'm dying to try. More would just make it harder. Seriously though, I didn't feel appreciated as a return customer, and that's one reason there's no ABD for us this year.

 

[DisFan10]

Very well said, Bobo912! I totally agree with your thoughts and suggestions.

At one time, we never considered going with any other company, but AbD has failed to show its appreciation to loyal past guests, so we are now taking our business elsewhere.

Although we are booked on 2 AbDs this year, we are also booked on a Tauck tour and will most likely book with Tauck again for next year and beyond unless AbD changes its ways and starts to show their past guests some substantial appreciation...

 

[marcemch]

Once again, Bobo912 has expressed my thoughts very well. We too are booked on Tauck this year after two ABD trips. Although I will also add that my willingness to try another company was not only due to price increase (due to the lack of the EBD or any other type of meaningful return customer discount), it was also due to a little disillusionment with the "magic" of AbD after our Alaska trip, which was a good, but not GREAT experience, like our Germany trip had been. I'll now get to see how another company compares, and if the experience is comparable, then price will become more of a driver of the trips I book in the future.
I really feel the disappointment of the folks that booked early and have watched subsequent booking discounts offered. My only other thought would be that if there is no early booking discount, that perhaps AbD could match, at least partially, subsequent discounts for those with reservations. There needs to be some kind of reward for being willing to commit close to a year in advance besides being assured you'll get the trip you want. Cheaper airfare by booking far in advance isn't necessarily assured either.
I hope the powers that be at AbD DO read this thread - it sure will be interesting to see if anything changes this year with them, or if they are satisfied with the new policies.

 

[Bobo912]

Yesterday, I booked a weekend trip to Chicago as a Mother's Day gift to myself. I've been wanting to take my son to the Field Museum and I've never been to the Art Institute and I've always wanted to visit it (plus haven't been anywhere since Dec, so I'm having travel withdrawl) Also, Southwest was offering double Rapid Rewards points which put us both over 16 credts, so we'll be getting 2 free RT tickets. I booked a room at a hotel downtown near all the attractions we want to visit. I paid $89 by choosing the advance purchase option. The next cheapest price was AAA at $189. This got me to thinking that for a significant discount, I would be willing to pay in full for a trip, say within the 14 day contract return period for ABD. I know that wouldn't work for everybody, but it's something ABD could offer as an option. Once I've made up my mind I usually don't change it. I always buy trip insurance anyway so if something unexpected came up, I would have insurance to cover it. If you use a Disney Visa to pay, you would still have 6 months to pay off the trip. Anyway, just another suggestion.

Another much more minor thing...I wish they would offer a choice between a t-shirt/polo shirt/cap or some other ABD merchandise and the backpacks. Once you've taken a trip or two you don't really need another backpack. It would be better exposure for ABD, since I'll wear my ABD shirt or cap to my son's little league game, for instance, but I'm not going to carry the backpack and even if I did nobody would see the logo anyway.

 

[kristilew]

Bobo, I agree with all of your suggestions, including the one about the backpacks! We just don't need that many backpacks in this house!

We do book our vacations very far in advance, and plan our years around them. Watching ABD come out with later discounts this year (which we decided to take off from Disney travel after our slight let down with last year's trip) has made us hesitant to get back on the ABD wagon anytime soon.

In contrast, we were exploring the possibility of a vacation rental in St. John for spring break 2011 and were offered a HUGE discount if we went ahead and booked it that far in advance. That made it an easy choice, and probably means Disney will not get our business next year either.

OTOH we are missing the magic and excitement of having a Disney trip to look forward to in the next few months. It wouldn't take much for them to get us back, just a little bit of feeling like they paid attention to boards like these.

 

[Bobo912]

I thought of something else I'd like to see someday. I would love to see DCL add a New Zealand cruise and combine that with the Austalia ABD. Maybe not officially combine it, but at least schedule the cruise/ABD dates so we could combine it ourselves. That's really dreaming, I suppose, but wouldn't that be a great package?

