Travel agent or no travel agent?

[goofy4prez]

Thank you all for your input and advice. I ended up using a travel agent other than the one many recommend on this site. For some, email only is not a problem. My reasons are is that I don't want to hound my travel agent with endless phone calls, but I also don't want to keep sending emails to ask a question and wait for a reply back. Sometimes just a 5 minute call can make a world of difference. Put then I guess I'm just old fashion. The agent I have chosen has been great. She got back to me via email right away and responded to any questions I had right away. What sold me was when she emailed me and asked if I was available by phone. Knowing I was a newbie she wanted to share some ideas, locations, get my thoughts and etc. In other words, she seemed to care.

So today I went ahead and booked the Western Caribbean on the Disney Fantasy and will be in a Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Veranda (04B) in stateroom 8610. I should add that the $650 SBC (that $$ was not a typo add) was impressive as well.

 

[ludari]

I've been on numerous cruises mostly with Disney but I've also done several other cruise lines and I always use a travel agent. Keep in mind that you still retain control of planning your cruise and the TA is there to answer any questions regarding that particular cruise, provide insight on selecting a particular cabin, the ship, etc. I also like the fact that I get shipboard credit as well. Personally I like to use my TA to help me do a search for a cruise. I usually provide my TA with my travel dates, budget, desired destination(s) and sometimes ship and have the report back to me their findings so I can make my selection. Good luck with your decision.

 

[mousefan73]

I recently had our DU agent change our reservation. She cancelled our original and rebook for us a cheaper VGT rate after I noticed online they had these. She handled the changes for me and got DCL to apply my payments to the new reservation. For disney I like using agents. Costs us nothing and with DU we get even a ship credit.

 

[Shanti]

I sure would appreciate some advice to those of you who are seasoned at cruising. When it comes to booking and planning a trip to WDW I have no problems there. Been there many times. But when it comes to cruising that is another story, the only cruise I've been on was when I was a broke newlywed 32 years ago and went on a 4 night Bahama cruise with Carnival. Now we are planning a cruise in June with Disney.

The question is this; if i use a travel agent I will receive a $350 on board credit. Is it worth it to allow a travel agent to control the reservation. Or would I be better off booking it direct with Disney, forget the credit, and control my own booking? Thanks all.

I book it myself and transfer the booking to Costco to get an 8% Costco cash card. That's a better deal than I've seen anywhere else. And since you're not tied to a single agent, you can call & talk to a Costco Travel rep anytime, & not have to wait for a response or worry about annoying a single agent with too many questions/changes.

 

[xiphoid76]

People say you loose control, you never do, in fact you have more control.

If something goes wrong, then you have a big TA to support you. They have extra clout.

Your instructions for payments and changes go va the TA but you still control it. Yes if you wake up at midnight and decide to change a room, you may have a slight wait.

You still book port adventures Palo spa etc direct.

If you want to make changes you need to go thru your TA. We wanted to switch dining times, then we needed to add other friends traveling with us to our dining table. We also added Palo - each was super easy to do on your own with complete control. But I am a control freak - I hate the idea of going thru a third party person to do these things. Much simpler just to do yourself in my mind. But the level of comfort is up to each person.

My obsessive compulsiveness, plus my love of planning and organizing would never lead to me using a TA

We get 200 dollars OBC plus booking on-board discounts. I am curious though how much other people get with TA OBC's. If it is much more, I may be willing to give up some of my control issues...

 

[MichelleCanada]

I am just looking into all of this as well. The 3 companies I have reached out to all offer OBC credits. However, if you book a cruise or placeholder when on your cruise the OBC through the TA is cut in half. Example - the cruise we are taking this summer is costing us $6000. We got the Disney $200 OBC for booking on our last cruise + we could have got $150 more through a TA (the TA we have only gave us $50 so we will be changing for the next one)

 

[Mousequake]

Personally, I wouldn't base a decision on which TA to use on how much OBC you get from them. I've found that the more OBC you get, generally the lower the level of service will be-- probably because that OBC is coming straight out of their commission.

I like the convenience of our TA because I can say "hey, what are some good options for our Cabo day?" or "which dining do you think will be best for us?" and he'll have great advice because he's taken the time to get to know us.

 

[diznymom]

We use Beth Fejer w/ Dreams Unlimited for 3 cruises and have been very happy with her.

 

[wishuponastarforever]

I sure would appreciate some advice to those of you who are seasoned at cruising. When it comes to booking and planning a trip to WDW I have no problems there. Been there many times. But when it comes to cruising that is another story, the only cruise I've been on was when I was a broke newlywed 32 years ago and went on a 4 night Bahama cruise with Carnival. Now we are planning a cruise in June with Disney.

The question is this; if i use a travel agent I will receive a $350 on board credit. Is it worth it to allow a travel agent to control the reservation. Or would I be better off booking it direct with Disney, forget the credit, and control my own booking? Thanks all.

 

[wishuponastarforever]

We have always used a TA. This last cruise we booked directly with DCL. BIG MISTAKE!!!!! Murphy's law, this was the only cruise we ever cancelled last minute. We purchased third party insurance in order to have a preexisting clause. We have to supply proof of form of payment. We had used a good many Disney gift cards purchased at Target for the 5% discount. We have Target receipt but no proof we applied them towards our cruise .DCL insists they have no paper trail to send to show payment dates, amounts and form of payment. A TA would have that information. We will never book directly with DCL again!!!!!!!

 

[MichelleCanada]

Personally, I wouldn't base a decision on which TA to use on how much OBC you get from them. I've found that the more OBC you get, generally the lower the level of service will be-- probably because that OBC is coming straight out of their commission

Absolutely valid point. Given all things equal we take OBC into consideration. It is only the intital set up and payment that we used or TA for.