WDW Booking and general questions from Canada?

[Kiren]

Sweet! That's so exciting! I can't wait!

 

[I Run Long]

You'll have a great time! Wish I was going soon but unless the dollar goes up or our mortgage magically gets paid off, we're stuck. *sigh*

 

[starvenger]

Would've been a good time to win Lotto Max. Oh well...

 

[Lesverts]

Just a few points from my experiences.

If you use a travel agent, make sure they know their product. I have experienced a few (and work in one) that pushes Air Canada Vacations, Westjet Vacations or Sunwing Vacations over any other way of booking Disney and often this is not the best or most flexible deal. There is usually a 100 dollar plus premium on this packages per person and don't include tickets. Tickets are an extra. It is often cheaper, or the same price to book everything separately. Also booking through Disney directly can be much more adventurous because they allow you to apply new discounts to trips while the vacation package companies do not. The only time I recommend a client use one of the vacation companies is if their heart is set on a particular resort that is unavailable through other channels.

As for airports. Price shop. Look at Hamilton, London, Kitchener, Detroit, Buffalo and Toronto. You will be surprised by the price differences between the airports. Don't believe the hype that Detroit or Buffalo are always the better deal. When I am going in May the price difference was only 45 dollars. That extra 45 dollars to fly out of Toronto meant direct flights and not having to cross the border at Niagara/Buffalo which can be less then ideal. Dealing with customs in Pearson is always preferable in my opinion. But I just booked clients on a vacation with flights out of Kitchener because it was a good combination of convenience and price.

 

[minnie56]

Just a few points from my experiences.

If you use a travel agent, make sure they know their product. I have experienced a few (and work in one) that pushes Air Canada Vacations, Westjet Vacations or Sunwing Vacations over any other way of booking Disney and often this is not the best or most flexible deal. There is usually a 100 dollar plus premium on this packages per person and don't include tickets. Tickets are an extra. It is often cheaper, or the same price to book everything separately. Also booking through Disney directly can be much more adventurous because they allow you to apply new discounts to trips while the vacation package companies do not. The only time I recommend a client use one of the vacation companies is if their heart is set on a particular resort that is unavailable through other channels.

As for airports. Price shop. Look at Hamilton, London, Kitchener, Detroit, Buffalo and Toronto. You will be surprised by the price differences between the airports. Don't believe the hype that Detroit or Buffalo are always the better deal. When I am going in May the price difference was only 45 dollars. That extra 45 dollars to fly out of Toronto meant direct flights and not having to cross the border at Niagara/Buffalo which can be less then ideal. Dealing with customs in Pearson is always preferable in my opinion. But I just booked clients on a vacation with flights out of Kitchener because it was a good combination of convenience and price.

Can be true.
But always exceptions to the rule. ACV is known to be on the higher side but I booked a Disney pkg yesterday that included AC air, hotel, dining plan, park hoppers that beat Disney direct hands down. Pays to research always of course. And I agree about Buffalo. Seldom these days is a clear cut advantage!

 

[kiford]

We always use a TA to book our Disney vacations except for the flights. We always book all of our ADRs and fastpasses ourselves. We often buy tickets to MVMCP, La Nouba, or other events. We do use our TA to book things like Wild Africa Trek. We prefer to use a TA because, if there are any issues, we contact one person who can figure out what to do. I also like to have a TA so that I can leave with her the list of things that I want to book and then they can spend ages on the phone if required, not me.

 

[Blackadder337]

That was another question I had. I know of someone that had some housekeeping issues with their room at Port Orleans. They called down once just to say "not a big deal but thought you should know......." Whoever they spoke to on the phone said sorry about that, and no problem we'll take care of it first thing tomorrow. The next day nothing changed. So they called down again and got "we'll see if we can do anything". So they called their TA and told them what was going on. The TA called someone, somewhere at WDW, and within 15 minutes, they were getting their housekeeping issues resolved.

So my question is... do TA's have some sort of "don't mess with our clients" phone number they can use? How is it the TA was able to get it rectified from a thousand miles away, when a call to the office that is a 5 minute walk away failed to get any results? Does anyone know?

 

[minnie56]

That was another question I had. I know of someone that had some housekeeping issues with their room at Port Orleans. They called down once just to say "not a big deal but thought you should know......." Whoever they spoke to on the phone said sorry about that, and no problem we'll take care of it first thing tomorrow. The next day nothing changed. So they called down again and got "we'll see if we can do anything". So they called their TA and told them what was going on. The TA called someone, somewhere at WDW, and within 15 minutes, they were getting their housekeeping issues resolved.

So my question is... do TA's have some sort of "don't mess with our clients" phone number they can use? How is it the TA was able to get it rectified from a thousand miles away, when a call to the office that is a 5 minute walk away failed to get any results? Does anyone know?

There is an agent specific phone number but likely just turning up the heat from another source made them move or they were about to anyways.....