Hello Touring Plans family! I’m seeking insight into using Costco travel to purchase a Disney World travel package for December 2022. I did a search for this topic and most posts are several years old. Does anyone have recent experience with this?
In the past, I have used MVT as my preferred travel agent, but the deals don’t seem to be as good as of late. Disney doesn’t have any offers out for the time of my travel, but I imagine there might be something that comes out over the next several months. I am not an Annual Passholder or DVC member; however, I did just get a Disney Visa. I’m feeling nervous about going through Costco rather than a travel agent; however, the package I am looking at would save us almost $1000 from what Disney is showing right now.
Most of the recents reports I have read have been about booking the swan/dolphin. Just make sure you price it out completely.
If you can save that much money and don’t think you will need any “service” I would do it. Are you confident of your dates?
One thing that might concern me: I check rental cars daily and they have had warnings about “long hold times” and “high volume of calls” almost as a permanent banner on their site. I can cancel rentals online, I don’t know what will happen with a package.
I use Costco travel as often as I can. I’ve done a few of their Swan/Dolphin packages. Simple as pie. I’ve only had to call them to edit my packages three times, and the agents I’ve talked to knew their “stuff” backwards and forwards. If your needs don’t match the travel package, and you can’t edit the package on their site, they’ve been able to hook me up very quickly - like they’d seen it all before. I highly recommend them. Easy, no surprises, and they possibly offer some “extras” that are enticing. The “extras” have gotten smaller and smaller, but there’s still usually something. My first Swan/Dolphin pkg was almost 1k less for the same exact dates at a (rack rate) Value. I researched the HELL out of that trip because I assumed it was gonna be a “you get what you pay for” experience. We couldn’t have been happier. Swan/Dolphin is fantastic for us. I haven’t booked through Costco for one of their Disney run resorts, only because S/D offers us more benefits to our liking at a better price point.
Check prices often, or see if there’s a place to sign up for alerts, because they have deals that pop up. Recently there was a rental car deal, I missed out on a UNited flight deal by a few hours, once, they also have S/D offers that change frequently - my guess is that when they are trying to fill the room blocks in the Costco inventory, they’ll offer specials.
I generally look to Costco first for travel, then price out my other options.