Using a travel agent for your disney trip

Yes, for my trips I used Debbie Kuhns from Magical Journeys. As you can probably guess from the name, it's a Disney specialist agency.

I normally like to book everything myself when I travel, but I decided to use her for my first trip because there was a discount code I wanted to take advantage of, and from everything I read online, getting through to Disney reservations often required long periods of time spent on the phone, trying to get through. I have to work, so I didn't have time for that. I let her deal with it.

She was so terrific, that I decided I'd book through her for all my WDW trips from now on, as long as I'm staying on site. (After all, I'm not paying for it. It doesn't hurt me to throw some business her way.) I still make all the decisions about where to stay, eat, etc., but it saves me the hassle of having to deal with WDW directly. It's sort of like having a personal assistant, which is probably the closest I'll ever get to that experience!

I don't know if generalist travel agencies are like that, bali, but I can assure you, Magical Journeys is not. Debbie has never pushed me to upgrade or add on anything. She always asks me what I want and then makes sure I get it.

Other than that, though, the last time I used a travel agent was about 15 years ago when I went to England; that was before the Internet made booking travel yourself so easy.

I've never used one, but it might be fun to make someone else do all the work. Especially with ADRs.

I use my AAA travel agent, Travis. I love him. he used to work in Disney so he has lots of good information for me!

He books the resort and the flight and gets all my papers and things to me, all the grunt work. Then he sends me a form with a reservation number which tells me when I can call to book ADRs - I do that myself!

In fact, I can call to book, THURSDAY!!!!!

You going to do Le Cellier again? "again"

Who? Moi?

They brought the food back to your room last time right? So you've actually had it?

Hey! Congratulations! Do you have your restaurants lined up?

I had my food brought back to me and it was good. Personally, I really liked the atmosphere (from the little I experienced, lol)
My husband, however, was not impressed! Here's his review (if you wanna call it a review, LOL)
http://www.dudeindisney.com/2008/12/le-cellier-steakhouse.html

Thank you!! Yes we do and I was just about to post it here!

I actually formed a small travel company (Royal Travel Group) because I wanted to do group travel. Let me throw my two cents worth in. I love to travel and I love to PLAN travel, so I never used an agency even before I started my own.

You have to be careful these days too. With the change in commission structures in the travel business, the typical "storefront agency" has gone the way of the Dodo bird. Anybody with a phone and $40 a month can become a "travel agent", so you want to make sure you're dealing with a reputable one. (I say this NOT as a slam. I believe the "home based travel agent" is the way of the future and the industry is growing by leaps and bounds in that direction!)

Having said that, if you don't like the nuts and bolts of figuring out itineraries, etc., I'd find a good person you trust who knows Disney and utilize them. But if you hang out on boards like these, you'll end up knowing the basics as much as they do, and to me its more fun to do the figuring yourself.

Best thing an agent can offer you is up to the minute info about specials, etc., but HEY!!! You can get that at www.mousetraveler.tv/blog!!!!!! (for FREE even!!!)

Saw the thread--looks great!

Really interesting, MT. When did you form your travel company, and do you do anything but group travel bookings?

DW was thinking about doing the home travel agent thing in her spare time (we figured it makes sense to put this disney knowledge to use somewhere except our own vacations), but we can't figure out which sites to trust and which to bypass.

I do very little individual, although I'm working with Jana at LTAD to handle local bookings for me in my market. We're about to kick that off.
In order to do the home based travel thing, you have to have a "host agency". There are a lot of them out there. They offer varying cost structures, and in return commission levels so you need to see which one best suits your needs.
I ended up working under Travel Planners, International which is headquartered in a suburb of Orlando. I'm seriously looking at an 'Expedia Cruise Ship Centers" franchise though, which I really like and which would allow me to put together a pretty neat agency much more easily. I really like the Expedia model, as every agent gets their own website that actually integrates into Expedia's travel search engine.

Thank you so much for that info. I'll pass it along to her. Would examples of "host agencies" be those everpresent Disney Certified agencies (e.g. Small World Vacations, etc.)?

Would the Expedia franchise be an addition to your current set-up, or something else altogether?

"Certifications" come from study that you do once you are an agent. You can usually get that regardless of your host agency. Just about every major travel group (individual cruise lines, hotel chains, etc) has a certification program. Some of them offer some really good rewards once you've put your work in.

If I do Expedia, we'll still operate under the same umbrella that I do now. We'll just work through a different host agency. I have some ideas that will make it much easier to do an "agency type group" that I can do with them that I can't do now.

If you are an Expedia agent, you either have to fall under the main company or a franchisee, and the costs and benefits to the individual agent are the same. There are advantages to working with a smaller group that maybe specializes in some areas. Maybe we can work together on that!

Does all this mean I can make MT plan my next vacation?

Heh-heh, where theres a will, theres a way!

(Get enough people with you and I'll go WITH you!!!)

A WDWForGrownups ROAD TRIP!!!

I think that that would be the kind of blast you can't approach with dynamite.

Jim

I'll drive!

We use AAA and it works out really well. The discounts are what get us there, but they are so helpful with everything so we keep going bacl!

Would love to hear more about the discounts. I've heard a lot about a AAA fastpass, too...

Basically you save on rooms all the time with AAA, a higher percentage for a nicer resort...and it really adds up. We have our AAA membership for the car stuff, the Disney discounts are just a perk!

They also give a nice coupon book too - for things like World of Disney, certain other shops in the park, storytelling sessions, ect. Our agent also gave us wine on our cruise for the honeymoon which was really nice.

Good question. I've always wondered if I have to book the whole vacation with AAA to get the up-front parking at the parks....