Vacation pkgs or booking direct?

[NikP]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this, so please have patience. I am looking at planning a trip to WDW for October 2007.

We will fly from Toronto or Buffalo. We will stay on property. Also considering meal plan. Does anyone have any comments regarding either booking direct thru disney or a pkg including airfare from a travel agency?

Thanks!
Niki

 

[tone.def]

It is my personal belief that you will always find cheaper airfare on your own as opposed to a travel agent assisting you. Travel agents no longer make commssion from airlines for most bookings, so they're not going to do the searching you will want them to do. I don't blame them, why work for free?

If you have the time to search for the best pacakge deal then by all means, book it yourself. I don't have time, I don't have the patience either, I use a TA, they can code watch and book dining reservations for me, all I want is my vacation!

 

[surfer_ed]

If you have the time and inclination that IMO booking direct is cheaper.

For instance, I got a better CAA rate calling Disney than the CAA Travel agent offerred me???

I also find arifare and car rentals are cheaper directly from the company websites as opposed to using a portal.

If you do not have the time to do the research and than travel agents are great, they need to be compensated for their service so be prepared to pay a little extra. If you do not know what you are doing it could be money well spent.

 

[duckie0517]

I go to WDW atleast once a year. I live 20 minutes from the Buffalo border which is great because I find the best rates for flights are either Southwest or Jet Blue and they can be made on the internet. Which means I don't have to pay over $100 in taxes for the flight.

I don't like to drive so I usually hire a car service. I do this over the website too. Happylimo or *********** or Tiffany Towncar.

Prior to being a DVC member, I watched out for deals on rooms. I preferred any of the All Star locations because they were cheap and I was never in my room during the day so why pay more. I usually made my room reservation through the Disney site.

 

[DisneyGeek2000]

If you do not have the time to do the research and than travel agents are great, they need to be compensated for their service so be prepared to pay a little extra. If you do not know what you are doing it could be money well spent.

Many travel agents do not charge a fee, as they get paid commission from the supplier, in this case, Disney pays TA's 10%; it costs you nothing extra.

Many of the Disney specialist TA's will book the same discounts that you can get on your own.

 

[SaraMc]

Ive booked through a travel agent and done it all myself and I find that I can get a better deal on flights ect that my travel agent.
Last year we spent $1000 on a flight for just the two of us through a travel agent, this year with the help of the Dis we are flying out of Buffalo on Jet blue and our whole trip, hotel with CAA discount, tickets and flight was $10 more than our flight alone last time.

That sold me right then and there, I will do it myself from now on.

Sara

 

[tone.def]

If you do not have the time to do the research and than travel agents are great, they need to be compensated for their service so be prepared to pay a little extra.

I'm sorry that you let a TA rip you off once by charging you a fee, you obviously had a bad experience, but I am going to post this from the TA agency I use for Disney:

"All travel agencies are paid a commission from their suppliers, in our case, Disney pays a commission on every trip we book. This is taken out of the money that you pay to Disney. After you complete your travel, we are sent a check from the Walt Disney Travel Company. Your local travel agent is compensated the same way (although many charge extra fees due to airlines that don't pay commission, etc)

When you see your credit card statement, it will say that the charges were paid to the Walt Disney Travel Company, NOT to ...the agency I won't name because it's not DU..."

 

[NikP]

Thanks everyone for the information.

Has anyone gone to Disney with the Magic your Way Pkg. plus Dining? Is it worth the money? The times that have been; the food is very expensive.

 

[cdnmickeylover]

We went to Disney last October on the Magic Your Way dining package. There was a promotion going on at the time so we got the dining plan free so obviously it was worth it for us.

To see if it's worth it for you though you'll have to do some research. The cost I think is $37/day per person so the question is whether or not you'd spend this much anyway. From our experience it's certainly possible that you could but you do have to be careful about where you eat and what you eat. You get a TS, CS and snack per person per night of your stay. Some TS restaurants require 2 TS credits. We calculated what we would have spent out of pocket on the meals we ate and figured we would have come out ahead even if we'd paid for the dining plan but we also ate very expensively. We ate expensive appetizers and entrees on our TS meals. If you ordered the least expensive things on the menu it would not have been worth it. For instance we ate at Beirgarten which isn't a great use of a TS credit since it's a fixed price.

We were also stuffed all the time!!

Take a look at the menus for the various restaurants you want to eat at and then decide if it's worth it for you.

You also are paying rack rate for the room so you have to keep that in mind as well.

Hope this helps.