People who fly to Disney World...HELP!

Joined
Apr 10, 2017
I have never flown to Disney World. Only Disneyland. I used to live 6 hours away from The World, so I always drove, as it was cheaper. A few weeks ago, I moved halfway across the country and am now 21 hours from The World and 21 hours from The Land. :hyper:

So my only option now is to fly. And boy, is it challenging already. I can really go any time of the year. So I'm trying to base my trip around when I can find the cheapest flight (Young 20 something here). But it is almost impossible to do when trying to book my resort 180 days out as well.

What do you all do? How do you book flights or decide when to go or all of the above? Lol.
 
I go when I want to lol.
I book my flight either when I know that I'm going or if flights aren't out yet then as soon as they are released.
I guess I'm not sure what exactly you're asking?
Decide when to go and book the trip....
 
There's no such thing as "cheapest flight", it's really what is the maximum price point I'm willing to pay?
I know my maximum price. My main concern is that I will reserve the room and then go to book my flight a few months before my trip and the flights will be astronomical.
 


Unless you are trying to book a specific resort discount, then I would not worry about booking your resort so far out. The only incentive, other than discounts, for booking more than 180 days is for ADRs. I have not had any issues getting the ADRs I want 2-6 weeks before a trip. If there are new attractions I want to do, then I do try to book a resort before the 60 days that on-site guests can book FP+.

Also, as long as you only book room only, you can cancel your room up to 5 days before your scheduled check in. So, if you find out the flights are too high, you can see if you can play with the dates and try to adjust your resort reservation.
 
The only incentive, other than discounts, for booking more than 180 days is for ADRs.

Booking ADRs at 180 days is NOT dependent on having a resort reservation. ANYONE can book ADRs 180 days in advance. NO Resort needed. NO Ticket needed. Only need a credit card to use as a guarantee for the ADR.



Steve
 


Booking ADRs at 180 days is NOT dependent on having a resort reservation. ANYONE can book ADRs 180 days in advance. NO Resort needed. NO Ticket needed. Only need a credit card to use as a guarantee for the ADR.



Steve

This info is correct although the park is that its 180+10 if staying onsite.
 
Booking ADRs at 180 days is NOT dependent on having a resort reservation. ANYONE can book ADRs 180 days in advance. NO Resort needed. NO Ticket needed. Only need a credit card to use as a guarantee for the ADR.



Steve

I know, but the +10 days for resort guests is why many people think they need a resort reservation by the 180 days.
 
I know my maximum price. My main concern is that I will reserve the room and then go to book my flight a few months before my trip and the flights will be astronomical.
reserve the room. Make your ADRs. When the airfares come out*, keep or cancel your resort and dining reservations.

*Delta, United, and American release fares 331 days in advance.
 
If you are near a major city, you are more likely to have a lot of options from different airlines, and thus the chance of getting a good fare. But you might be lucky from smaller cities, too.

Use Kayak or a similar search engine, and make practice searches of multiple airlines, for 2 months out from the current date, 4 months, 6 months and 8 months. The reason to do that is just to get an idea of price trends for different airlines and different times of the year.

Don't forget to search on the website of some of the airlines that don't list their fare on the generic search engines. In other words, Airlines that want you to look at their website for yourself. I think Southwest is one of those, but there might be others. Doing some practice searches from my area to Orlando, about 3 months from today, I get prices from about $280 to $360 from Kayak (I know these aren't great prices, and I'd keep looking) but Southwest at the same time, on the same days has a few flights from $180, and then a lot from $280 to $360. It just depends on what particular day of the week that you travel (often Tues/Wed and sometimes Thursday are cheaper) but it is worth checking out everything you can, because, as shown with Southwest, even from the same airline, prices can go in a range where the upper end is more than double the cost of the lower end, even on the same days. And prices will rise and fall, sometimes quite dramatically and sometimes over a period of only a few days.

If you are making a DVC Booking, then I would make it, and then keep checking on the airfare, until I found something I liked. DVC works best when you can book as far out as possible. If you are just booking a hotel room or resort, I'd still make the reservation and then look for the airfare, unless your dates are flexible, in which case you might search for the best airfare +/- a few days one way or another. If your vacation dates are fixed, by work or something, then you just make the reservation and keep checking for a good fare. You can usually cancel the hotel reservation or modify it without too much of a problem, but the opposite is true for airfare, which is difficult to change, and not cheap to change, once you have it purchased.
 
This last trip we booked way in advance because we were cashing in flyer miles, but previously I booked the package first (and even then it was booked like 3-4 months early). I remember not booking airfare at the time because I forgot, when I finally booked the airfare, the prices had dropped.
 
I pick a date window that I can be flexible day or so on either end, book my room, and start looking for flights knowing my trip might be 5 days or might be 7 (or whatever) depending on the flights I like...
 
I usually go when flights are affordable. I book my flights first most of the time and then book hotel. It's rare I book before the 180 days. Most I probably book maybe 2-3 months out and I get all the ADRs I want and usually get the hotel I want as well but I may have to check back for cancellations.

Finding the cheapest flight seems to vary by region and airline. I mostly fly Frontier and am flexible with days, but their prices vary almost day to day at times. Once it hits a price I think is low enough to not worry about I purchase.
 
Use a flight aggregate like Google Flights or Hopper (phone app). I use Google flights to pre-plan airfare for trips I know I want to take. Plug in the dates you're thinking of traveling, and how many tickets you would need. Google flights will email you whenever the prices for that trip change, so you can see when prices are higher and when they are lower. Using that as a guide, I was able to book the last 3 trips to Florida at amazing rates!

The aggregates don't show Southwest flight prices, but it's pretty easy to just look them up when I see a rate drop on the other carriers. And whenever Southwest releases their Wanna Get Away fares, those are the lowest prices they are willing to offer - so you can compare those rates to what other airlines have offered.

It takes some homework, persistence, and a little luck if you REALLY want to snag good deals, but it can be done!
 
I booked my trip last August (for May), made my ADR's in November (complete disaster, but that's for another thread), but when I found cheap flights I was happy with in January I had to move my resort reservation a bit to accommodate my flight dates. It wasn't that difficult and didn't impact my ADR's at all.

So all that to say, go ahead and book your resort reservation for the days you think will work best with cheap flights for the airline you want (we were wanting SW). Then watch flight prices and when you see a price you like, grab it. Then get on the phone with Disney and try to adjust your resort reservation if need be. Sometimes you have to be a bit flexible because rooms do fill up, but as long as you are still 3+ months out or so, you should be able to find something.
 
I usually end up booking the room first only because I am DVC and need to booked at either the 7 or 11 month window. And then I start looking for airfare. I look on Expedia to get an idea of airfare among the various airlines and also set my approximate dates up in the Hopper app. I check airfare about once a week (usually on Tuesdays and using the Incognito search function) until about 3 months out and then move to more frequent checks until I find the price I am willing to pay. And yes, I generally have a $ amount in mind. I usually get the airfare in July for a September trip, but sometimes a really good price comes up sooner. I actually bought airfare about 2 weeks ago for a trip in 2 weeks. That was when the airfare finally got into a reasonable range and was only that price for like 2 days! And I ended up having to add a night to the front of the trip to accommodate that flight choice, so actually will be about even with price flying the next day (but an extra day to play in the park).
 
I booked my flights 6 months out and one of them changed 15 hours BEFORE I was planning to leave. Since it was more than a 3 hour change, I could cancel it and find another flight. Unfortunately, it was on another airline for 2x the cost. So just beware of the flight changes.
 

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