In this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast, the host welcomes a guest who works as a travel agent for Magical Enchanted Vacations (MEV), a platinum‑level host agency partnered with Disney, Universal Studios, Sandals and other suppliers. The guest shares her personal journey—from middle‑school theater teacher to Disney‑focused travel specialist after graduating from the Disney College of Knowledge in 2018—and explains why she chose part‑time agency work to balance family life. She outlines her client‑first philosophy, emphasizing qualifying questions to understand vacation goals and budget constraints, and stresses that a magical experience doesn’t require draining life savings. The conversation contrasts boutique agents with big‑box sellers like Costco and Sam’s Club, noting that while large retailers can offer sizable onboard credits, a dedicated agent provides personalized, 24/7 support, real‑time problem solving, and the ability to apply promotions even after a quote is issued. The guest walks through her planning workflow: gathering budget and celebration details, creating a skeleton quote, conducting a consultation (phone or Zoom) to walk clients through a concise 4‑5‑page proposal, collecting a $200 deposit, and managing key milestones such as the 60‑day dining window and the 30‑day final balance. She highlights tools she uses—color‑coded checklists, Post‑its, and digital apps (e.g., Apple Notes)—to keep families organized, and she stresses the importance of tailoring trips for special occasions like graduations, engagements, or birthdays. Throughout, the guest conveys enthusiasm for helping families build lasting memories and offers practical advice for busy moms planning stress‑free vacations.
Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you loved today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.
I'm actually a part of a host agency called Magical Enchanted Vacations. MEV is actually a platinum agency with Disney, Universal Studios, Sandals, and there's a couple of other great, great, great suppliers out there that, that, that we are able to partner with and, and we sell destinations for quite often. I specialize in Disney destinations and Universal Studios, and I love being able to take the stress away from, from my clients so that they can really just focus on making memories with their families. I graduated the Disney College of Knowledge in the summer of 2018. And at the time, we had just welcomed our second child. And I was a middle school theater teacher. And so that supplemental side gig kind of became a little bit more of a necessity. And so I wanted to find something that would make me feel as passionate and as excited as teaching theater did. And when I found out that you could work with people to customize and curate their Disney vacations, I was like, well, that seems like an obvious fit for me. So found a great host agency that I was able to work part-time through. A lot of host agencies don't really have the ability to kind of let their their agents work part-time and just decided that I was just going to focus on what I wanted to do. And that was planning vacations. So I try to live life by the golden rule. Like I don't want someone treating me like with dollar signs in their eyes. So I refuse to, to do that to clients. So I make sure that I ask them what we call qualifying questions, because I really want to get a firm grasp of what it is that people are looking for out of this vacation. Nobody, nobody needs to spend their entire life savings on a Disney vacation in order to make it be the most magical memory that you've ever had. Can you? 100%. Please call me. However, if we're working with like a fixed budget, I been there, done that. Like I, I want people to be able to enjoy their time, get every experience possible, but not stress about the finances. So I'm very, I'm very cognizant of what it is that people are really in need of on the vacation instead of— I didn't realize until I started researching it that travel agents were even still a thing. It felt very like Mad Men, Lucien Bresi kind of. Kind of a job. But if I honestly, like, if I had had the knowledge when I was planning my kids' first couple of Disney trips that I had now, there is no way I would've done it myself. Box stores like Costco and Sam's, and they are, they're able to offer things that the little guys like myself just flat out can't offer. Are you gonna be able to save some money going through them? There's a really decent chance that the answer to that is yeah, absolutely. I can't match the onboard credit that Costco and Sam's are going to offer you. Like I can't offer you $800 worth of onboard credit strictly because that's probably like 90 to 95% of my commission. So let's say that you're in Miami and you're getting ready to board onto a DCL, which is Disney Cruise Line. And something happened and they can't confirm your confirmation number, or they're saying that your travel documents are invalid. I guess you're gonna have to call Costco and hope that that person on the other end has been on a Disney cruise and is available to help you get on that ship before it sails off. I make myself available