Travel agent?

[stefnted]

Hi all-
I've never used a travel agent before but am considering looking into one for the trip I'm planning in October. I already have a 4 day Dream cruise booked and plan to add on a few days before and/or after at WDW. My question is, aside from the reduced stress of letting the travel agent make all the arrangements, is there a perk to using an agent? I know booking a cruise through them can get you an on board credit but do they give any goodies for land based travel? TIA!

 

[SYDCOLEMOM]

I would recommend Build a Better Mouse Trip.We used them for our first three WDW vacations. They do not charge, they are paid commission by Disney. It was nice to let someone else do the work and planning. They also knew all the latest discounts etc...

 

[HoosierFrog]

This is the first trip where I have actually used a travel agent. I decided to use Small World Vacations, based on one of my email subscriptions. We were planning to do the dining plan through Disney, which was a first for my family and I just had A LOT of questions. There is no additional fee. I started by watching for any sales and then booked based on the sales dates. Our agent, Sydney, suggested that we go ahead and schedule our dining reservations. I did a little research on some of the more popular events, let her know what days we planned on being in certain parks, and simply let her know what type of meal we would prefer (breakfast, lunch, dinner).

Sydney, made all the reservations for the ADRs for us and even threw in one more since I hadn't used all of my TS credits. I had no idea how many credits each meal plan would cost, so this was a big time saver for me.

Small World Vacations states that if a discount is offered for your vacation period after you have booked, they will make every effort to modify it in order to save you money.

I'm the planner in the family so much of the outside information I had done well in advance, but Sydney made sure that I had linked my information using the "My Disney Experience app", so I could get the most out of our trip planning.

I think I could have handled it all, but it definitely did save some time and stress.

 

[Lindaland]

It mostly comes down to how much you want to do yourself. Besides the 2 agencies the pp mentioned, I am using DU, which is also free. It's true you can make all the arrangements yourself and that the agencies themselves don't charge for the service, so it really comes down to what you value. I have done it both ways and it is nice to just tell someone what you want and then relax. There is a lot of checking and rechecking when your planning yourself, getting up early and waiting on the phone for FD ressies, making ADR's, spa or golf times, etc... But it's not really hard to do it either, planning yourself is kind of fun and exciting when you get into it.

Good luck with your choice!