Virgin Holidays vs Disney UK Booking

[arieliwish]

Hi all,

I've just been comparing quotes on several sites / options and have put in the same dates and details on Virgin Holidays and Disney UK (hadn't thought of Disney site until I read another thread) and there is £1,000 difference with Disney being cheaper - am I missing something??

I used 6th March departure from Manchester with Virgin for 4 (2 adults and 2 teenagers) staying at POR FQ with airport transfers and Disney 14 days for 7 tickets.

Virgin is coming out at £5,600 and Disney £4,600. Has anyone else found differences like this, and have I missed adding something vital??

Cheers

Lynn
x

 

[2Tiggies]

Nope, you're not missing anything. Since 2008 I have yet to have had a competitive quote from VH. Last year I never even bothered to compare. Identical packages are always well over £1000 more with VH (once close to £2k more) and that's just for 2 of us.

And the big factor for me is when I deal with WDTC, I always get someone with a very good command of the English language. Try ringing VH .....

 

[queendisney]

Nope, you're not missing anything. Since 2008 I have yet to have had a competitive quote from VH. Last year I never even bothered to compare. Identical packages are always well over £1000 more with VH (once close to £2k more) and that's just for 2 of us.

And the big factor for me is when I deal with WDTC, I always get someone with a very good command of the English language. Try ringing VH .....

yep this...

VH have outpriced themselves nowadays...not sure why everybody thinks they are so special..

 

[luke]

yep this...

VH have outpriced themselves nowadays...not sure why everybody thinks they are so special..

People see them more as convenient. Prices come out fairly early, known name with the direct flights (I know Disney use VA too don't they?).

We used them last minute on our first Florida holiday and also for our wedding (for the ease) but wouldn't touch them now...

 

[darthtatty]

I check the prices every year with a few companies and Virgin has always been inline with others prices.... for our package.
However next year, when I priced it up Virgin came up over £2,000 more.
I was shocked and because the prices had just been released, I contacted Virgin to see if they had a fault/error with the pricing system.
They assured me there wasnt an error.

So we're planning on booking direct with Disney and then getting the flights via Virgin.

 

[wayneg]

Also consider booking the flights separate, 6th March for 14 nights shows these prices.

£2,604 Hotel & Tickets with WDTC
£1,731 Direct with VA
Free Transfers direct with Disney.

Total £4335 (£254 saving)

Do you have 8,000 VA airmiles? they would bring the flights down to £1,611 making a total of £4215 (£385 saving)

Personally I would not book for a few days, rumours are free DDP will be out again soon, not sure if it will cover your dates. You could possibly stay at OKW or SSR fro similar price if they discount those again, wait for the next deals.

 

[queendisney]

People see them more as convenient. Prices come out fairly early, known name with the direct flights (I know Disney use VA too don't they?).

We used them last minute on our first Florida holiday and also for our wedding (for the ease) but wouldn't touch them now...

Yes I used to always use them as well....but still can't believe that people fall for the 'rockstar service' advertising..
When I speak to people they always say things like 'oh I'd love to go with Virgin' People pay a lot for brand names..

 

[wayneg]

Forgot your other question, "Virgin is coming out at £5,600 and Disney £4,600. Has anyone else found differences like this"

Not used VH's for years (2008, booked in 2007) this years trip they wanted over £12,000 I booked DIY for £4,500 using some airmiles.

 

[RDP]

Agree with all of the above, we paid £1600 less one year booking direct with Disney and DIY for flights and car instead of a package deal with VH. Have also had competitive quotes from CO.

 

[luke]

Our holiday for next year is too bitty (arrive, then cruise, then one night offsite, then 6 at SSR with dining) to price up with VH but did a quick look and I can imagine it would be upwards of about £4000 more if booked with Virgin Holidays!

 

[Stitch's Greatest Fa]

I agree, we never use VH always thousands more than booking seperately.

 

[arieliwish]

Thank you all for the quick replies!

I have been looking at separate prices and thought it would all work out similar except for the convenience of booking it 'all in one' with VH. That's why I got such a surprise that WDTC came out cheaper - I'd picked the option for the same VA flights as the VH quote.

Wayne - yes I see everyone seems to be expecting the free DDP to come out anytime and we're in no rush to book just yet, I would have thought March wouldn't be too busy and we're flexible with dates and hotels.

My first choice was going to be around the LBV area but if there's free dining then I'd love to do that - we got it on our last trip in 2005 and it was fantastic!

Many thanks again guys. Loving catching up on here again.

xx

 

[Tinks73]

We had the same Disney came out £1k cheaper but we wanted our virgin airmiles so we rang Virgin and they agreed to price match, but to do this you need to email them a screen dump of the Disney quote ( they can't go onto site and check themselves for some reason), °o°

 

[baylie666]

We have booked our next holiday (october 2013) with VA. We found that going directly through Disney we couldn't get exactly what we wanted. In the end it was just easier to go with VA and pay the extra £100.

 

[T1gger]

Disney were cheaper here as well than Virgin, Thomas Cook and Thomsons - I just about fell off my seat as I expected Disney to be the most expensive

 

[Stefjp]

I did price comparisons between Disney, Thomas Cook and Virgin and have to agree that virgin definitely price themselves out. Same travel dates, same hotel etc and virgin were about £1k more expensive - even with more crappy flight times. Disney and TC came out about even, so we booked with TC as have a long standing relationship with them

 

[wmoon]

I take there is no real difference other than price between booking with virgin or directly with Disney?

There is a £2000 difference on our holiday cost with Disney offering a better flight option. Online with virgin it was delta but with 3 different flights to get to Orlando ( although I know if I spoke to them they would probably do the one switch -for what cost though!,,)

Did price on some other sites but Disney is the cheapest and even booking it all independently there is not too much difference wit their costs.

Hoping to get booked in the next day or so.

 

[MarkF0wle]

VH are always more expensive for the equivalent holidays now. We have booked with them for the past 4/5 trips just for the convenience & because we never had the money up front to book DIY.

This year we booked through them & when the FD was released I priced a quote up on the Disney page & it was about £1.5k cheaper. To their credit though VH matched the price of the Disney quote to the penny so we kept our booking with them.

Although if we didn't already have an existing booking (we would have had to pay £700 to cancel it) we could have booked the entire thing DIY for about £700 cheaper than we are paying now. So in future we'll be going this route I would suspect.