Disney Air for Wonder Cruise

[Chattyaholic]

This will be our fourth cruise. Planning a 4-day Wonder cruise with my parents and I requested a quote from Dreams, including air. We want to fly out the day before as we live in Michigan and the weather in January can be very unpredictable as far as snow is concerned. Tricia, from Dreams, says Disney does not allow this. Only flights from the west coast can go the day before. And, to guarantee a non-stop flight they want another $50 per person! We could fly from Grand Rapids, which is what we did for our first cruise, but had a connecting flight. We don't want that, with my parents. So, that is why we would fly out from Detroit, so it would be a non-stop flight. But they won't guarantee that unless we pay more $$$. Ridiculous!! I'm not at all impressed!!!

So, what have others done? Did you book your own flights on line through cheaptickets.com or some other web site, or did you call an airline directly, or did you go through a travel agent? I tried to check flights for next January on cheap tickets but it's too early (needs to be 330 days from today). So, I guess I'll just have to wait.

 

[jfeasel]

I found out about the extra $50 to guarantee a direct flight on our last cruise so this time we booked our own air. Also, we are traveling with 4 children under 12 and Disney Air couldn't guarantee that the seats would be together. Since Disney Air buys seats in bulk, it's whatever they have available that you get. I cruised on RC this past summer and had to make connecting flights and both flights were delayed. I was totally frazzled and got to the ship later than expected, thank goodness the kids weren't with me on that one.

So, to ensure a direct flight the day of the cruise, we booked our own air for our Magic Eastern this summer but did buy the Disney transfers. Also, if you book your own air, you can fly in the night before and stay at the Hyatt that is right at the airport and still use Disney transportation to get you to the port.

 

[Lilly's Dad]

buy your air tickets separately and save bigtime. rental car works out to be about same price as DCL bus, and its better to rent since you're staing in hotel. book far in advance. Incidentally, Ohio State Rules !

 

[DreaminDisney]

We always book air on our own when traveling to WDW and will book it ourselves for our Cruise 5/04. We find It's much cheaper that way and we can fly out the day before the actual cruise. Here are some places we've booked through:

www.orbitz.com
www.itasoftware.com
www.cheaptickets.com
www.travelocity.com
www.expedia.com

Debbie

 

[TeamMom011]

we booked air through Disney and didn't have a problem with paying the extra $50 per to pick and choose our flights. When we got our tickets we found the extra passenger we added to our booking last November was planted nowhere near the rest of us. TA tried to change location but was told could not. Her advice was to show up early and try to change at the airport. DH called Delta directly on Monday and was told since seats are part of the Disney block, they can't modify seating. In an earlier thread someone said that as far as the airline is concerned the Disney tickets are sold as one big happy group and there is little attempt made to ensure parties traveling together are sitting next to each other. Families yes, but only if the tickets are sold on the same reservation number. Airline's suggestion was same as TA's. Get to the airport early. So due to code Orange, we're aiming to be at the airport 2 1/2 hrs early this Friday to try to get us all together.

Long story short: NEVER book air through Disney!

 

[mkauffman]

We let Disney book our air for our land/sea cruise and I won't do it again. First of all, we couldn't get seats on the plane together, and I have two children. My DH was furious. Also, we paid a ridiculous amount for the flight and we could have booked it a lot cheaper on our own. I thought it would be so much easier to have Disney do it, and it was, but we paid a price for it! This time we booked our own air for 6 different families through Orbitz. MUCH CHEAPER and it wasn't difficult at all. We also got seat numbers immediately and my kids are sitting with us.....imagine that!

Do it on your own, you won't be sorry!

 

[Señor Ferrari]

Lately, it has been cheaper to book our own, but when it was cost-effective, we'd book air with DCL. We always got the same flights, with a layover in Dallas for about an hour. Not a big deal for me. Flying from the west coast, the air package included a night at the Hyatt. The price of DCL air has gone way up, so it's now cheaper for us to book it separately. We still buy the transfers and stay at the Hyatt.

If you do book air through DCL, you don't have to wait until your docs arrive to get your seat assignments. You can call DCL's air desk (just call the reservations # and ask for the air desk) and get your flight information 30 days before travel. You can then call the airline to get seat assignments, and you can almost always get your party seated together.

You do pay for the convenience, and if there are problems with cancelled flights or the ship being late upon return, they are responsible for re-arranging your travel plans. But at some point, it's just makes more sense to book it yourself. I usually figure $46/person for the transfers, and $99 for the Hyatt. I subract that from the total for the air package and can figure out how much I'm actually saving by booking it myself.

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

Guess we may be an exception but given chattyholic's location I am REALLY confused by the information she was given.

