TA vs self booking

[tjmw2727]

I love to plan and always book my own vacations but the cruise may be beyond my scope - never cruised and never used a TA.

I have quotes from several TA's and I am waiting on the DU quote and they vary considerably from exactly the same as the WDW website to $500 less.

I have heard so many stories about TA's not making changes and making changes you don't want and generally making mistakes that I always do things myself. I am trying to decide if keeping control of my reservation is worth $500 or not???

I have quotes from Small World, Expedia, Orbitz, Quickcrusie, AAA and I am waiting on DU -

If anyone has some personal experiences I would love to hear the pro's and cons of TA vs self booking as well as any opionins of specific TA's and or recommendations. Either way I will book the "land" portion myself.

TIA
TJ

 

[tchoney]

I also enjoy making travel arrangements myself. I most of all enjoy the research I think. Anyway, Call All seasons travel their web address is allseastravel, I was able to get a significant discount from them and they have been tremendously wonderful to work with.

I also would use the ta for the cruise portion and do the land portion all by myself.

Good Luck!

 

[ivanova]

If anyone has some personal experiences I would love to hear the pro's and cons of TA vs self booking as well as any opionins of specific TA's and or recommendations. Either way I will book the "land" portion myself.

For a "big ticket" vacation like a cruise, we prefer using a TA. Since you've never used a TA before, I would strongly recommend that you go based on recommendatiions from friends, etc. I would recommend Janis @ travel dreams or Dana @ Micdan personally. If you PM me I can give you their email addresses.

 

[mum of two pirates]

I booked with costco travel, It beat everyone else out that I had tried (alot) you can get one cruise quote from them even if you are not a member, check out there web sight.

 

[logan1_2000]

Find the unhappy postings, who were disappointed by their cruises. Read into those postings. Many time --not all, but many-- the answer was that the traveler was on the wrong cruise--that is, wrong for him or her and their family. Like the story we heard last night from a very affluent gentleman in town who lives a life of luxury and then complained about the cruise he took. Booked it himself on the internet, he said. Got "a deal". Turns out he cruised on the Carnival Fantasy. So this Mercedes Benz guy went on a Yugo cruise and was miserable. Wrong cruise for him. Not such a deal after all?

If you are confident you know what you want, book it yourself. If you want to ask questions and want guidance, use a TA who specializes in cruises. A cruise is often a relatively high dollar expenditure. I would not risk perhaps making a wrong decision to save 25 or 50 or a hundred dollars on a three or four or five thousand dollar vacation, so if that is the difference between an internet site and a well referred agent with a live person to talk to, perhaps there is value in peace of mind.

Hopefully flame throwers will spare me, I think this was even handed. I think for example this board has a ton of good information, though it should be read understanding that there is a bit of a built in bias (ya think?) from the disney-philes, myself among them. And in the end, I default to the motto of the Lynchberg, TN general store, "All goods worth price charged." What did you pay for the advice on this board? So in case it turns out to be wrong,you did get your money's worth.

That said, go on a DCL cruise, its a happy friendly experience.

 

[allears]

logan1_2000 has an excellent perspective and some great advice.

Our first cruise was a land and sea combniation. Since we'd never cruised before and the whole package was relatively new, we opted for a TA, who is also a friend of ours. We've now done 5 cruises only on DCL. I am an obsessive-compulsive planner and like to know as much as possible about the trip. At this point I could easily book our trips myself on line. We still choose to use our TA. One reason is that the price has been the same as what we would pay directly through DCL. When we've shopped some of the discount agencies, we've seen the price not that much less and usally comes out to the same when we've added back transfers and insurance. This isn't the case with all of them, we have chosen not to shop around a lot.

The other big reason for us is that despite our vast knowledge of the DCL experience, our TA has up to date travel information and resources not available to us. She knows if there have been changes in the travel industry regarding identification etc. She is also able to help us when things don't go quite right. We cruised this past September and as we were flying out found out that the cruise was being delayed due to Hurricane Jeanne. She was able to find us a hotel that could take us for the extra nights, and they were filling up fast. This was something I wouldn't have been able to do. She's handled several other little snags like that, and we like having that extra sense of secruity knowing that we have someone working with us who can navigate these issues more expertly than we can.

Ultimately it comes down to your comfort level either handling the arrangements by yourself and with the TA you choose. We're fortuneate to have a great TA and use her for most of our travel plans, including the trip we just booked to Disney Land for this summer.

 

[budwmn]

I'm a self-booker. I like having control over my reservation. When I call DCL to ask a question or make a request, I can document all aspects of the call. They then send me a faxed confirmation of what I've requested. I like to know that when I need something DCL will talk to me. I guess I'm just a control freak when it comes to how much $$$ I'm spending for the cruise.

However, TA's (especially Costco), can almost always get you a better price. As others have mentioned, in an emergency like the hurricanes, they are better able to help you.

I think it's just a matter of what's more important to you: control or money. Personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, it just depends on your personality.

 

[pdarrah]

If you decide to go with a TA, try to find a particular agent that someone you trust recommends. For our first cruise we just requested a couple of quotes (I hadn't found the DIS yet) and went with Small World - we were assigned an agent and we were NOT happy with the experience. Once we had booked, she no longer bothered to be very helpful and took 24-72 hours to respond to any email. I ended up having to find out information for myself and call DCL myself to get the information I needed. When everyone else had their docs (even folks with airfare through DCL!) and I tried to find out what was going on she was totally unconcerned and her terse response made it sound like I was bugging her by asking. I ended up calling DCL, finding out the tracking number they were sent on, and telling her they arrived at her "main office" 2 days before! Other agents at that company may be fine, but we certainly were not happy with our experience.

We rebooked on board and I am still considering whether I will transfer the reservation to a TA or not. If I do, it will be a specific agent that is recommended to me by someone I trust!

pdarrah