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Post by tomandrobin on Nov 19, 2023 7:16:16 GMT -5
This was a school trip, not a regular type of a trip where we got tickets as part of the whole music festival whatever they called it this spring. It was part of a recording thingie they did too. The tickets were highly discounted tbh. Still our TA did suck and suck badly. I was quite pissed with the amount I spent on my kid's trip to stay off site for 4 days. Very unhappy tbh. They're talking doing Disney again next year. If we do it, I will push to let my kid stay with me. I'm not repeating that hot mess of a trip. Those Conference/Meeting tickets are highly discounted and are quota driven.
Most TAs are only in the business as a part time job or to make extra money. When Robin first started her company, she got invited to a big Disney TA meeting.....I cant recall exactly what it was now. She was worried that she was over her head and might embarrass herself. Afterwards, Robin was dumbfounded on how much the other agents did not know. The questions they asked were embarrassing for them. After that conference, she realized how much better informed she was over most of the agents at the meeting.
Hopefully if the school goes that route next year, they use an actual Disney TA who goes to Disney. There are plenty around and I am sure there probably a few in your state. Unfortunately, situations like this usually has some one on a committee who has a friend/neighbor/cousin that sells travel, that they end up hiring.
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Post by rescueranger on Nov 19, 2023 11:49:25 GMT -5
Slight update to my plans.....
So the 7 nights before Christmas and doing just the party has gone a bit crazy........
We have booked 9 nights with a UK 14 day ticket so we can park hop and do Blizzardbeach (weather dependent) Currently we are staying in All stars as could not find any thing DVC confirmed res as of yet. But our Disney stay is full amendable for no fee up to 7 days before. So just gives us a fall back.
We will be in Florida from the 18-27th. RIP my bank account.
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Post by helenabear on Nov 19, 2023 12:12:29 GMT -5
This was a school trip, not a regular type of a trip where we got tickets as part of the whole music festival whatever they called it this spring. It was part of a recording thingie they did too. The tickets were highly discounted tbh. Still our TA did suck and suck badly. I was quite pissed with the amount I spent on my kid's trip to stay off site for 4 days. Very unhappy tbh. They're talking doing Disney again next year. If we do it, I will push to let my kid stay with me. I'm not repeating that hot mess of a trip. Those Conference/Meeting tickets are highly discounted and are quota driven.
Most TAs are only in the business as a part time job or to make extra money. When Robin first started her company, she got invited to a big Disney TA meeting.....I cant recall exactly what it was now. She was worried that she was over her head and might embarrass herself. Afterwards, Robin was dumbfounded on how much the other agents did not know. The questions they asked were embarrassing for them. After that conference, she realized how much better informed she was over most of the agents at the meeting.
Hopefully if the school goes that route next year, they use an actual Disney TA who goes to Disney. There are plenty around and I am sure there probably a few in your state. Unfortunately, situations like this usually has some one on a committee who has a friend/neighbor/cousin that sells travel, that they end up hiring.
I believe there is an issue too with our school needing to use travel agents from an approved list of agencies. The group that we used is Bob Rogers Travel and is really well known in the midwest at least for doing high school and college trips. Personally I think they absolutely suck. They are talking about doing another Disney trip with the band maybe next year and my kid is already said that we are going to stay together as a family during the trip because the rest of it is just such a hot mess. And knowing what happened this past trip, I will fight to make sure I don't have to pay for tickets twice anyway. I will look into this though, and see if we would be allowed to use anyone else versus who we use last year. I'm a little worried that my kid is using the same travel company to go to New York City in april, but his teachers are the ones basically running the trip and have done this every other year for ages so hopefully it'll be better run from that point of view. If we use the same company and do Disney again or even if we just do Disney again next year for band, I've interjected myself to say that we need to have someone who actually knows what they're doing because we had none of that last time. We even had a teacher who was a formal Disney travel agent, but as you said he was just a part-time guy who did it outside of his job of teaching and eventually got tired of trying to do both. He had no clue how to deal with teenagers and all the issues that this type of trip brought up because he was only used to doing like a single family at a time. I was called in more than once to help and I was kind of annoyed because I could have helped make this better much earlier on had they asked. But we were stuck using this TA group at that point anyway. |
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Post by helenabear on Nov 19, 2023 12:20:35 GMT -5