to my clients pretty much 24/7 when they travel. Everything from hey, I forgot baby wipes, where do I buy those in the park? To, hey, the transportation that we set up to get us back to the airport for a return flight, like, they're not here, what do we do? So I'm a phone call or a text message away. And my favorite little visual is there's like this episode of The Office where two of the characters are going in and they're selling, they're trying to convince this guy to like, not take their contract over to like Office Depot or something. And yeah, he, Dwight takes out his phone, puts it on speaker and calls the customer service line at Office Depot. And the entire time that he's telling him how important you are to us as a client, like Office Depot hasn't even picked up yet. So it's, it's really that personalized one-on-one service, like I care about your vacation. I want you to have these amazing memories that like I didn't really get to have as a kid. Like I know the importance and the struggle of, of getting to the point where you can say, I can take my kids to go do this, or I can finally surprise my best friend with the bachelorette party of her dreams, or all kinds of other stuff. I get so invested in my clients' vacations. I get so excited when they get checked in. I'm like, oh, Let's go to the park tomorrow. Like, that's, to me, that's really the biggest difference is I'm available and I'm here for you and I want to help you and I'm not just sitting in some call center. If you have a budget, it's great to let me know what your ideal budget would be. My little asterisk with that though, I think would be just know that Mickey is magic. I'm not. The cost is the cost, you know what I mean? Like, it's that. Like, I, I'm able to keep track of current promotions and apply those to your trip. Like if you've already booked, as long as you're not paid in full, I can go in and apply those promotions to your trip. I love making that phone call. Like, hey, I found a promo. Oh, guess what? We just saved like $800 or what have you. When you're looking to travel, like if you have a preferred a resort or like a resort level that you'd like to stay at, that would be great for me to know. And I want to know if you're celebrating anything. Like, are we celebrating a graduation? Or maybe you're planning on popping the question while you're there. Or maybe we've got a birthday. Or maybe we're just celebrating life, like just the fact that we could all be together again and do all these like fantastic things. Let me know what we're celebrating. And usually from there, I can— I can take it and build us like a skeleton quote with a couple of options. And then from there, I generally like to schedule some sort of consultation, right? So like either a phone call, a Zoom meeting, just something so that we can kind of go over the finer details of, of the quote. I don't like to send over a quote that's more than like maybe 4 or 5 pages. So I like to try to walk my clients or potential clients through their quote. So that I can answer questions as they go, make sure that we've got the right fit as far as like a resort is concerned, we've got enough park tickets to satisfy what their goals for the vacation are. And then usually after that, we place the $200 deposit. And then from there, we kind of plan out the finer details of the vacation. So dining options, I help my clients look at flights, but I don't book flights. But I love to find a deal. So I'm more than happy to send you that text message. I found a $40 flight out of Austin.
Book it now.
But so really until that 60-day mark where we can start booking dining and experiences, and then again at the 30-day mark, which is when the final balance is due, it's kind of, I'm here to answer your questions and make sure that we're happy and ready to go. We love a checklist, right? Like I, I make checklists for everything. I have like color-coded Post-it notes and highlighters and all that stuff. However, I know that if I tried to give any of that to my kids, they're gonna color with the highlighters all over my checklists and they're not gonna get utilized for what I intended them for. I think my best advice there would be download an app or, and actually you can even use the Notes app if you, if you have an Apple device. Yeah. And you can go in and make like a little checklist. I make checklists for every single person that I'm traveling with. I like to print them out cuz I'm— and sometimes you've just gotta like eat the cookie, buy the shoes, take the vacation. And I like, I love being a part of that with, with as many different people as possible, whether it's one person looking to just have like a little weekend magical escape for themselves or a family of 15 all looking to kind of reconnect after some time apart. Being able to be a small part of other people's memories, it's a really special— it's a really special bond that I get to build with my clients. And I love getting to help them not only just with that initial vacation, but with vacation time after time and year after year.
Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you loved today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.
