Brand new to ABD

Daisybell911

Paging Mr. Morrow!
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Hi everyone! I’m brand new to ABD and have so much to learn. I’ve submitted a request to book the 9/10/21 trip to Krakow, Prague and Vienna and I’m super excited! Are there tips that you think I should know? I‘m planning on arriving a day or two before the trip to get used to time change. Should I book the same hotel as where we will be staying for the first night? Does ABD contact us to plan anything? Should I look for certain things when I purchase travel insurance? I went back a few pages and didn’t really see any newbie tips so if you have any to share, I’d appreciate it!
 
Are there tips that you think I should know?
Book your insurance and airfare with ABD if you prefer full refund in case of cancellations.

Should I book the same hotel as where we will be staying for the first night?
If you want to stay in the same room and have the included breakfast, then yes. Or you can book on your own and save money and ABD will still pick you up at the airport. Depending on the hotel, you may or may not be able to use your rewards benefits or get points, you can always ask at check in. I've always booked with ABD, because with all my kids, I prefer not to move all our luggages. I like doing pre-trips also, but since COVID, I'm more hesitant on doing this because of cancellation.

Does ABD contact us to plan anything?
Not really. I think those on river cruises have choices to select. Otherwise, they will contact you if there are major changes to the itinerary, cancellations, or you are missing documents or have expired passports. They will give you the full itinerary (used to be a real book but now I heard it's virtual?) and a box of gifts.

Should I look for certain things when I purchase travel insurance?
There is a thread about buying OYO or ABD insurance. I listed pros and cons based on my experience.

There are many here with so much experience. I bet they will chime in!
 
Are there tips that you think I should know?
Book your insurance and airfare with ABD if you prefer full refund in case of cancellations.

Should I book the same hotel as where we will be staying for the first night?
If you want to stay in the same room and have the included breakfast, then yes. Or you can book on your own and save money and ABD will still pick you up at the airport. Depending on the hotel, you may or may not be able to use your rewards benefits or get points, you can always ask at check in. I've always booked with ABD, because with all my kids, I prefer not to move all our luggages. I like doing pre-trips also, but since COVID, I'm more hesitant on doing this because of cancellation.

Does ABD contact us to plan anything?
Not really. I think those on river cruises have choices to select. Otherwise, they will contact you if there are major changes to the itinerary, cancellations, or you are missing documents or have expired passports. They will give you the full itinerary (used to be a real book but now I heard it's virtual?) and a box of gifts.

Should I look for certain things when I purchase travel insurance?
There is a thread about buying OYO or ABD insurance. I listed pros and cons based on my experience.

There are many here with so much experience. I bet they will chime in!
Thank you so much! I’ll keep scouring the board too for any little tidbits that may help. I can plan a WDW trip in my sleep. This is a whole new ballgame though!
 
Good idea to arrive 1-2 days ahead of the start. I too book my pre-nights hotel with AbD, always starting with two. You can make changes to your reservation up to the PIF date, which is 120 days in advance of start. Sometimes the availability of pre-nights with AbD will fill up, so if you’re not yet sure I’d suggest adding them to your reservation when you book. The deposit you pay is based on the AbD price, not including pre-nights, so it makes no immediate cost difference. Then you can research and decide whether to keep two, change to one, or drop all together in favor of your own plans.

AbD does send a virtual tour booklet now - if can be saved for offline viewing. It will be very similar to the itinerary you can download from the AbD website. While the river cruises have choices of port excursions to choose from, with a land adventure, there nothing much to plan except your free time. Some of that can be researched and booked ahead of time, ie with a free afternoon or else maybe a hard to get dining reservation that must be made well in advance, while other times it can be spur of the moment with a recommendation from your AbD guides.

Other things I did not know ahead of my first AbD -

- find an AbD Dis meets thread, which you’ve already done :-). Even though people have different travel dates, it is a great place to exchange ideas, info, tips and planning. I got so much good info for my Japan AbD from the DIS thread.

-All times in the itineraries are approximate. The “afternoon on your own” may not start until 2pm. Lunch may not be at noon. Dinners may be later say 7pm or may be early like around 5:30 pm. You can call AbD ahead of time to get approximate times if you are wanting to book something around free time or tour timings, but allow extra cushion of time in case things are running long. The big unknowns are traffic and your fellow adventurers.

-you can venture off the tour for part of a day if you’d like. ie if there’s something in a city you really want to do, and it’s not included, you can decide to skip a portion of the tour or an included meal to go off on your own. You’d have to weigh what you’d skip, as there is no price adjustment for doing so, and you’d need to let your guides know both when you check in and again a day or two ahead of time.