 

[sayhello]

Bobo912, I can't argue with any of your points. I totally think every item on your list is completely reasonable, and would show that they actually appreciate our patronage. Don't know if it will happen, but I like your thinking.

I'd love for Disney to do an Hawaiian cruise/ABD. If I'm going to Hawaii, I'm spending a couple of weeks there, and combining a cruise/ABD/stay at Disney's Resort just seems like a great idea to me, even though Hawaii is pretty easy to do on your own.

Not as likely to happen (at least the cruise part) due to the whole foreign port thing.

I'd totally take the New Zealand/Australia combo!

Sayhello

 

[Bobo912]

Bobo912, I can't argue with any of your points. I totally think every item on your list is completely reasonable, and would show that they actually appreciate our patronage. Don't know if it will happen, but I like your thinking.

I'd love for Disney to do an Hawaiian cruise/ABD. If I'm going to Hawaii, I'm spending a couple of weeks there, and combining a cruise/ABD/stay at Disney's Resort just seems like a great idea to me, even though Hawaii is pretty easy to do on your own.

Not as likely to happen (at least the cruise part) due to the whole foreign port thing.

I'd totally take the New Zealand/Australia combo!

Sayhello

I like your Hawaii suggestion! With a Disney ship and resort, they should be able to keep their costs down, offer us a good rate and still make a nice profit. Every time that idea of "this is easy to do on my own" pops into my head I am just brushing it aside. I am so spoiled now that the thought of having to deal with transportation, luggage, reservations, etc. is just too much for me. I think it would just stress me out and ruin the vacation. Before ABD I did it though, and as I recall, it did stress me out! ABD made one or two changes this year (your Med cruise in particular) that were more significant than the usual addtion or removal of an itinerary, so it will be very interesting to see what they come up with for 2011. I hope that when the announcement comes out that we will all be raving about how great it is, rather than expressing our disappointment like we were last August.

 

[WeLoveABD]

We're doing the Baltic with DCL this summer--sad to say, no ABD excusion package available, but understandable as they haven't done any ABD trips in that area of Europe, so no experienced guides etc. But what I have heard re cruise ships is this: the Wonder comes out to my neck of the woods next year, porting in LA and doing Alaska in the summer and Mexican Riviera in the winter. Whether it goes to Hawaii is unknown--could be every once in a while, but that is a 4 or 5 day trip at sea each way, and as you say Hawaii is very do-able on your own so unlikely to see people shelling out a lot of money for the DCL and ABD combo. (Especially with all of that sea time--what would the guides do during that time?) Same problem with Alaska--the ship will only go up into the lower tail, so no where near where ABD goes, and since the cruise is roundtrip from and to Vancouver, I think it gets too complicated.

The two new ships come on board in 2011 and 2012 (if all goes well), both to be in Florida (and too big for the Panama Canal).

Leaves the Magic. I have seen blog discussions on this--that it will not be ported necessarily in Europe, but rather wander the world, with the Med and maybe the Baltic as destinations, but maybe also the Greece/Turkey, or sailing around Britian etc.

As for ABD...I don't think we'll see many DCL/ABD combos--the Med works great, so may familiar ports already. Maybe they'll do one with Ireland/England/Scotland?

I hope ABD reads these--we've discussed before other ways to reward frequent users of ABD, including some sort of point system where you earn additional upgrades (such as a free post or pre night), or a voucher to cover one of the evenings on your own for dinner etc.

It is a good product. We go with ABD because of the quality of the guides and the destinations (and not having to sweat the details). Might be others out there that are cheaper, or offer other sorts of discounts--may be some that are better--and while it would be great to have the EBD back (great for our pocketbook--we have to save up for these trips for a year), I guess the bottom line is that we believe the experience to be worth the expense.

I'm interested in how the Tauck trips go--and of course, SayHello, we are all exicited for you re this new Med adventure, and wish you smooth sailing!

 

[Bobo912]

Maybe they'll do one with Ireland/England/Scotland?

That is a fantastic idea! If they would offer that, I would be first in line.

