Small World Vacations?

[Joan1]

Do you really think a Travel Agent would have done all the for me or would even know exactly which scenario would work out best for me????

Well it depends on how much information you gave the travel agent. Saying that someone would have or wouldn't have is generalizing and without actually having tried it you wouldn't know either way.

Travel agents aren't for everyone and it seems that you like having control of your situation and have time for it, and doing it yourself was best for you. For others a knowledgeable TA is worth their weight in gold. It really depends on each individual situation.

And to the poster that said we are new. I have been on these boards for 5 years. I used to have a different login but due to problems with email, my computer and other reasons I had to change it. On my old screen name I had over 3000 posts

 

[Joan1]

I'm more of a do it yourself type, but when the dining plan came out, I tried to contact SWV to help answer questions, since even the Disney staff didn't seem to have answers themselves. I was hoping at least they could explain some of the confusion. My trip was only about a month away, and it took several days to get a response from SWV. When I did get a response, they said my trip was too close for them to help. I also didn't like the fact that I pretty much HAD to contact them via email. The phone number, which several people have kindly provided here, was not available on their web page. I don't like that. If they have a direct number, they should post it on their website, but that is just me I guess. I don't like having to give any stranger all of my information just to get a simple question answered. If they couldn't help me, fine, but I should have been able to call them directly.

I was also wary of contacting a local TA, as I'm not sure they are Disney experts. I think the info I get from this website, Mousesavers, and Allearsnet.com (Plus a few others) keeps me pretty well informed, and I like hearing everyone's opnions.

I sort of agree that if a client is researching discounts themselves, and then having to contact their TA to ask about it...then why do they need a TA to book the discount? Shouldn't the TA be contacting YOU as soon as the discount comes out to let you know your new rates or options? JMHO.

It seems that you must have contacted them at a time when everyone had questions when the new dining plan came out and if I had a trip booked I would expect that my agent would be answering questions for me and others that were booked then someone that was just looking for answers and not really planning on booking with them.

Last, I enjoy the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I did a good job planning a trip to meet my needs, and the needs of my family. It's a fun problem to solve. I also enjoy the anticipation of a trip, and discussing the various options with family members. For us, anticipating a trip is half the fun.

Good for you. As I have said before and will keep saying, for some people a travel agent is not a good choice because of liking the planning, have time to plan, etc. But for others it is the best choice

In my opinion, saying that a travel agent is great and everyone should use them is not an honest statement. As is saying that "why do you need one you can do it all yourself" is also not an honest statement because one size does not fill all when it comes to planning vacations

Each person has to find out on their own which is more beneficial to them. I have read many posts here of people that don't normally use travel agents that at one time or another have because their time was limited, they would be away and not able to check for discounts, and many other reasons

 

[MiknMinMouse]

Just wanted to say I'm doing a little happy dance right now. and a cheer because Densie, our Small World Agent, emailed me to let me know that our rate for our January trip at the Poly is EVEN LOWER than that originally quoted. I'm sooooo excited, we're saving ANOTHER $200.

 

[SharBear4]

We've used Marion from SWV the last few times and she is fantastic! She is always looking for ways to make our trips less expensive and does all the work! Several times, we have received emails where our room has been rebooked again at a lower rate. I met Marion once at WDW when many of us from a different board got together to eat. She is a wonderful person and was actually asked to be a TA due to her helpfulness to others on the board! I will never do it myself again!

 

[tortoni]

We used Stephanie for our August trip and she was great--did all the leg work for us and trip was perfect.

 

[BarbWB]

Had a bad experience. I thought I'd use them for my trip b/c I wanted a little help and advice on dining reservations and, frankly, I'm swamped and wanted someone else to do the details. I knew how much it should cost and emailed and got a quote from SmallWorld in a day or two. Fine so far. Called and emailed to tell my agent to call me to go ahead and book and I needed to do it w/in a day or two b/c I wanted to take advantage of the 90+10 day dining reservation policy (this was a couple of weeks ago). First call was a Wednes, she didn't call me back at all (after a couple of calls and emails on my part to her, responding to her already-done quote) until Saturday evening, late in the evening, like after my kids' bedtime. How weird. By then, I had already reluctantly booked it myself.
Very annoying. I'm sure it was just my agent, but it was not a good experience . ..

 

[MiknMinMouse]

Had a bad experience. I thought I'd use them for my trip b/c I wanted a little help and advice on dining reservations and, frankly, I'm swamped and wanted someone else to do the details. I knew how much it should cost and emailed and got a quote from SmallWorld in a day or two. Fine so far. Called and emailed to tell my agent to call me to go ahead and book and I needed to do it w/in a day or two b/c I wanted to take advantage of the 90+10 day dining reservation policy (this was a couple of weeks ago). First call was a Wednes, she didn't call me back at all (after a couple of calls and emails on my part to her, responding to her already-done quote) until Saturday evening, late in the evening, like after my kids' bedtime. How weird. By then, I had already reluctantly booked it myself.
Very annoying. I'm sure it was just my agent, but it was not a good experience . ..

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but I think it's a rare one. Typically when I've asked for a quote for our vacation a room has been put on a courtesy hold for a certain period (I think generally a week) to give us time to decide if that's going to work for us, all we have to do is confirm because the room is already booked. I would contact Sue (Small Worlds Owner) and share your concerns with her. Based on all of the postitive feeback I'm sure you've seen on the boards, I hope you give them another chance.