-you don’t have to participate in each tour activity. Sometimes you may not be able to, maybe due to a physical limitation or due to personal preferences, or you’re just not interested in that wine tasting. You’d want to check with AbD ahead of time on this as well, as if transportation between Tour cities is involved it might pose a problem for you where you'd have to decide not to travel.

-they will give you a very nice sized duffle bag that folds & zips into a compact size. This can be used during the trip, as well as to be that extra bag to bring home souvenirs. So no need to pack an extra bag “just in case”. The color scheme changes each year. On a land tour, they’ll give you this at checkin with your AbD guide gratuity envelopes. For a River Cruise, since gratuities are included, it is mailed to you ahead of time with your other tour gifts.

-they’ve had water and snacks on the tour bus, so no need to bring or buy your own. Not sure if this is on all tours but has been the case with the one I’ve been on. You can ask your guides at checkin.

-tour order for a day may change - depending on local conditions. Ie the tour itinerary may say boat ride then lunch, where you end up with lunch and then the boat ride. Not really a big deal unless you are planning to skip part of the tour that day for something on your own, as what you think you are skipping may not end up being what you actually miss.

-If your tour gift is a tote or backpack that your planning to bring along, or you plan to use that tour duffle while touring, bring a unique luggage tag or bag identifier so you can easily find yours among the others as they will all look and be the same.

-gratuities for land tours are paid direct to the guides. Check the tour info for recommended currencies. A guide may accept a PayPal transfer rather than cash but you won’t know this ahead of time, so will need to be prepared if you don’t bring US dollars and will then need to hit a local ATM.

I think that’s it for now...if I think of anything else, I’ll post back. Let me know if you have any other questions. Have fun with your planning!
 


I’ll just echo the advice to arrive a day or 2 early if you can. That helps you get over jet lag and also do some activities in the first city that ABD misses.

It can be helpful to look at the On Your Own time and think about activities you may want to do. But be flexible and realistic. If the on your own time is in the middle of a packed schedule you may just have time to relax a bit. Day 5 for example has lunch and the afternoon OYO before the progressive dinner (which sounds fun by the way). I’d research Prague and decide what you might want to do during that time.

This trip looks looks really cool. I’d love to visit Poland. I’ve done Prague and Vienna and both are fantastic. My style would be to either arrive a couple days early in Krakow, or maybe stay a few days somewhere else in Poland before the ABD.

For better or worse, ABD is pretty hands off before the trip. But once you arrive, ABD is an amazing trip. You’ll have a great time.
 
Another vote to arrive early to get over jet lag and plan some activities in the city of arrival. Our impression has been that the activity level and comprehensiveness of the ABD tends to be light in the arrival city, so we have generally take a couple of days to ourselves and plan a number of activities on our own.
 


I'm just going to throw in, it *sounds* like you're doing this trip solo? Because you keep mentioning "me" and not "us". I have taken 11 solo ABDs, and it's a FABULOUS way to travel! You have the safety of people expecting you to be at certain places at a certain time, who will check up on you, etc. And you also have someone to turn to and say "OMG, did you see *THAT*!!". I find 99.9 percent of the folks on ABDs are welcoming and friendly, and treat solos like a part of the family (and a lot of that is also because the Adventure Guides really work to foster that "family" feeling).

Just mentioning in case you didn't know, that if you *are* going solo, there *is* a Single Supplement of 40% over the per person price on the ABD land tours. (There is no single supplement for the DCL cruise add-ons, and last time I checked, the single supplement for river cruises was 100%). It's a bummer, but I feel it's totally worth it.

Just a warning, you may find ABDs addictive! Especially since the Adventure Guides are pretty much the most amazing people in the Universe!

Sayhello
 
last time I checked, the single supplement for river cruises was 100%).
I think their River Cruise single pricing may have changed, I am booked solo on one, which I do expect to be cancelled before too long - booked it last year and the pricing is not double the per person rate. I don’t remember what that rate was when I booked it, but it looks like maybe the same 40% as for a land adventure.
 
I think their River Cruise single pricing may have changed, I am booked solo on one, which I do expect to be cancelled before too long - booked it last year and the pricing is not double the per person rate. I don’t remember what that rate was when I booked it, but it looks like maybe the same 40% as for a land adventure.
That would be nice, because there's no way I'm paying 100%! I'll have to check that out, thanks!

Sayhello
 
Another tip is that you’ll get a lanyard at the beginning of the trip with your name on it (or you write it) and then every day you get a Disney-themed pin related to what you did that day to attach to the lanyard. We have usually just kept one as a keepsake but some really treat these a collectibles.

Most trips also include some craft activity that gives you another souvenir to bring home (i enjoy looking at the boomerang I painted in Australia and the Venetian mask my son painted in Venice).
 
WOW!!! Thank you so much, everyone. These sound like really great tips to plan “our” trip :). I’ve got so much planning to do but this thread has lots for places to start.
 

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