How I Was Saved By My Travel Advisor
If you’ve never worked with a travel advisor before, you might be wondering what exactly it is we do and why you’d work with one. This week I’ll share my own reasons for using a travel advisor in the past and the ways she was able to help me.
My family’s first trip to Walt Disney World was over spring break of 2019. We knew early in the fall of 2018 that we wanted to take this vacation, so I started to look into planning. I quickly realized that there was so much involved in planning a Walt Disney World vacation that I would need some help.
Once I realized there were travel advisors specializing in Walt Disney World that could help, I quickly reached out to an agency. I knew someone would help with answering my general questions, but here are three specific ways a travel advisor helped me and my family.
Upgraded Our Resort Without Increasing Our Budget
We booked our spring break trip in September and chose a moderate resort with the help of our travel advisor. A few months later, Disney announced a new promotion and our advisor let us know that we could update our reservation to either a) save money on our current resort or b) pay the same amount and upgrade to a deluxe resort.
The deluxe resort in question was Animal Kingdom Lodge, which is probably one of the most unique places to stay. The resort is surrounded by a savannah area where you can watch giraffes, zebras, and other animals graze from your hotel room! Since we already had our budget planned out, we decided to upgrade our stay and were so glad that we did.
Help With Dining Reservations
Meeting Ariel at Akershus breakfast. Yes, I know this photo is blurry, but I love her little happy face here.
For this trip, we decided to include the dining plan in our vacation package. And of course, because it’s Disney World, we had SO MANY OPTIONS. Our travel advisor made recommendations specifically for our family and let us know which options were the most difficult reservations to book.
When our dining reservation date came around, she offered to make those reservations for us the morning they were available. With two small kids that made mornings chaotic most days, this was a huge help. It was a relief to know that I had someone in my corner helping me get those hard reservations and that I wasn’t missing out.
Resort Issues
This one was the most impactful for me. When our vacation dates finally arrived and we got to our resort and room, we were underwhelmed. Our room was located with a view right into the one bus stop for the resort, which meant that there would always be people walking past our window day and night, and in the evening, a bright light shone right into our space.
While we were disappointed, we thought there was nothing we could do. Not too long after checking in, our agent texted me to see how we were doing on our first day. I let her know about our room situation, and immediately she recommended we ask the front desk to move. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. With her encouragement, I made the request and we ended up in a much better room. We were there for 5 nights, so this truly made a huge difference. We would have just suffered through the other location had she not recommended we advocate for ourselves and she checked in later to see what the resolution was.
Prior to visiting Walt Disney World in 2019, I had never worked with a travel advisor before. I just didn’t think I needed the help and wasn’t sure about adding additional cost to our trip. But the more I started researching, I realized that this was no ordinary vacation. I was coming across all sorts of new terms (ADR, Magic Bands, TTC, Quick Service) and realizing that there were A LOT of decisions I was going to need to make well before we even set foot in Orlando.
Once I learned there was no additional cost for me to work with a travel advisor, it was a no-brainer. She made a huge impact on our experience, and now I’m so thrilled to be able to help others in the same way.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed about planning a vacation to Walt Disney World or anywhere else, I’m here to help. Send an email, follow me on social media, or complete my contact form on the About the Memories website to get started!