 

[beachbunny]

I agree Bobo912. I didn't book my trip as soon as prices came out for this year because there was no early booking discount. At least give me some sort of incentive if I'm going to commit and let you hold onto my deposit one year out. I finally booked when Disney came out with what I think was their biggest discount this year - $400 off per person for South Africa.

When the economy gets better, I'd like to see ABD branch out into East Africa - Kenya and Tanzania.

I'm in Hawaii and plan to do a staycation at Aulani once it opens. A Disney cruise combined with the resort stay would be very nice. Summer 2012?

 

[Bobo912]

I thought of something else. On K&L offer an optional add-on (2 days possibly) to Disneyland Paris, with some sort of perk like discounted park tickets or free park-hopper. The money I would spend on food and souveniers would more than make up for it.

 

[WeLoveABD]

They do! We went on the xmas K and L and did a two night add-on at DLP. The beauty of that: transportation from Paris to the hotel, then the hotel to the airport. But the tickets and hotel, it seems to me, were regular price or not much below it (but they give you FastPass tickets and a few other small goodies). We ended up going to DLP with the ABD group on xmas day, so we stayed longer in Paris on the last day and did that night and the next day (and the following morning) in the parks instead.

This could be an example of using earned points for doing multiple ABD trips--get an upgrade at DLP, tickets for free etc.

 

[Bobo912]

They do! We went on the xmas K and L and did a two night add-on at DLP. The beauty of that: transportation from Paris to the hotel, then the hotel to the airport. But the tickets and hotel, it seems to me, were regular price or not much below it (but they give you FastPass tickets and a few other small goodies). We ended up going to DLP with the ABD group on xmas day, so we stayed longer in Paris on the last day and did that night and the next day (and the following morning) in the parks instead.

This could be an example of using earned points for doing multiple ABD trips--get an upgrade at DLP, tickets for free etc.

That's great! Did they offer the add-on to you when you booked? I don't recall seeing it on the website, but as often as I visit ABD's website I still haven't read every word. So the package included the hotel on site at DLP? Do you know how do their rates compare with other hotels in Paris? It must be fantastic to go to DLP with your ABD group!

 

[WeLoveABD]

It was great--going with the ABD group gave us VIP placement on parade routes, a great dinner at Walt's on Main Street--and special park guides lead two different groups through rides (thrill rides and less strenuous rides); as I found out, the roller coaster rides were much more intense there than at DL or WDW! As for the add-on, I think I saw it in the FAQ part of the KL ABD web site. (I would recommend two full days there to experience both parks--we didn't need so much time thanks to the VIP tour with ABD)

 

[Tozzie]

After looking into other companies with comparable trips I really have no problems with the ABD structure. The only thing that is important to me and once again ABD failed at was to have at least 1 adult only trip for each itinearary.

 

[Bobo912]

Here is a really easy one...update the junioradventurers.com website with some new content. It's been the same for years. Put some new pictures in the photo gallery.

 

[WeLoveABD]

And, have a section on the guides--photos, brief bios. Highlight your strong suit!!

 

[sayhello]

And, have a section on the guides--photos, brief bios. Highlight your strong suit!!

I *totally* agree with this! The guides are what makes ABD great, and they should highlight them on the site like they do on the videos!

Sayhello

 

[Bobo912]

Another suggestions...offer some trips that aren't adult only around spring break and fall break times of the year. For us, that is mid-March and mid-October, although that varies somewhat around the US, and April is common for spring break. I know the climate may be a factor for some destinations, but not all. Thomson and Tauck Bridges have trips scheduled in March and April 2011. I've done a more extensive search for Oct trips and there are very few options among all the companies that are similar to ABD. Maybe there is something bad about traveling October that I don't know about. I had almost made up my mind that we would take the K&L Gateway trip in August and then I found out that my son needs to attend orientation at his new school the week of the trip, so I started looking for fall break dates for a trip and couldn't come up with anything. So we may just make fall break our time to visit Harry Potter's Wizarding World. October is one of my favorite times to visit Orlando and we can take in another MNSSHP, which is always fun. More options for the future would be nice, though.