Travel agent Q

[krystee]

Is there a cost to this, or do they get paid by Disney? If you used one, what did you find most helpful or valuable?

[lala]

They get paid by Disney, no added cost. I actually don't use one, though.

[miss1180]

i've used one for a trip to Disney, and 2 disney cruises. It didn't cost me any extra- she gets commission from Disney. So technically even if you book right through Disney, some of your money is gong to some travel agent somewhere anyway :-)
I went to Disney all growing up, so i didn't really "need" the help- i pretty much know my way around. BUT if i'm going there anyway, and booking through her helps her small business get a few dollars- it can't hurt :-)
i LOVE her though!!! She sends me FB messages when new info or new discounts come out, she got up at 5:30 AM the day we could make our dining reservations, and made them all for us so i didn't have to, she stayed on the phone for who knows how long when the free dining "sale" got released and made sure we got it applied to our reservation, she sent us a whole itinerary/info right before we left, along with some little gifts for DS.... she really was great!! especially if you haven't been a ton, or just don't feel like doing it- its nice to have somebody on your "side". i hear some agents aren't all that involved, though so it depends...

[skwcm80]

I used a TA for our trip, and didn't pay her anything. I tried to book out trip myself, and found myself very overwhelmed. She came in and got me started, she took care of our FP & ADRs. She took care of our Soarin FPs when I couldn't on Saturday morning, and hasn't ever taken more than a few hours to respond to my questions.

[zarapipe]

skwcm80, miss1180, when she makes ADR's and FP- do you just tell her what you want? Are you able to change them online if needed or does everything need to go through her?

[Brie]

No cost to you. The best benefit was that they dealt with the headaches of waiting on hold to get promotions like free dining for us, and stayed up late to make FP reservations. He got my mom and C FP+ for the new Frozen ride over the weekend and all we did was email him and tell him we wanted them.

It's just a time saver and they make sure you don't forget to do anything, like reserve DME or whatever.

[skwcm80]

May 23, 2016 11:10:22 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

skwcm80 , miss1180 , when she makes ADR's and FP- do you just tell her what you want? Are you able to change them online if needed or does everything need to go through her?

I told her what I wanted, general timing, and she booked them. I can still go into MDE to change them, and have done so.

[zarapipe]

How do they do this for like hundreds of people and get what everyone wants? I'm amazed by these magical workers.

[Amy]

Most of us don't have hundreds of clients and often our clients like to book things themselves. And we don't always get everything for everyone all the time, which we warn clients about. We do our best, but we're human.
The days that big discounts come out and we need to try and switch over our clients are pretty rough.

[miss1180]

May 23, 2016 11:10:22 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

skwcm80 , miss1180 , when she makes ADR's and FP- do you just tell her what you want? Are you able to change them online if needed or does everything need to go through her?

i just told her what i wanted, and general times and she tried her best to get them as close as possible to what i wanted.  you can definitely still go on there and change things yourself if you want to. I think the only thing you can't do on your own is change resorts or cancel the whole trip, if you decide to cancel... pretty sure the agent has to do that for you.

and as far as doing it for hundreds of clients... i know my agent works with a group of about 10 other agents. so I'm guessing they might spread the clients around if they have "too many" that are traveling in a certain week or whatever...  not sure though! i was always amazed how she kept everything straight!!!!

[dale]

I loved using an agent. Yes, I changed my dining reservations a few times after she did them. But what made it great for me was when I was hiking with my DS's cub scout pack and got a text that she got us a huge discount that let us move up from moderate to deluxe for almost no change in price. Then a couple of months later she got us a dining discount that saved us another $100.