 

[princess-rn]

We used Small world vacations for our trip in May and were really happy with them . My agent took care of EVERYTHING including all PS's (ADR's now). i would email her any changes to our reservation or any resturants we wanted to eat at and times we wanted to eat. She would email me back confirmation numbers. She also applied discounts and was on the look out for other discounts to apply to our reservation. I am already working with her again for our trip December 2006.

 

[pmtaylor]

I have been extremely pleased with SWV! Our TA has been incredible...a wealth of information. She has helped with everything including special spurprises on our arrival date! We cannot wait to go to Disney! Counting down....

 

[phisigprincess]

They have been a godsend as i'm trying to plan a wedding and a disney trip. It's nice when you know what you want, but have someone else taking care of the details.

 

[BiffMan]

I was directed to them by a few people who had good dealings with them, but can't say I was impressed. Could be that I was trying to book best rate plan with an AP, but the agent I worked with was woefully unfamiliar with best rate and the AP plan.

To start off with, she wasn't willing to try to book me more than one room at a time. I had heard that some agencies could do this since they use the "other" reservation system, but she was apparently just logging into the Disneyworld.com AP site just like I could.

Secondly she told me that I couldn't make a reservation using my AP voucher, that I could only do so with an activated pass. She claimed that was why she couldn't make a reservation using my pass info, even though I could log into the site just fine. To "prove" this, she contacted her guest services contact who confirmed that.

To show her otherwise, I went ahead and tested booking a room using my info and it worked just fine. No idea what the malfunction was on her end, but we wound up parting ways amicably and I went on to book my 5 room, 5 seperate reservations nightmare through the best rate site. Would have been a really nice situation to have some assitance from an "experienced" travel agency, but that was unfortunately not to be... Turned out that my limited knowledge of things was considerably more than she had and I just wasted a couple of days and a couple of hours on the phone.

So it's entirely possible that I just had an inexperienced agent (although she claimed to have been with them for 5 years), or that they're not big on working with people with annual passes. If you're not doing either of those things, then they might be able to help out. I've heard plenty of reports from people who have raved about them so they must be doing something right, they just weren't able to/interested in helping me.

 

[MiknMinMouse]

So it's entirely possible that I just had an inexperienced agent (although she claimed to have been with them for 5 years), or that they're not big on working with people with annual passes. If you're not doing either of those things, then they might be able to help out. I've heard plenty of reports from people who have raved about them so they must be doing something right, they just weren't able to/interested in helping me.

I guess it's the same as my favorite restaurants thread. There are the same restaurants at WDW listed on that thread and listed on the least favorite. I bought an AP this year and my agent has worked wonders getting us the best AP rate, even as I said a few posts earlier letting me know that it had once again gone down. I've worked in customer service jobs for many years and know that somethings things go right and sometimes no matter how hard you try things don't. That's just life. But I would hardly say that they aren't big on working with people with AP's or they weren't interested in you. I'm not saying you didn't have a less than satisfactory experience but I don't think it's fair to generalize like that. If in your situation things had gone like that, likely I would have contacted the owner and requested her help. I've just learned in life to, when at all possible, give people the benefit of the doubt.

 

[BiffMan]

But I would hardly say that they aren't big on working with people with AP's or they weren't interested in you. I'm not saying you didn't have a less than satisfactory experience but I don't think it's fair to generalize like that. If in your situation things had gone like that, likely I would have contacted the owner and requested her help. I've just learned in life to, when at all possible, give people the benefit of the doubt.

I also have worked in customer service for 15+ years and have found that it's generally a good idea to not openly mis-state information or use phrases like "well it looks like you're better off doing it on your own" if you're wanting to help someone out. Agreed that my experience is reflecting the specific individual I worked with and likely not the fault of the agency as a whole, but given that it was my first experience with the agency and I had just put a non-refundable deposit into the system on my own, what would be the point in contacting the owner at that point?

I'm not bitter about it, I just didn't have a productive experience with them and the specific individual I worked with certainly wasn't taking much of an interest in working with my specific situation, so there didn't seem much point in continuing to work with them at that point. If you have to research your own information *and* make your own reservations in the system, what's the value add of continuing to work with that person or spend time/effort going over their head?

Not saying I'd never use them in the future, but given my experience with them, I'd of course be a little leery of stumbling into getting the same agent again...

 

[MiknMinMouse]

but given that it was my first experience with the agency and I had just put a non-refundable deposit into the system on my own, what would be the point in contacting the owner at that point?
...

The point in contacting the owner would be to let her know your experience so she can make find a way to improve the customer service. In this situation, the only way she would know you were unhappy with the customer service would be if you told her. I'm sure every agency has their great ones and their not so great ones, but as customers we need to provide feedback so the owners can respond. Not just here but anywhere. If I have a really bad experience with a customer service rep, I'm going to write the store or wherever it happened not intending to get anyone fired but to hopefully have the owner talk to the CSR and help them see how they can improve.

 

[Joan1]

To show her otherwise, I went ahead and tested booking a room using my info and it worked just fine. No idea what the malfunction was on her end, but we wound up parting ways amicably and I went on to book my 5 room, 5 seperate reservations nightmare through the best rate site.

The official Disney rules on AP and room discounts is that you can only book up to 3 rooms with a discount on one AP