Am I expecting too much?

[Allygator]

This time around I booked our upcoming vacation with a travel agent. One that promises to treat your vacation as their own, book your Adrs for you. Twice now I have heard I will do that tomorrow and never was done. Two days later I'm still waiting. Now I'm thinking twice about having them make my Adrs. Is this the norm? I'm thinking I should have just booked it myself.

 

[smk]

This time around I booked our upcoming vacation with a travel agent. One that promises to treat your vacation as their own, book your Adrs for you. Twice now I have heard I will do that tomorrow and never was done. Two days later I'm still waiting. Now I'm thinking twice about having them make my Adrs. Is this the norm? I'm thinking I should have just booked it myself.

We have many good travel agents on the forum from Kingdom Konsultants, if you did not use them then you may want to rethink your agent. Is it too late to cancel and have KK rebook for you? That would be my advice.

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

We have many good travel agents on the forum from Kingdom Konsultants, if you did not use them then you may want to rethink your agent. Is it too late to cancel and have KK rebook for you? That would be my advice.

I definately have to agree. @Kingdom Konsultant is the way to go. That's who we have use for our last several trips. They do a fabulous job!!

 

[lilclerk]

Eek, you should go ahead and make some ADRs on your own. If they ended up making some for you too without telling you (who knows, right?) just cancel the ones you don't want.

 

[Master Yoda]

This time around I booked our upcoming vacation with a travel agent. One that promises to treat your vacation as their own, book your Adrs for you. Twice now I have heard I will do that tomorrow and never was done. Two days later I'm still waiting. Now I'm thinking twice about having them make my Adrs. Is this the norm? I'm thinking I should have just booked it myself.

No it is not the norm. When I was a TA at KK dining reservations were made at the 180 day mark or as soon as I had a clients dining requests if they were booking inside 180 days. You can book your dining on your own and if you are inside of 180 days I would do just that.

 

[olinecoach61]

Your playing with fire, I would make your own ADRs.

 

[hull327]

That's not normal nor is it good customer service. When we booked with our excellent travel agent (not KK) she had tons of info on WDW in general that we wrote down a front and back of a sheet of paper. My wife hung up the phone, relayed the info over to me and then my wife called the TA back within 15 minutes. Based on the info she gave us we booked our trip and she suggested that if we wanted to book any character dinners for our children that we do it now so they're not full by the time our trip week came. My wife hung up again, we set some dates and called the TA back and provided her with the reservation requests. She called us back within 30 minutes with confirmation that everything had been done to our request and our trip went flawlessly.

 

[PrincessMia]

I agree. Personally, I don't even think I would trust anyone to make my ADR's. I feel like there are often "on the fly" decisions I need to make when something isn't available, or I have something in mind for a specific time. Of course, I have been told I'm a control freak. That could have something to do with it.

 

[Weather_Lady]

Absolutely, go ahead and make them on your own, especially if you're trying to go to a popular place!

We had a travel agent last time who was great at everything... except the ADRs. A week after the 180-day window opened, she casually e-mailed me for a list of the ADRs we wanted so she could make them. I told her I had already done so -- at 6:00am a week before. Her relaxed attitude was probably appropriate considering that we were traveling during a low crowd season without a lot of competition for ADRs, but I was still surprised that she was planning on doing it so late. (We had never discussed who was making the ADRs - I had assumed from the beginning that although she was funneling information to us about the restaurants, it was my job to make the ADRs.)

That experience is what pushed me toward making all of our arrangements myself from now on. I think going through a travel agent is great if you're new at Disney vacation planning, don't want the headache of making arrangements yourself, enjoy having someone to collaborate with on your plans, or don't want to have to keep up with every discount and refurbishment that is announced in the months leading to your trip. Since I actually ENJOY that level of involvement and obsessiveness, we really don't get much of an added benefit from using a travel agent, although I'm glad we did it at least once, and our agent was a delight to work with.

 

[graphite1326]

My agent offered. I am making them myself.

 

[fbp]

Your agent sounds like not a so good agent.

 

[KCheatle]

Wow! I would definitely re-think my travel agent if that were the case. I think we all know that certain restaurants (BOG and others) fill up almost instantly at the 180-day mark! Your travel agent should really know the importance of making ADRs 180 days out or risk not getting into the restaurant you want! I would contact Kingdom Konsultants and ask if they know how to "switch" over from one agent to another. Sorry about that! That's frustrating!

 

[LostPrincessKarleigh]

We booked our current trip thru Kingdom Konsultants but I booked all the ADRs. Not that I wouldn't trust them to do so because they have been awesome with all of our requests. I just like to handle the ADRs.

 

[JillC LI]

We booked our current trip thru Kingdom Konsultants but I booked all the ADRs. Not that I wouldn't trust them to do so because they have been awesome with all of our requests. I just like to handle the ADRs.

Me too. I like to be able to make changes on the fly depending on what is available since I know my touring intentions and backup dining preferences better than anyone else. I will say, though, that I once had to relinquish control of this task to KK because we were on safari in South Africa on the 180 day mark with no access to phone or computer, and our agent at KK got everything we told her in advance that we wanted.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

I don't think I could trust that agent with the rest of my trip at this point. Mind you, I still make my ADRs even when we do use an agent, but they should know the importance of making ADRs. Letting it go for a couple of days is just unacceptable IMO.

 

[tare]

Definately make those resies in your own. Sounds like trouble otherwise.

 

[JIMINYCR]

Something as important to us as ADR's...I always do them myself. I know what I want and I know what pleases me. I wouldn't leave them in the hands of any TA. I'm on the phone getting my reservations as soon as possible.
Don't stand for "I'll do it tomorrow"... because tomorrow may be too late. I'd be worried about what other "details" have been left for tomorrow.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

If they keep putting you off, that is not good service. Make the ressies yourself, and make sure all your other plans are made correctly and never use that agent again.

 

[copcarguyp71]

Find a new agent and reassign the reservation to them...they need to work for you and if they don't then move on!

 

[Tomi-Rocket]

Personally, I do not understand why anyone would leave making their ADR's to someone else. I get up at 6 am ready to call or get online to make SURE I am getting the restaurants we want. Some go within minutes of the lines opening and I have a hard time believing any TA is going to do the same for me. Even though I would never use a TA to plan and/or book our vacations I can sort-of see why others would but I love doing it all myself and have the satisfaction of knowing I did everything I needed when I needed. I like to ask questions myself, too, not get a third party to tell me what a CM said.