Slight update to my plans..... So the 7 nights before Christmas and doing just the party has gone a bit crazy........ We have booked 9 nights with a UK 14 day ticket so we can park hop and do Blizzardbeach (weather dependent) Currently we are staying in All stars as could not find any thing DVC confirmed res as of yet. But our Disney stay is full amendable for no fee up to 7 days before. So just gives us a fall back. We will be in Florida from the 18-27th. RIP my bank account. Awesome! Well except for the bank account lol. I hope you have a great trip! |
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Post by Eeyorelover22 on Nov 19, 2023 12:54:36 GMT -5
Slight update to my plans..... So the 7 nights before Christmas and doing just the party has gone a bit crazy........ We have booked 9 nights with a UK 14 day ticket so we can park hop and do Blizzardbeach (weather dependent) Currently we are staying in All stars as could not find any thing DVC confirmed res as of yet. But our Disney stay is full amendable for no fee up to 7 days before. So just gives us a fall back. We will be in Florida from the 18-27th. RIP my bank account. Have you ever been for Christmas? It really is amazing. You’re leaving when the crush of crowds really hits. I hope you have an amazing trip. |
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Post by rescueranger on Nov 19, 2023 13:05:27 GMT -5
Slight update to my plans..... So the 7 nights before Christmas and doing just the party has gone a bit crazy........ We have booked 9 nights with a UK 14 day ticket so we can park hop and do Blizzardbeach (weather dependent) Currently we are staying in All stars as could not find any thing DVC confirmed res as of yet. But our Disney stay is full amendable for no fee up to 7 days before. So just gives us a fall back. We will be in Florida from the 18-27th. RIP my bank account. Have you ever been for Christmas? It really is amazing. You’re leaving when the crush of crowds really hits. I hope you have an amazing trip. Only ever been in August. Luckily we did so many rides in the summer we want to experience all the festivity's and see all the parks lite up. Also get to finally see animal kingdom at night ! |
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Post by brp on Nov 19, 2023 13:34:26 GMT -5
Have you ever been for Christmas? It really is amazing. You’re leaving when the crush of crowds really hits. I hope you have an amazing trip. Also get to finally see animal kingdom at night ! We did Animal Kingdom at night on our recent trip with extra evening hours. The lighting was nice, but anything animal related was closed. So do keep that in mind.
Cheers.
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Post by rescueranger on Nov 19, 2023 16:53:58 GMT -5
Also get to finally see animal kingdom at night ! We did Animal Kingdom at night on our recent trip with extra evening hours. The lighting was nice, but anything animal related was closed. So do keep that in mind.
Cheers.
We only want to see the tree of life and pandora lite up maybe ride Everest |
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Post by ermindy1133 on Nov 19, 2023 19:12:10 GMT -5
That is because your school TA was ignorant or did not want to lose out on commission......or possibly both. This was a school trip, not a regular type of a trip where we got tickets as part of the whole music festival whatever they called it this spring. It was part of a recording thingie they did too. The tickets were highly discounted tbh. Still our TA did suck and suck badly. I was quite pissed with the amount I spent on my kid's trip to stay off site for 4 days. Very unhappy tbh. They're talking doing Disney again next year. If we do it, I will push to let my kid stay with me. I'm not repeating that hot mess of a trip. Oh! Let me know if the play at Disney again! Should be on shorter weeks by then, and might not have to miss it! |
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Post by ermindy1133 on Nov 19, 2023 19:17:53 GMT -5
Have you ever been for Christmas? It really is amazing. You’re leaving when the crush of crowds really hits. I hope you have an amazing trip. Only ever been in August. Luckily we did so many rides in the summer we want to experience all the festivity's and see all the parks lite up. Also get to finally see animal kingdom at night ! We’ve been the week before Christmas before (checked out on 12/23). It was amazing! Enjoy all of the festivities! |
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Post by helenabear on Nov 19, 2023 22:08:35 GMT -5
This was a school trip, not a regular type of a trip where we got tickets as part of the whole music festival whatever they called it this spring. It was part of a recording thingie they did too. The tickets were highly discounted tbh. Still our TA did suck and suck badly. I was quite pissed with the amount I spent on my kid's trip to stay off site for 4 days. Very unhappy tbh. They're talking doing Disney again next year. If we do it, I will push to let my kid stay with me. I'm not repeating that hot mess of a trip. Oh! Let me know if the play at Disney again! Should be on shorter weeks by then, and might not have to miss it! Absolutely! Nothing has been chosen yet, but it sounds like the band director is pushing that direction. We'd do it again but on our own terms for sure. PVB should be open then too LOL |
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Post by brp on Nov 19, 2023 22:28:43 GMT -5
We did Animal Kingdom at night on our recent trip with extra evening hours. The lighting was nice, but anything animal related was closed. So do keep that in mind.
