Positive/negatives of using a travel agent when booking a package at WDW?

[kandb]

Going mid-January, 2026 with my two college aged children and want to stay at a value and get tickets and the DDP (I know the positive/negatives about DDP). Are there any benefits of using a travel agent? I have gone to WDW many times. Do travel agents ever get you a better deal?

 

[muppets3d]

they don't do anything you can't do yourself and they don't have access to pricing that you can't get on your own.

 

[Dave006]

Are there any benefits of using a travel agent? I have gone to WDW many times. Do travel agents ever get you a better deal?

Yes but only in helping you with information but only if they specialize in Disney vacations. No they have no access to special pricing or unique offers.

Dave

 

[Genie+]

We tried using a travel agent for WDW one time. For us the only difference was making changes less convenient. I can see how a TA might benefit other people, like a big party wanting help to book a wide range of things. I prefer keeping control of my reservation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WaltDisneyWorld/comments/1iyrefe/booked_package_through_travel_agentany_way_to_get

^ This explains it better than I can lol

 

[gottalovepluto]

TAs nowadays don’t have access to better deals than the general public for WDW resort stays.

What they can do for you completely depends on the agent. They should have a decent amount of park knowledge to help guide you in your choices. Some offer to watch for discounts, in which case it is likely they get you rebooked before you even realize the discount is live. Some will also book things like dining for you when your window opens.

The downside is an agent owns your reservation so you need to go through them for payments or changes.

If you already know what you want and you’re Disney experienced, I wouldn’t switch to using a TA now. If you want to use a TA I would try to find someone others recommend. Even within the same agency there are good TAs and lousy TAs.

 

[ucf_knight]

Going mid-January, 2026 with my two college aged children and want to stay at a value and get tickets and the DDP (I know the positive/negatives about DDP). Are there any benefits of using a travel agent? I have gone to WDW many times. Do travel agents ever get you a better deal?

I’ve never used one for a wdw package but always use one for cruising. The only similar benefit I could think of that would translate over to wdw would be rebooking you if a cheaper price becomes available. We have literally saved thousands of dollars over the years with our ta when booking cruises as she has routinely rebooked us at better rates. Also if any issues arise it is helpful to be able to call/text/email your ta vs waiting on hold for a large corporation to solve your problem.

 

[Best Aunt]

If you're on here and you have more than 6,000 posts, then you probably know more about Disney World than travel agents who don't specialize in it.

 

[muppets3d]

I’ve never used one for a wdw package but always use one for cruising. The only similar benefit I could think of that would translate over to wdw would be rebooking you if a cheaper price becomes available. We have literally saved thousands of dollars over the years with our ta when booking cruises as she has routinely rebooked us at better rates. Also if any issues arise it is helpful to be able to call/text/email your ta vs waiting on hold for a large corporation to solve your problem.

Using a TA for cruises was really useful during the COVID shutdowns, I could email the TA and they'd take care of dealing with the cruise line vs. me needing to wait on hold for perhaps hours to deal with the cruise line directly.

But honestly since the COVID restart, cruising has been booming and price drops are rare.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

40+ trips and we probably used a Disney TA for a third of them and I would not hesitate to use them again. Yes, I can get everything they can, but there are times I do not want to spend my time searching the site. One of the best example was a few years ago I talked with our Disney TA and was hoping to reserve POFQ but they did not have any rooms with the discount left, so I took CSR. About 1-1/2 months later my TA called and said a room became available and she switched it from CSR to POFQ, I found out that she put in a note to look out for POFQ I have done this in the past and I also read so many posts where they are signing in daily checking availability at a different resort, so she saved me a lot of time. Also, they would send an email that had current closed rides during our stay, park hours, DS information, an email letting us know that our ADR window is coming up etc.
BUT, like posters mentioned it has to be a Disney TA
The real only con is that they have to make payments for you and that they control the reservation up until check-in day. For us, that did not bother us at all, and we still made payments using our GCs.