Adventures By Disney Releases New Pre-Cruise Tours for 2019

Not mentioned are the prices.

I've heard good things about the tours, but the ones I've heard about were astronomically priced; like many multiples what they should be.

A colleague of mine went on one in the states and said it was over 20k for a family of 4. I think a similar itinerary (without the "Disney touch" was about 5k.)

Not sure if they're pricing these a bit better, or if they purely are going after the Trumps with these.

They are great, but they stay at 5* hotels, etc. My TA had a link to prices. The one that I would like to do is 10 nights. Price was $9500 per adult, not including airfare. Yup, that's $20K for 2 of us for 10 days. Oh, and they offered an "extension" from the suggested departure city. again at almost $1K per person per day.

I agree--great guides, great activities, SOME of which you can't book on your own. But I spent a week in that city 2 years ago...stayed at a beautiful hotel for about $200 per night (for 2 people!). It was the same hotel that a cruise line was using for their guests and charging a lot more.

The only real benefit I see to these is that they are paid for up front, so they automatically overcome my wince when I look at the price of an excursion or activity.

I'm sorry, but these prices are insane. However, I think the same thing of the "add ons" that were offered on the Med cruises. It was over $2K per person, and of course that didn't include lodging as you were on the ship. ABD had the sense to limit the numbers (making it a "hard to get" thing), and of course they sold out. It was sort of like the cabanas on Castaway--make them scarce and people suddenly seem to think they are valuable.

While I think Disney cruises are currently ridiculously overpriced, ABD is only a little. What you have to compare them to are the higher end tour companies, like A+F and Tauck, but with a family focus. We've been on 2 so far and honestly by the time everything was said and done we felt we got our money's worth (like everything else Disney, book early for best price. The Germany trip we paid about $4500pp for 9 days - which I thought was reasonable - was $6100 when we left.

But they really do have the best guides, a very good guide/participant ratio and always some stuff you just can't do otherwise or at least not easily (the Backstage Magic California is loaded with these types of things, which makes sense. For example, we had access to Jim Henson Studios, Disney Imagineering, Walt's Barn, Walt's Apartment, etc). And there were some special things in Disneyland as well, like riding Haunted Mansion after the park closed with the Imagineer who handles the Nightmare before Christmas overlay, instead of the normal audio track he was telling us details about the ride. Plus much more (I don't want to spoil any surprises for people who might go, but that one is timing specific, your trip has to have a Halloween party on night 5 and the halloween party is moving to DCA next year anyway.

Even in Germany we did some different and unique things, like a pretzel making class in a 100+ year old bakery and they always get the best local guides.

But the kicker for us is how they handle things. Our particular trip was during Oktoberfest, so they did a last minute itinerary change, to give people more time in Munich. This made sense. But to do so, they took out the Steiff museum private tour, something we had specifically signed up for. When we called to discuss, they could have just said, yes, well, we're sorry, here's some credit, etc. It's what DCL might do, if that. That's not what they did. Instead, they arranged for a separate bus and additional guide resources to take those who wanted to go to the museum during an afternoon at leisure.

Unlike DCL currently I do think on many itineraries, ABD does provide good value for high dollar. (This is not to say DCL provides poor service, just the variation between them and other lines isn't as vast as price difference would indicate, where as ABD versus something like Apple or Perillo is night and day).

I can't see us doing another DCL cruise anytime soon. We have 2 ABDs pending budget (China and Norway).

We were signed up for the Copenhagen pre-cruise ABD 3 yrs ago and I chickened out. I laid in bed at night adding up costs in my head and just couldn't justify it for the number of full days we actually got. The final straw was that the hotel they used was not near the city center pedestrian zone, but further afield. We did Copenhagen on our own and had a great time.

We actually have a deposit with ABD that we need to place on a trip or lose by next year. Even with that I'm trying to decide if I'd rather lose the $1,800 for the 6 of us, or spend ABD prices for a trip. Ideally, I'd put it towards a trip for just dh and I to sample the product, but ABD won't let us, so I have to commit to the 6 of us going. Decisions, decisions...

Are you interested in Disney history, culture and operations? The backstage magic one I mentioned above might be a good choice. Very kid friendly, very interesting, and assuming you are in the US the airfare to get there will not be bad.

We were signed up for the Copenhagen pre-cruise ABD 3 yrs ago and I chickened out. I laid in bed at night adding up costs in my head and just couldn't justify it for the number of full days we actually got. The final straw was that the hotel they used was not near the city center pedestrian zone, but further afield. We did Copenhagen on our own and had a great time.

 

We actually have a deposit with ABD that we need to place on a trip or lose by next year. Even with that I'm trying to decide if I'd rather lose the $1,800 for the 6 of us, or spend ABD prices for a trip. Ideally, I'd put it towards a trip for just dh and I to sample the product, but ABD won't let us, so I have to commit to the 6 of us going. Decisions, decisions...

Definitely look into the various US ABD experiences that are available. They tend to be a little lower in cost as US hotels give Disney a discount while European hotels generally do not, and you'd have much lower cost plane fare.

I'm guessing from your post that deposits for ABD are non-refundable. That makes some sense given the size of the groups, but ouch!

Nope, not refundable. Moveable ad infinitum until last year. Now it must be committed and the remaining deposit (which I think is higher now) paid within the next 10 months. It was originally for a Costa Rica trip over Christmas 2 years ago, but then work changed and my income wasn't stable enough to pull the trigger so I parked the money.

Oddly enough, the US trips don't really interest me. I guess it's the cost. I can do most of those trips myself. No, not the magic extras. But for the cost for 6 of us, I can do a LOT for less than ABD. Part of what appeals to me is having someone else do the planning and guiding. That's a bigger cost benefit when you're talking about locations outside the US.

So, really it's about the money. I have two in college now and will have 3 in college for at least a year 2 years from now. Honestly, the deposit will probably get eaten. :(

I did Backstage Magic this past December and it was well worth the cost. The entire trip was amazing and definitely not anything you can do on your own. I have other trips planned for 2019, but will book either Australia or Japan in 2020.

The Germany trip was really good also, but it I get it. Other than the California one, the US ones are easier to replicate by yourself, and you don't have potential language issues where the local guide is a huge help.

Nope, not refundable. Moveable ad infinitum until last year. Now it must be committed and the remaining deposit (which I think is higher now) paid within the next 10 months. It was originally for a Costa Rica trip over Christmas 2 years ago, but then work changed and my income wasn't stable enough to pull the trigger so I parked the money.

 

Oddly enough, the US trips don't really interest me. I guess it's the cost. I can do most of those trips myself. No, not the magic extras. But for the cost for 6 of us, I can do a LOT for less than ABD. Part of what appeals to me is having someone else do the planning and guiding. That's a bigger cost benefit when you're talking about locations outside the US.

 

So, really it's about the money. I have two in college now and will have 3 in college for at least a year 2 years from now. Honestly, the deposit will probably get eaten. :(

I'm sure it was amazing, and the one trip where it really is not reproducible on your own. I keep hearing good things about it. That said, it's not as appealing to me as a family trip. I'd rather go abroad or a national park. That might be a trip I'd do with dh later. Honestly, what I do want to do is the Oktoberfest river cruise with dh. I'm booked for next Fall though, so it'd be a year or two from now.

I keep reading amazing trip reports from people, but I wish they'd switch to maybe 3-star accommodations for affordability. The highest end hotels are never as family friendly anyway.