Cheers.
We only want to see the tree of life and pandora lite up maybe ride Everest Then thus will be a fabulous event.
Cheers.
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Post by tomandrobin on Nov 20, 2023 9:25:02 GMT -5
Only ever been in August. Luckily we did so many rides in the summer we want to experience all the festivity's and see all the parks lite up. Also get to finally see animal kingdom at night ! Ok....You will be going at a time that Disney World is at its best for the year!
Take time to explore the resorts, see the shows, take in the holiday celebrations.
Going in August is like walking in the sweaty flaming pits of hell every day. The weather will be amazing! Make sure you check the forecast before packing. The past few years the weather has been perfect, high's around 80 degrees. But there have been a year here and there that the temps are in the 40's.
As far as DVC rooms, put in a wait list, check every day....several times a day. People cancel trips all the time due to life issues, work issues, family issues, etc.
You are going to have so much fun!
The park crowds will start out low at the beginning of your trip and explode as you get closer to Christmas. Plan your park heavy days early in the trip and relaxing days at the end, where ride times no longer matter.
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Post by tomandrobin on Nov 20, 2023 9:31:37 GMT -5
I believe there is an issue too with our school needing to use travel agents from an approved list of agencies. The group that we used is Bob Rogers Travel and is really well known in the midwest at least for doing high school and college trips. Personally I think they absolutely suck. They are talking about doing another Disney trip with the band maybe next year and my kid is already said that we are going to stay together as a family during the trip because the rest of it is just such a hot mess. And knowing what happened this past trip, I will fight to make sure I don't have to pay for tickets twice anyway. I will look into this though, and see if we would be allowed to use anyone else versus who we use last year. I'm a little worried that my kid is using the same travel company to go to New York City in april, but his teachers are the ones basically running the trip and have done this every other year for ages so hopefully it'll be better run from that point of view. If we use the same company and do Disney again or even if we just do Disney again next year for band, I've interjected myself to say that we need to have someone who actually knows what they're doing because we had none of that last time. We even had a teacher who was a formal Disney travel agent, but as you said he was just a part-time guy who did it outside of his job of teaching and eventually got tired of trying to do both. He had no clue how to deal with teenagers and all the issues that this type of trip brought up because he was only used to doing like a single family at a time. I was called in more than once to help and I was kind of annoyed because I could have helped make this better much earlier on had they asked. But we were stuck using this TA group at that point anyway. I get that, with the per-approved contractor list....especially if its a public school system. Hopefully there is a better vetting of the interview process. A lot of TA's like that are good with getting you from point A to Point B, and that is all. But planning a trip to a destination like Disney World you need to take it a few steps further......that is where the failure happens.
Good luck with all of that and hopefully it does not turn into another hot mess.
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Post by rescueranger on Nov 20, 2023 10:40:49 GMT -5
Only ever been in August. Luckily we did so many rides in the summer we want to experience all the festivity's and see all the parks lite up. Also get to finally see animal kingdom at night ! Ok....You will be going at a time that Disney World is at its best for the year!
Take time to explore the resorts, see the shows, take in the holiday celebrations.
Going in August is like walking in the sweaty flaming pits of hell every day. The weather will be amazing! Make sure you check the forecast before packing. The past few years the weather has been perfect, high's around 80 degrees. But there have been a year here and there that the temps are in the 40's.
As far as DVC rooms, put in a wait list, check every day....several times a day. People cancel trips all the time due to life issues, work issues, family issues, etc.
You are going to have so much fun!
The park crowds will start out low at the beginning of your trip and explode as you get closer to Christmas. Plan your park heavy days early in the trip and relaxing days at the end, where ride times no longer matter.
We love resort hopping to start with. So with gingerbread houses and trees to look at we cannot wait. assume weather wise pack for every occasion. being a brit unpredictable cold weather is my area of expertise ! I still have plans to rent a pontoon boat as was way to hot in the summer for this ! |
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