We have always booked our air through DCL as it has always proven to be no MORE than what we could get on our own and usually less. We fly out of GRAND RAPIDS, MI!

The connection isn't a problem for us and have never had difficulty getting at least 2 and 2 seating so there is one adult with one child.

When we booked last summer for upcoming cruise in June we did this again. As in the past the quote received was less than the going rates at the time. Could we possibly have waited and picked something up last minute? Maybe but that is outside of our comfort zone knowing how crazed our lives get in the spring. If we were flying into Orlando same day as the cruise departs there would have been no upcharge. Since we are opting to fly in the day before and YES that is an option from Grand Rapids MI, there is an upcharge but it was minimal and includes our lodging at the Hyatt. Again this was a convenience decision. Since that day will be simply a travel day we are not specifying flights so there was no upcharge for that although we were told if we wanted to select the specific flight there would be.

The TA is correct that folks flying in from the west coast have that option without the upcharge, but the option is available. I don't care January or June the weather out of here is too unpredicatable to cut it that close!

BTW - if you have the option of flying out of GR where are you in Michigan?

Deb

 

[IrishCowboy]

I'm a control freak and prefer to do things myself. We've always booked our own flights and fly into Orlando the day before each cruise. It's cheaper. It's very easy to rent a car and stay at the Radisson. This also allows you to get onboard early, sign up for Spa/Palo's.

 

[DVC4US]

We decided to book our own air and transportation. Living in Iowa and going on a cruise in March we also did not want to get trapped by weather. We decided to go down a couple of days early at stay at VWL. Disney wanted to charge us extra for coming in early so I did it online through American. We also decided to set up our own transportation because the buses don't leave the hotels til 10am. Having been on previous cruises I like to get to the terminal early and beat the crowd. By purchasing my own tickets and ground transportation which includes: airport to hotel (towncar), hotel to terminal (stretch limo), and terminal to airport (towncar), we saved approx. $700. This also aloud us choose our flights, seats and what time to be picked up.

1 month and counting

 

[Rock'n Robin]

We are doing our first cruise in June and booked everything separate--cruise and VWL after, then the flights, then the Avis car from MCO to the Port, then the night at the Radisson. Next we'll book Yourride from the POrt to VWL and VWL to the airport. If you look at these boards a lot you don't really need a TA.
Robin M.

 

[moocow35]

I booked through Dreams for this years and next years cruise. I paid the extra to fly in a day early which included a night at the Hyatt. I don't know why you couldn't request that. The extra $180.00 was well worth it for direct flights, and a night at the hotel. I feel better using Disney for the Air, especially because we always go in February, and here in Connecticut if a storm closes the Airport, they are responsible to get you to the Ship on time.

Robin ºOº

 

[sigafoos]

For us to fly red-eye from the West coast Disney wanted 550 per person. I booked our own for 225 per person. There are 5 in our group so I saved us 1625! We are staying 1 night after the cruise at ASM plus park passes and still paying less than what it would have cost to let Disney fly us in. If we had wanted to fly home a day later they would have charged us a air deviation fee. We are flying in the day before and arrive at midnight Friday before the Sat. departure so even with delays or missed connections we would be able to get there.
Kim

 

[Chattyaholic]

I really appreciate everyone's input, thanks so much!! I did TRY to get our flight the day before, but Tricia at Dreams (I had requested Cathy, as she was my agent last time, but for some reason they assigned me to Tricia) said that was not possible. She said ONLY west coast people are allowed to fly down the day before. This was NOT acceptable at all. And with my parents I did NOT want a connecting flight. DH and I had a connecting flight last time and were late arriving so we literally had to RUN on that "people mover thingie" to catch our flight and we were among the last half-dozen or so people to board. We just KNEW our luggage was NOT going to make it, but somehow it did. But anyway, with my parents along this time a connecting flight was something we just knew we didn't want to try and handle with them. And to have to pay another $50 per person just to be guaranteed a non-stop flight is ridiculous. We will be booking our own air and I'm sure we'll save $$$ that way, plus we'll be able to GET WHAT WE WANT instead of being at their mercy!!!

 

[Kreid001]

Thanks for this thread!

I just checked expedia.com and found plenty of flights for our cruise in December that are $200 LESS PER PERSON than what I'm currently paying DCL to handle the flights. For my family of 5, that's a savings of $1000 !

As soon as my reservation is changed with DCL to drop the flights, I'll be booking my own flights, arriving the day before, and still save over $800 even after the hotel and meals. I'll be first in line to get on the Wonder with $800 extra dollars in my pocket!

 

[CRSNDSNY]

I always do a LOT of comparison shopping first. It is always a huge savings for me to get our flight separately through expedia.com.