Traditionally, booking a grand vacation like a trip to Disney could only be achieved through booking with a high street travel agent, an online holiday company (like Disney Holidays or Expedia) or with airlines’ holiday arms (such as Virgin Holidays or British Airways’ Holidays).
These choices can work well, and many vacationers feel more confident and reassured in booking a package of flights, car, hotel or house, and park tickets from one supplier.
In this instance there’s only one company to engage with, one company to contact with any questions, and only one company to pay – many good, solid reasons to pursue this approach.
Both the package approach and the do-it-yourself approach have merits, neither is better than the other – it just comes down to which approach works best for you and which delivers “best value”.
In our experience, a package booking tends to be a more expensive option (but not always!), compared with booking each individual item of the Disney vacation with a different provider who’s an expert in their own field.
And if you’re going to mix it up and perhaps have a week in Orlando followed by a week on the coast or exploring the Florida Keys, for example, then you’ll need to put your own package together, as most package providers work best when you’re staying in one Orlando destination for the whole trip.
As with anything substantial that you buy it’s worth shopping around. A Disney vacation is no different. It’s a substantial cost and there are many companies vying for your custom.
So, when you have your dates and you know your high-level itinerary, go back to the package providers for solid quotes, and price-up your own package using the providers we talk about in the subsequent planning steps.
For us, we have always gone down the DIY route, because that works for us (and we like saving money if and when we can!).
As a summary (and with much more detail in the following steps), we generally (but not exclusively) use the following providers to provide the various elements of our Disney vacation: