HoneyM

we are pretty much there with our honeymoon itinerary thanks to everyones help.

my last major Q is whether it is worth taking our itinerary to a travel agent and getting a package ...or just booking each place ourselves - it is pretty straight forward to book with each (they book transfers too so no hassle there), the only reason we would use a company would be to try and save a bit of $. i know its already a v. expensive trip but its once in a lifetime for us so we dont want to pay extra just for the ease of having someone else contact each place for us.. esp we have done all the research ourselves (with fodorites help). any cash we can save will be spent on massages and champagne!

really appreciate thoughts- we are thinking of booking early next week through a travel agent or independently depending on feedback.

mkhonzo

If you have all your I's dotted and T's crossed then go ahead and do it on your own.

If you feel that you might have forgotten a detail and are concerned that you will let yourselves down then work through an agency. If you do; check what support services they offer while you are travelling as that will guide you to the agency you use.

Think about missing flights, lost baggage, overbooked hotels, missed shuttles or transfers, etc, that could muck up your honeymoon and if any of these seem like the arrangements are tenuous then you should re-think your position, because if you do it all yourself, then only you are responsible, if through an agent, you have people who know your destination and can fix things for you while you continue to travel.

Last thought: For all of this Agents do not deserve to offer your trip for less, they are adding value and will charge accordingly, so your peace-of-mind will come at a price: One less massage?

divine54

honey,
as mkhonzo stated - booking thru an agent won't come cheaper. but booking yourself doesn't come either in view to camps.
the camps won't charge you less than an agents - if they do they lose their contracted agents.

the commission an agent gets is covering for all the added convenience as M. stated.

if you go via an agent make sure he/she has visited the venues so that he/she can give clear advise what to expect.

happy planning!

HoneyM

hmmmmm yes all makes sense. the agent absolutely deserves commission for their work if we book through them, no disputing that. i am just not sure if we need it now we have everything together and wanted to check there were no major added costs.

has anyone done it both ways (booked independently and with an agent) and noted any issues other than convenience?

it does sounds great to have someone to call if anything goes wrong... but we are pretty used to traveling independently.

samcat

HoneyM,
A week or two before we departed on our safari, one of our internal Kenyan flights was cancelled -- making it impossible to make our connection through Nairobi to Dar. You can imagine how thankful we were that we had an agent involved who figured out how to solve this issue at the last minute.
Hard choice for you to make, I'm sure.
Samcat

KayeN

Hi HoneyM

Currently I only go to MalaMala, so I book through their office in Johannesburg. I book airlines both within South Africa and international (I'm Australian) with an agent always.

I find with MM booking office I get the response directly and much quicker, not going through a third party and with time difference everything seemed to take nearly a week.

Kind regards

Kaye

atravelynn

For some locations, agent or direct is the same cost.

If it is your first trip to Africa and you are going to a couple of places, I'd use an agent that specializes in Africa. Especially for a honeymoon.

learnix

Do it on your own definitely. We just came back from three months in Africa, and other than the bKili climb and Serengeti safari, we travelled from Arusha down to Cape Town ourselves.

There was an adventure around every corner and we never ran into major problems. It is easy to find good public transportation and hotels in East and Southern Africa and the price of your vacation doing it yourself will be much better than going through an agent.

You can look at a screen just as well as they can!

Nigel

Poppins

Whether it will be cheaper to book direct or through an agent largely depends on which hotel or lodge you are visiting. Sometimes it is cheaper to book through an agent and sometimes cheaper to book directly.

So my advice would be to give your itinerary to a couple of different agents and get prices. But also ask them if they think it is a good itinerary or if it could be improved.

Will be interesting to hear if there are any major differences in price.

atravelynn

A 3-month adventure that Learnix was able to enjoy can absorb twists and turns and unexpected events. The luxury of lots of time makes booking on your own, especially upon arrival, a reasonable and economic approach.

A short-stay honeymoon, where you may not greet unexpected schedule changes as an adventure, is a different animal.

But if you have lots of time or if you are going just one place with easy to arrange transport, AND IF you can save money (which is not always the case), self-booking makes sense.

In my upcoming trip, I did my own arrangements in Cape Town and am using an agent for some walking safaris in Zambia.

lilla

I would suggest you send your itinerary, places where you would like to stay, and budget to a number of the folks who are recommended on this forum. That's what we did and compared three of them and went with Africa Serendipity.

It was great not to have to worry about booking flights or about transfers. Everything went without a hitch, and we were so glad to have a safety net if anything went wrong. And we felt we got very good value for our money.

enlehman76

I am going to South Africa/Zambia in 6 weeks for my first trip. I typically plan all my trips on my own with much research. To answer your question, I found that the travel agent I booked with did have better rates for some parts of my trip and not for others. So, I booked the cheaper parts with the TA and the rest I did on my own. I am working with Lianne Sowdon at www.go2africa.com. Lianne has been awesome---she answers e-mails promptly and she is easily accessible via telephone. I highly recommend her and she had good rates on many parts of my trip. Good Luck!