Fly Away Happy :)
Written: Jul 09 '03
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Pros: Simple to use booking process with instant confirmation you can print.
Cons: Some changes in flight times after booking however they were changed to our satisfaction.
The Bottom Line: A wonderful relatively worry free way to travel! Removes the guesswork creating a nice comfort zone for those who need it.
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| pokemonsick's Full Review: Delta Vacations |
Delta vacations is a wonderful place to visit to price and/or book a family vacation! Prices are competitively priced with other airlines, but we found a better selection of hotels and more flight options to be available without increasing the cost of the trip than other airlines had offered.
Our recent trip June 28- July 5, 2003 went about as smoothly as it possibly could. We were booked through Delta Vacations for a complete package from Buffalo, NY to San Diego, CA and back. The first of only 2 problems we encountered was here. Our original flight was cancelled and we were placed on another flight which would have resulted in almost a 5 hour layover in Cincinati. A simple phone call to the 1-800 number took care of this and we were placed on a flight through Atlanta, GA which in the end got us to San Diego 5 minutes before our original flight would have.
Our return flight was also through Atlanta, GA and created the other small problem. When calling the airport to confirm our departure information, I had trouble checking as the flight number had been changed. A quick trip through the voice activated system uncovered the needed information and no other details of the flight had changed.
Selecting your flights is very easy at the site. You simply enter your departure city, your final destination, the number of passengers flying in your party, and the ages of any children traveling with you. Hitting submit takes you to the next page where you decide if you want a land only package (no flight), a fly and drive package (flight and car), or a complete package (flight, hotel, car an option, and some ticket and tour choices as well). Here you also enter your length of travel, how many nights your stay will be.
Hitting the submit button takes you to a list of available departing and return flights and times available for your travel dates. Each is marked as to whether picking that flight will increase the cost of your package price any. For us there were many marked 0 so this was not a problem. Some were marked $40-60 more per passenger though, and some published rate. Each flight also lists your connecting cities if any and the retake off time. Clicking a circle next to your desired flights and hitting submit leads you to the next page.
Here you will receive a list of available hotels to choose from for your stay. Most are clickable links allowing you to see photos and more detailed information on the hotels before selecting one. We chose the Paradise Point Resort and Spa (which I will be reviewing later). Some hotels also give you a choice of the room category such as standard, deluxe, or in our case we chose the lanai garden room. It will clearly tell you if changing categories will result in a package price increase. Ours did not. You may also on this page have some extra perks listed which are thrown in with the package at no extra charge. For us it was 2 adult and 2 junior passes to Belmont Park. This is a small boardwalk type amusement park.
Clicking submit takes you to the car rental page. You can elect not to rent a car or chose from in our case 3 different rental agencies. Our choices were Alamo, Dollar, and Hertz. Different sized vehicles are available at each. We selected a 4 door intermediate car at Alamo. Prices are listed next to each choice so you can compare easily. Our car rental site was off the airport, but that caused no problems as a free shuttle was provided to that location as well as back to the airport at the end of the trip.
Again hitting submit to register your choice takes you to the Travel Protection page. This is where you can chose to select various trip waiver and baggage policies for an added fee. We elected no coverage and hit submit.
Next opens the Ticket and Event Page. We had several options available to us for tickets to attractions and various tour packages. We chose what was called the San Diego 3 For 1 Pass. This included tickets for the entire party valid for 5 consecutive days of our stay to Sea World, San Diego Wild Animal Park, and the San Diego Zoo. Cost was $356 for the 4 tickets. We received vouchers that we could turn in at any of these locations ticket booths or guest relation areas to be given the passes. It worked perfectly, all you had to do was sign them and have them date stamped. The best part was you only had to do it once and for the other places you just proceeded to the entrances and presented them.
Other choices included separate tickets to the zoo or Sea World, city tours, Tijuana tours, Legoland, and several others that I do not recall right now.
Hitting submit takes you to a page where your entire itinerary is shown with a price quote for the package. If you like what you see (we did $3380) you click the book now button. Here you will enter all passengers names, any miles program numbers you might have, your address information, and of course credit card info for payment. Mastercard, Visa, Discover Card, American Express, and one other that escapes me are accepted. You also select a password so you can later check out your info online. Remember it! Click submit and you are finished except for printing out your confirmed itinerary complete with confirmation number and 1-880 phone numbers to call for any changes needed or problems you may encounter.
One other neat feature Delta has is if you relog in using your confirmation number and password used earlier, you are able to select your seat assignments on all flights. This is great for families or anyone traveling with someone else as it makes sure you are sitting together.
Two weeks after booking we received all our travel documents and vouchers necessary for the trip.
All I can say is have a good time, and if you are going somewhere with sun, remember the sunscreen!
*Although this trip is listed as luxury over $200 per day remember we had tickets to 3 attractions prepaid included in this rate. I also chose a few hours hiking, but this is just the walking we did at the resort and through the various attractions.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Tour type: Group
Tour format: Various
Tour length: Several Days
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Epinions.com ID:
pokemonsick
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Member: Marla Hansen
Location: Niagara Falls, NY USA
Reviews written: 106
Trusted by: 29 members
About Me:
I'll be back sometime in mid July with some Myrtle Beach, SC reviews...
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