Piecemeal Booking?

[fabfemmeboy]

Does anyone else have experience booking Disney piecemeal? By that I mean, for example, booking the hotel, then adding on other pieces of the vacation like park tickets, dining plan, etc? What about booking a shorter hotel stay and then extending it after the original booking but before the vacation begins? I ask because DP and I were hoping to take an extra trip this year taking advantage of the free dining plan in the fall, but paying the grand or so all at once is a lot more difficult than paying part of it now and part of it in, say, a couple months (long before we travel but after the dining promo has ended). Has anyone tried something like this before? If so, did it work?

 

[supergoofy]

I just piece mealed our trip for August

I bought airline tickets in February from the airlines after looking at Priceline/Kayak. I decided to book two one way flights instead of roundtrip as the flights out from the local airport were not early enough and the flight home was to late to drive 3 hours from the airport we fly to Orlando from.

Bought park tickets from undercover tourist.

Rental cars booked directly

Staying offsite and booked with an owner

Staying 1 day onsite and booked via Disney


Food is out of pocket as we will be sharing many meals and trying lots of snacks and don't want to be pinned down by the plan.


Personally I like doing it piece by piece as I can price shop or time shop.

 

[mommycrawford]

If you are getting a dining plan, free or otherwise, you have to book your on property hotel and tickets together and put down a $200. dollar deposit. The rest of the payments can be made anytime before 45 days before trip arrival.

You can book a hotel seperately from purchasing tickets, but the meal plan has the other requirement....It's just how Disney does it.

 

[mrsmomo]

Disney will let you do a payment plan on magic your way trips as will some travel agents. They will want a $200 deposit and paid in full by 45 days out, if you need more help feel free to pm me

 

[seashoreCM]

As a rough rule, booking piecemeal costs less overall.

The exception would be if the package has something special about it such as free dining.