A question about trip planning

[meowchi]

I am planning a trip to Disney for next summer. I have priced packages from travel agents. I have 3 separate trips, one is mine and 2 daughters the others are a daughter her son and my other daughter and the 3rd is my son and his girlfriend. We want to stay in the all star sports or one of those so we have separated ourselves into 3 separate trips. My question is why are the trips from the travel agent so much more than if I did it separately? I priced the plane and the room and the 5 day park hopper pass. It comes to 1300.00 for my daughter and her 1 yr old. I'd be paying the pass and plane price for the other daughter. The travel agent priced it for 1800.00 for her and her son. This was before he was going to have his own seat too. My son I priced separately for 7 days at about 1500.00 give or take a hundred and the travel agent has him at 2400.00. My trip for 2 daughters and my dh and I was 3800.00. So add to this the 500. plus for the 3rd dd. This is also with no car, but transfers to and from. My question is why is it cheaper to do separately than from the 3 travel agents I have talked to.

 

[gillis95]

Not for sure on this but I would assume anything is cheaper doing it yourself. I know there is not a 'fee' for you to pay but I would image they have to build in payment for themselves somewhere. They might be getiing packages which have lots of "bonuses' that you probably won't use. You pay for the convenience of having someone plan your trip for you. If you have taken the time to do it yourself then book the cheapest one you found.

 

[Gretchen]

The travel agent is most likely booking a package: Room at WDW resort with passes. The passes are good for the length of your stay, from check in day to check out day for everything. All four parks, water parks etc. The park hopper passes come in day increments: 4,5,6 etc day, and can be one of two types, regular and pluss. The pluss include the water parks etc, the regular only the four major parks, Epcot, MGM, MK and AK. Also, the length of stay pass (or whatever the call it now) expires on the day you check out. The Hopper passes are good forever. So if you don't use a day (say if you went to Universal, or hung out at the resort for the day) you could use that day on a future trip. We have four of us, me, husband, daughter 7 and son 18 mos. We will save like 1000 dollars or something like that by planning the trip myself with hopper passes. We usually go in the cooler months, and with my kids, we don't do the water parks. The first trip we took, just husband and me, we used a travel agent. The rest I did myself, and saved a bucket load of money. Do it yourself, and have a great time. The people on these boards will help you if you need it! Have fun!
Gretchen

 

[meowchi]

Thank you and I think I will just plan it all myself.