What is the best way to book??

[toyota]

I guess the options are local travel agent, call hotel directly, Dreams unlimited travel, Costco. How do you get the best deal? We want to stay at the DLH. I think we will do the SoCal AP to get a discount.

Thanks for any and all tips!

 

[bumbershoot]

Use the AP to get a discount on...what?

If you're using a place like Costco travel you're looking at a package, which includes tickets.

If you just want to buy the AP and have the hotel separate, I *think* that to get an AP rates you would have to check with the hotel specifically. There's the normal average AP discount which i think is simply 10% off. BUT there are seasonal discounts...now through March 6th there is the AP5 rate available (note: available, not absolute on your date at your wished-for hoteL). You could call, find a date you like and a price you like, and book that rate, but not have the AP in hand right now. Shortly after you arrive, yes, but not now.

Hope those up-too-late thoughts help. Too bad I can't drink coffee after 5pm, I'd make more sense!

 

[zukeeper]

I booked AP rates last year and bought the AP after arriving (checked into another hotel first, then moved due to lack of availability with AP rates on the weekend). Finding the AP rooms for the date you want is a problem. We ended up at the PPH with weekday the only available days. I bought the air and hotel (1st hotel) thru the DL website. Any agent can get you that same deal, and Costco gives you a free character meal plus $20 a bonus $80 approx value over booking on the Disney site or thru local agent but Costco is SLOW and it's not the same as being able to ask advice. On DL website, you enter airfare dates and hotel dates as different. I recommend buying passes in the package to get the Mickey morning madness voucher (priority seating, pins, luggage tags, etc), then when you get down there, you upgrade to an AP by just paying the monetary difference. The other benefit is that if a Saturday was a blockout day, you can upgrade after that blockout date if it worked with your hotel plans. It was crazy the way we did it, but we ended up doing PPH concierge which was really cool.

This next trip, since we have AP's, we bought a hotel/air package with kids fly free. There are 6 of us, so air kills us and we don't really fit into a DLR hotel anyway. I'm a part time travel agent and know every which way to book and while I like your AP rate idea, I can only say good luck since it's usually available mid-week only. Call and ask for AP5 rates to see if they have your days to start with. When you book a package, you can ask for certain flight dates and different hotel dates if you end up moving to Disney hotel. You could book just one night at a hotel to get the air package (which is so good if it's kids fly free).

Hope I didn't go on too long!

 

[mindylovesmickey]

As long as you watch your blockout dates you can do the So Cal AP, but I think it's really limiting. However, the dates that the pass is good are probably the best dates for getting the best hotel rate.

But, if you want the package deal with all the extras like MTMM and lanyards, pins, gift card, etc. I would check around, but most of the time the places are all within a few dollars of each other, from what I've found.

 

[jessica52877]

I have done this for the past 3 dates between disney, costco and direct. I have found the cheapest by far is direct for each item. It has saved us a couple hundred dollars. I won't get the priority seating or vouchers (or meal and $20 from costco) but the savings more then makes up for the meal and $20 and the others honestly with price savings I'll go without.

 

[oregonmoonrise]

We booked threw Alaska Airlines directly we got a really good deal here it is broken down if we had done everything ourselves then with the package:

Hotel Grand Californian Park View~ 5 nights @ $410 per night plus tax = $2436.45

Park tickets (5 for 3 hoppers) 2 adults @ $169 & 2 kids at $139 = $616

Airline Tickets~ Round trip to LAX (family of 4) $2054

Transfer Round trip from LAX~ $96

Total ~ $5202.45


ALASKA AIR Package $3894.10
Includes
$150 Gift Card
5 nights park View DGC
5 day park hoppers
Round trip airline tickets to LAX
Round trip Transfer.


So we saved $1308.45 by booking as a package.
So I would research research research!