Ready to book but who to use?

[Bigdog2003]

I think we are ready to book our first Disney cruise. My question is when you booked did you book directly through Disney or did you use someone else. I saw on Priceline for example that they have an offer right now if you book through them you get a free three night stay in a hotel. But when we booked with carnival it was nice having the peace of mind of booking directly with them. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[racingfandj]

I have read a lot about travel agents, but have never personally used one. I read where you can get extra onboard credit through them.

 

I booked everything directly through the Disney website. It was quick and easy and all within my control. :D

[Shmoo here]

We're not allowed to recommend/promote any specific TAs or TA type sites here.

 

Our first cruise (and all others but one) we booked directly with the cruiselines. We're in the middle of plans for another cruise, which we used a TA for. In the future, I think we'll just handle our own reservations.

 

If you're new to cruising, and unsure of how things work, I'd suggest that you find a Disney-trained travel specialist (one who has participated in the training that Disney provides) for your first cruise.

 

:)

[Friend100]

I have read a lot about the control you can have when booking directly with the cruiseline, but personally I have never tried them. I always book through a TA (online or brick and mortar) and I always appreciate the services and additional perks they provided.

[pluto,]

just book with disneycruise.com or give them a call. like others have said you have complete control. you have to get a hold of your ta to make any changes disney will not talk to you if you have a ta. the only time when i dont use disneycruise is when im booking with points than of course i use dvc.

[jalves]

We've booked 5 out of 6 Disney cruises through one TA because they give us good service and an extra onboard credit.

[Donna_In_India]

I booked directly with Disney. I have not needed to add anything, change anything, etc. so not really sure what would be in or out of my control. With cruising being so competitive, I'd consider a cruise agency where a booking comes with some perks. Anything free is nice and you sure won't get that from Disney!! :)

[Gary from PA]

The problem with dealing with Disney Cruise Line directly is that their phones are extremely busy and you are on hold forever.

 

Their website sucks and their phone lines suck too.

[reimero]

With DCL, the DCL website, TAs and other resellers all end up charging (pretty much) the same price (although some websites do tend to present the cost breakdown differently to give the illusion of a better deal.) At the end of the day, it comes down to "extras." Some TAs give extra onboard credit, others give you other "stuff" (frequent flier miles, credit card rewards points, that sort of thing.)

 

There's no one "right" answer.

[Host Mick]

To answer a question that I had to delete:

Travel agents are singled out as opposed to taxis and tour operators because way back in the early days of Cruise Critic when we were AOL keyword: Cruise, we got innundated with travel agents posting on our boards, selling their services. We banned them but then they showed up as shill posters, banned then they came back as links in signatures...

 

If you'll notice, most of the advertisers on Cruise Critic are travel agents. We're a business so if a travel agent wants to advertise on our boards, they are welcome to buy an ad.

We still welcome travel agents to the boards as opinionated and informed members but they can't advertise their business.

Tour operators, shuttle buses and others in the cruise business are still welcome on cruise critic because they haven't made a nuisance of themselves yet but we still ban those that post to advertise their businesses and shill posters. Legitimate third party discussions of tour operators, shuttles etc are welcome.

BTW, the aggregators like, you know, the gnome company and Capt. Kirk's business are considered travel agents. For fun, look up who owns Cruise Critic to see how across the board we are about this policy.

 

It's all up top under GUIDELINES.

Signing off now because I'm violating board policy and I can hear the boss' spiked stilettos coming down the hall.

[Gary from PA]

Signing off now because I'm violating board policy and I can hear the boss' spiked stilettos coming down the hall.

 

I did not know, Lady GaGa owned this site :)

[DakotaDisneyLover]

I book with whomever will give me the most perks. On our upcoming cruise, for example, I booked with a well known online TA and received an extra $100 OBC that is combinable with DCL's $25 OBC. I have always gotten great service from the sites I have booked with, and have always felt in control of our reservation. My advice is to shop around. We booked our last cruise with a local TA - there were 4 families going. We got a welcome fruit basket in our cabin, free floats at Castaway Cay, chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our cabin and wine at dinner one night - all compliments of our TA (a national agency).

[xcell]

when we booked the fantasy i booked via disney - they were able to find me 4 adjacent cabins, and connecting cabins to boot (not all 4 but 2 cabins X 2).

 

trying to do that online would be hard but not impossibe - if you book on line I think I get a $25 OBC per room.

 

there is a TA on the disney boards that would have given me about $150 OBC per room + the $25 but they needed a fresh book and couldnt just transfer the booking over so I hesitated because I didn't want to loose the rooms. As well, I'm in Canada and they are a US company so no recourse if anything goes wrong. i usually book with either the company (ie. CCl, Disney, etc...) or via my credit card travel agent (perks for them is 5% cash back)...

[cruisedisneyfan]

I prefer to book directly through Disney so that there's no middle man. It's the whole "control your own destiny" thing. :)

To avoid the long hold times when calling DCL simply plan a time to call when it's not a peak calling time. Plus, once you've sailed with them once and enrolled in the Castaway Club, you have your own private number to call, just for Castway Club members which helps alot too.

[helenb]

I'm a control freak. I love to book directly myself and be able to make any changes I want, rather than ging through a TA.

 

That being said, the benefits of going through a TA are too significant for me to ignore when booking a cruise. My cruise TA knows me well, and her agency gives incredible amounts of OBC with every cruise purchased (we usually end up with $500 to $700 or more foor a 7-12 day cruise). This is true for any cruise line, not just DCL.

 

So I suck up my control freak tendencies when I think about that OBC that covers all of my tips, soda stickers, specialty restaurant, etc....

[Muushka]

I booked our family's (4 cabins, 11 people) cruise.

I knew that we would switch it to a TA (which gave substantial gift cards with each cabin) once the reservation was completed.

 

Once everything was complete (well, so far) and everyone was happy with their cabin (after changing 3 out of 4 cabins) we switched over to the TA.

 

Transfer is easy, took about 10 minutes total including faxing over the request to DCL.

[happy2bee]

Is there any difference if you use a TA or book thru Disney when it comes to upgrades? Not necessarily the "pixie dust" kind, but the ones you might be able to do when you check in?

[CruiseMomCrystal]

My TA offers a substantial obc for all sailings and checks price drops as well, invaluable to have in my opinion. I still get to book my own excursions/spa/childcare etc so I still have some control, and for anything else, I'd prefer to have my agent call in for me anyways, I hate waiting on the phone, lol.

 

Is there any difference if you use a TA or book thru Disney when it comes to upgrades? Not necessarily the "pixie dust" kind, but the ones you might be able to do when you check in?

 

 

Upgrades are strictly at Disney's discretion when they are assigning staterooms regardless of who you book through. (pixie dust kind)

 

As for upgrading at checkin, that also does not matter whom you book through. When checking in you just ask the CM if there are any upgrades available and they will let you know your options if there are any :)

[cyclenut]

We used to book through a TA, then we booked our DCL Alaska trip directly. We were not happy with certain aspects of the trip so we visited a TA about moving our future DCL trips to another line. They told us they really do have more leverage to deal with "satisfaction" issues.

 

So ... we transferred our future cruises and booked another one, through the TA.

 

Well, we're not happy with the service the TA is providing. They have messed up airline flights, seem uninformed about hotel shuttle options and when we asked questions about excursions, they just sent us to the web site to research and book on our own. When it came time to make the full payment, they sent full payment to a 2013 cruise instead of the one where full payment was due.

 

We really are not that demanding, but the DCL booking experience was outstanding. No issues or problems with that whatsoever. Our issues with DCL were with the onboard experience.