Disney Travel Agent – the Ultimate Guide

What is a Disney Travel Agent

A Disney travel agent is simply someone who helps you plan your Disney vacation. Planning a trip to the Walt Disney World Resort is time-consuming and emotionally taxing, so some people use a travel agent to make the job easier. 

A travel agent’s job is to know the best deals and answer all your questions about planning your vacation. Should you stay on property? What airline is the cheapest? Is it worth it to get the Disney Dining Plan? All of these questions can be answered by a Disney travel agent. 

I have an article that lists eleven tools to make Disney vacation planning easier, and a Disney travel agent is on the list for a reason!

Disney focused travel agents are free. That’s because travel agents get their commission from the travel supplier, such as Disney or local hotels. They will charge a fee for booking air travel through, as airlines don’t pay commissions anymore. If you are using a good travel agent, everything should be straightforward and simple, and they should have your best interest in mind through all the planning. If successful, you can have an easy planning experience with less stress and less time spent on research and making decisions.  

Positives of Using a Disney Travel Agent

Didn’t think people used travel agents anymore? While they do! Especially for trips as specific as Walt Disney World. It’s beneficial to have an expert on planning a Disney vacation by your side through the process. There’s a lot to go through and decide on, like accommodations, dining, and extra experiences, that it can be a great help. 

For the positives of using a travel agent, they are there for you for the whole process. When you are making reservations, for dining, FastPass+, or anything else, they will do it for you. 

That means you never have to directly deal with a Disney representative. No waiting on hold in a long line to speak to someone. This can be super great if you come across any issues regarding your trip. If there’s an issue with your hotel reservation, you get sick on vacation, or something like that, the travel agent will deal with the issue on your behalf. 

As a travel agent myself, trust me I’ve been the one on the long holds with Disney.  

The FastPass+ service overwhelming, as a few of my clients have mentioned, and I bet organizing them with larger groups of people is even worse. There are rules to the FastPass+ system that you have to know in order to get the passes that you want. 

One part of the system that can be confusing is the fact that there are different tiers categorizing the attractions at the parks. Tier 1 includes all the extremely popular rides. For example, this includes Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom, Toy Story Mania! at Hollywood Studios, and Frozen Ever After at Epcot. You get the picture. It’s all the ones that might have two-hour-long lines at any point during the day. All the other attractions are in Tier 2. 

When scheduling FastPasses ahead of time, you can only book one FastPass from Tier 1. You’re two other pre-booked FastPasses have to be from Tier 2. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use two Tier 1 FastPasses in one day! After you use the first three FastPasses for the day, you are free to book more, including another Tier 1 ride. 

Confusing, right? Well, all this stress is completely avoidable if you use a travel agent. They are experts in everything Disney, so they know exactly how to plan FastPasses with your desired experiences in mind. 

Booking a vacation and planning an itinerary can be overwhelming, that’s for sure. So why not let someone else do all the work for you? Also, because they do this as a job, they know all the great deals, and can possibly save you a good chunk of money. 

Even after planning many Disney vacations myself, there are still some things I don’t know about, and I learn new things every time. Along with that, it doesn’t affect the budget! It’s a service available for everyone, no matter your budget or experience. 

Negatives of Using a Disney Travel Agent

While it can be a positive, using a service that does all the work for I want to make sure I mention the negatives too. You don’t learn all the techniques and tools of planning a Disney vacation if you have someone do it for you. 

A Disney travel agent is knowledgeable and convenient, but that means you don’t learn how to do any of this yourself. You may become reliant on the service. Sometimes it’s nice to just figure it out yourself, with help from people you know or online blog articles. 

For instance, my post about doing Disney on a budget, based around my recent experiences at Disney, is written to help people who want to plan a budgeted Disney vacation on their own. 

Another negative aspect of using a Disney travel agent is that all changes to your trip have to go through them. This can be annoying at times, especially if you generally like to have control over your plans. 

I think that using a Disney travel agent can be a great option for almost anyone planning a trip Walt Disney World. Traveling Mom has a great article with more reasons why you should use a travel agent. Planning a vacation to “the happiest place on Earth” is a daunting task, and using a travel planner is helpful, inexpensive, and generally worth it. 

Disney Travel Agents Near Me

So how do you find good travel agents near you? Well, for me, I went to the internet to look for local Disney Vacation Planners. There are a lot of great options, I plan Disney Vacations myself and am, a New Jersey-based Disney travel agent. 

I’ve been visiting Walt Disney World throughout my whole life, and I definitely knows the ins and outs of planning a trip there. As you know I have a whole blog behind me.  Along with that, my services are completely free, and you can even fill out a quick form to get an estimate on what your vacation will cost. 

Though I understand how nice it would be to use someone local, some of my best planning has been done with people who are remote. I am accessible in almost every way.  

If a Disney travel agent near you is important, hope into google and do some research.  The biggest focus should be someone who is trustworthy and reliable.  

There’s a huge community out there of people who love going to Disney, and they are all welcoming and willing to share their knowledge and experience. So take advantage of that! A lot of Disney blogs will have their favorite Disney travel agents listed on their site. If you trust the blogger, then that should be a recommendation you can look into.