How to Book Our Trip?

[Miss.Queenie]

My family and I will be traveling to Universal and Disney World June 2018. We are leaving from Maine, to Florida, and will be renting a car. We want to stay at the All Star Movie Resort during are entire stay even when we visit Universe and Volcano bay.

The thing is we are not sure how to book, in the past we always done it through Triple A, but we been observing Travolicty and wondering if that's a better deal?

OR, book it directly through Disney? This isn't our first trip, but we never booked anything through Travolcity before and were afraid if we have questions regarding booking, confirmation we'll have no one to ask.

 

[vcstr]

Definitely use a Disney Authorized agency! Kingdom Konsultants is a great bet - I'm sure someone on here has more detail to add but these agents can book for you at the same price you'd pay to book yourself and you get all the benefits of their experience and expertise!

 

[Mark Dymek]

we have always done it through disney. if you do it through them you cannot book universal of course.

 

[Nemo14]

Definitely use a Disney Authorized agency! Kingdom Konsultants is a great bet - I'm sure someone on here has more detail to add but these agents can book for you at the same price you'd pay to book yourself and you get all the benefits of their experience and expertise!

Definitely this! Pam or any of her agents here are the way to go. I'll tag her for you - @Kingdom Konsultant[/QUOTE]

 

[Hakunamatata]

My family and I will be traveling to Universal and Disney World June 2018. We are leaving from Maine, to Florida, and will be renting a car. We want to stay at the All Star Movie Resort during are entire stay even when we visit Universe and Volcano bay.

The thing is we are not sure how to book, in the past we always done it through Triple A, but we been observing Travolicty and wondering if that's a better deal?

OR, book it directly through Disney? This isn't our first trip, but we never booked anything through Travolcity before and were afraid if we have questions regarding booking, confirmation we'll have no one to ask.

@Kingdom Konsultant

 

[SAV]

2 years ago we found the best room deal on Cheap tickets, instead of directly through Universal.

This year I found the best deal directly through Disney.

If you are booking "Room Only", then IMO, there is no reason to go directly through Disney if another place will give you the same room for a better price. Just make sure your comparisons are apples to apples when looking at the total price for each site.

 

[MickeyMomV]

We always book directly through Disney.

It all really depends on how comfortable you are with planning everything. If you need help or want to leave the planning to somebody else I would do Kingdom Konsultants like others have mentioned. If you want total control and are willing to put in the little bit of time it takes I would just do it yourself through Disney. Either way I would advise against going through a random 3rd party agent that does not specialize in all things Disney, I've heard too many horror stories!! Lost reservation numbers, unable to make fast pass selections, unable to make dining selections and the list goes on and on.....

 

[yensid67]

Try Undercovertourist.com I have been researching prices with them and you can book Disney AND Universal WITH A DISCOUNT! All taxes are included and you can even add rental cars and Hotels once you book your tickets! Other than that I would try Otel.com they are a site I used from Trivago. I made reservations and have cancelled them with no problem and usually they are cheaper than undercovertourist for hotel! If renting a car, make sure you sign up for rewards program with brand. You can usually get some type of discount or upgrade. Also try going through Expedia Travelocity or other travel sites for car rentals, sometimes they have a better price! HINT: If you reserve a car through AVIS on a credit card, there is NO DEPOSIT! Enterprise will charge you $150+ ABOVE rental rate!(Just FYI) Whatever the brand you ho with, always check on required deposit before reserving!

 

[Mark Dymek]

We always book directly through Disney.

It all really depends on how comfortable you are with planning everything. If you need help or want to leave the planning to somebody else I would do Kingdom Konsultants like others have mentioned. If you want total control and are willing to put in the little bit of time it takes I would just do it yourself through Disney. Either way I would advise against going through a random 3rd party agent that does not specialize in all things Disney, I've heard too many horror stories!! Lost reservation numbers, unable to make fast pass selections, unable to make dining selections and the list goes on and on.....

not really that much time consuming. all you need to figure out is the hotel and then if you want the park hoper pases. i guess if your doing meal plannings or whatever that can take time.

 

[MickeyMomV]

not really that much time consuming. all you need to figure out is the hotel and then if you want the park hoper pases. i guess if your doing meal plannings or whatever that can take time.

Where the time comes in is that you have your original reservation (for some people picking a hotel is not as easy as it is for others), fast passes (if you don't know the process and know how to optimize your time a good TA can be a life savor), and dining reservations (planning 6 months in advance takes some work and looking at park calendars and EMH's). Then you have the time spent double checking for promo's and then calling to have promo's applied to your reservation. The call backs can take an hour or two each because you are calling at the same time as a couple of thousand other people who are trying add promo's to their reservation. Places like Kingdom Konsultants help you through it all. They know how to best optimize your vacation and they will just call and have any promotions applied for you.
That said, I still do it all myself. All of the extra time spent planning gets me though till its my time to go down again.

 

[dreamfinder]

As far as I am aware, except for a few select cases for things like sports/cheer tickets, WDW won't let you book anything directly from them for any cheaper than you can from a good TA. And in some cases, WDW usually won't offer up the cheaper option that a TA may unless you explicitly ask for it.
Now I say a good TA as your local TA, AAA office, or random online agent may not know (or care) that your ADRs need to be booked at a certain date/time. Or that you need your reservation number so that you can add it to your MDE account and book your FP+. There are several TAs that deal specifically with Disney (one has been mentioned several times already) who know all this, and take it into consideration. Also many will attempt to automatically rebook your trip to take advantage of any discounts that get announced that you are eligible for.
Now if you are willing to do the work and are a bit flexible in your travel, you could get a good deal through Travelocity, Expedia or similar. Sometimes they will have discounted WDW rooms (either via the WDW discount, or discounted rooms that WDW is trying to unload w/o doing a general public discount) and then run a stackable discount of their own on top. Or you may be able to use their discount on a full price room at a time when WDW doesn't have any other discounts available. You may have to take a few attempts with their customer service to get the information you need to add it to MDE, but they will eventually get it to you.

 

[Kingdom Konsultant]

Keep in mind that if you do book with a TA such as Kingdom Konsultant Travel, it is not set in stone that we HAVE to do your dining, etc. That is our clients choice. If they want to control making their own ADR's they certainly can. We are there to be online or on the phone when the discounts drop to try to save you money so you don't have to. We try to take the stress out of planning your vacation so whether you want us to make your dining, etc that is your choice. We like to give you the option

Pam

 

[BigRedDad]

My advice for anyone going to Universal is to stay onsite for 1 night at one of the resorts that get you in an hour early. This gives you 2 days of early entry to WWOHP, unlimited front of line access, and some other little benefits. Yes, you can buy the 1-use per attraction fast pass thing. However, once you add up the price, it would be cheaper to stay at one of the resorts for a night. By doing US this way, you can pretty much do all of it in 2 days. Otherwise, it will probably take longer with all of the waiting.

I would use a TA that are experts at all of Orlando's attractions. They would be able to serve you better.