Booking flights through disney?

[happycamper83]

What has been everyone's experience with letting Disney cruise line take care of your flights?

The price seems reasonable enough, but I'm worried about not having any choice in flight times, getting stuck with bad connections, etc... please shed some light and help alleviate my fears!

Has anyone had specific experience with flights from Toronto ON (YYZ)?

[TammiMcMan]

Usually you can find better air fares on your own. If you go through Disney though, they'll guarantee you get on the ship, even if they have to pay to get you to the next port. I guess the planner in me, hates the fact that I can't select the time, airline or direct flight option. You can ask about flying down the night before and staying at the Hyatt right in the airport too. That can be a little less stressful.

You may want to look around a little more at flight options on your own before making a final decision. If you do book it through DCL and find something better in the meantime, I'm fairly certain you can cancel that portion of your package. Just as long as you are not paid in full yet. Definitely double check that though if it's a consideration.

[happycamper83]

I'm definitely a researchaholic... so yes, that part of me really hates not getting to pick the flight I want; however, the price I've been quoted is really good - about $300 cheaper than what I can get at any other airline at the moment. Yes, if I wait for a seat sale I might be able to find something cheaper, but the cheapest I've ever found was only about $50 cheaper.. and it was for very inconvenient flights... I've watched and researched this route on and off for the past 2 years in planning 2 disney trips, so I know it fairly well. I was actually very surprised with how reasonable the disney airfare was.

Anyways, since cost is really neither here nor there, I just wondered if anyone here had a direct experience with letting disney book their flights.

[MPLSguy]

Oh, find your own flights! I have a Land/Sea package cruise booked starting Sept 30th and when I had DCL look into the R/T from Minneapolis to Orlando I was quoted $520. When I did my own research I used travelocity.com and searched for the lowest fares for the time period, which was AirTran.

Then, using that as a starting point I then went onto the AirTran web site and did the same search for the same time period and fould an even lower "WEB Special" fare available for exactly the same flights as I found through travelocity.com.

Get this: DCL = $520.00USD AirTran = $164.00USD R/T

Take the time to search the web!!!!! You wont regret it :secret:

[happycamper83]

I am flying from Canada, so the airfare situation is not quite the same as flying within the USA. We have a lot more taxes and fees added to flights, etc.. it is very rare to find a "cheap" flight. Sometimes you can get lucky and find a charter sell-off, but when you have little room to be flexible with flights, that rarely works out.

I am very familiar with the rate patterns and have extensively researched using sites like kayak.com and directly with each airline.

To give some numbers to the scenario - we are two people travelling and Disney's airfare will add about $850 to our trip. Last year, I also travelled to Disney with one other person and the best rate we could find after months of looking for the "best" deal was about $750 and required us to arrive in orlando at midnight and leave orlando at 6am (two potential partial days wasted). There are sometimes cheaper fares.. but with lack of flexibility on dates, again, it's hard to make it work out, especially since we will be travelling during "reading week" (university break).

I am sure in most situations, disney's quoted airfare can be beat... but like I said earlier, by the time I factor in the extra $138 I will have to add on to my cruise for the land transfers (this is included if you let Disney book your air), the difference is very negligible. So price is not a factor in my decision, really. I'm more interested in hearing about the convenience side of Disney's air service - if people have been satisfied with the flights Disney selected for them, etc. From the responses though, seems like most people have simply bypassed this option so maybe this at least partially explains the lack of info about it out there....