Disney cut ties with Smart Moms Travel. Here is what the owner says happened and what it means for anyone who books through a travel agency.
Why A Disney Travel Agency Is In The Headlines
Disney fans are used to news about new rides, ticket deals, or fireworks shows. This story is different. It is about the business that sits behind your vacation, the travel agency that handles the reservation you never have to think about.
Earlier this month, Disney ended its relationship with Smart Moms Travel, a nationwide agency that focuses on Disney, Universal, and cruise vacations. The company lost its Authorized Disney Vacation Planner designation after Disney raised concerns about changes in the agency’s business practices.
At roughly the same time, former and current Smart Moms Travel agents spoke to local media and on social channels about alleged wrongful terminations and withheld commissions. Disney’s move to cut ties came after that reporting, although the company did not publicly link its decision to specific allegations.
Now the agency’s owner has gone on camera to give her side of the story, and the result is a messy, uncomfortable look at what happens when the business relationship between a host agency and its independent contractors breaks down.
If you want the full background, Mickey Visit has good summaries of both Disney’s termination and the latest response from the agency’s owner at Mickey Visit and this follow up article.
What The Smart Moms Travel CEO Told NBC Connecticut
A local station, NBC Connecticut, interviewed Smart Moms Travel CEO Lauralyn “LJ” Johnson in a recorded Zoom interview after former and current agents accused the company of terminating them and withholding commission payments they say they earned.
In the interview, Johnson says she believes some agents breached their contracts and effectively stole from the agency by arranging vacations directly with Disney and cutting Smart Moms Travel out of the commission. She also accuses top-level managers of working with payroll to pay out more commission than agents were owed, which, in her telling, left the numbers “not matching” on the books. She offered no evidence other than a response only slightly more polished than “the maths weren’t mathing.”
Pressed on proof, Johnson acknowledges that she does not have documentation to support those claims yet. She said she needs to hire someone to examine the books and that members of her reporting staff “fled the scene” and resigned. This is a claim that many of the 70-75 terminated Independent Contractors (ICs) some of whom held additional support positions, have claimed online.
Johnson also says that she plans to withhold upcoming commission payments because she believes agents violated non-compete clauses. She clarified that she has not yet missed a payroll (because it’s not yet due), but does not intend to run the next one as planned due to “legal situations” that are still playing out. When reporters continued to press on why she would hold back pay, the interview ended abruptly. These matters obviously would not be resolved by the end of the month when payments are due.
Disney has denied Johnson’s allegation that agents were colluding with the company behind her back, and also confirmed that it terminated Smart Moms Travel’s status as an authorized Disney planner based on concerns about changes to the agency’s business practices.
You can watch the full NBC Connecticut segment here:
What Agents Say Happened Instead
The agents who have spoken out describe a very different story. They say they did not steal from the company and that they did not resign in bulk. Instead, they report that they were sent termination letters and then told that commissions they believed they had already earned would not be paid.
Agents also push back on the suggestion that they could quietly cut the agency out of the picture. In their view, clients pay the supplier directly, whether that is Disney, a cruise line, or another partner, and the supplier then pays the agency a commission. The agency is the one that distributes that commission to individual advisers according to its own internal rules.
From the outside, travelers do not see any of this. To the guest, the trip simply looks “booked.” Behind the scenes, a lot of trust is required. Contractors trust the host agency to track bookings correctly and pass on commissions. The host trusts contractors to follow company policies and contractual terms.
In a case of collusion, the agent would circumvent the agency and book direct under another agency or establish their own. Either would be a violation of the contract as this proprietor has disclosed. The agents deny this took place. Generally speaking, this would take an extreme amount of effort and coordination if 70-75 agents took part in such an action, an almost impossible achievement.
Where The Story Stands Now
At this point, the facts that everyone agrees on are fairly narrow. Disney has terminated its authorized planner relationship with Smart Moms Travel. Former and current agents say they have been terminated and are owed money. The CEO denies wrongdoing, accuses some agents of theft and contract breaches, admits she currently has no proof that would stand up on paper, and plans to keep withholding commissions while legal issues are sorted out.
What we do not have yet are court rulings, regulatory findings, or a detailed public accounting that would settle the dispute. For now, the story is living in the space between media investigations, company statements, and social media posts.
What remains the most logical to me, is that the agency owner felt the commissions and earnings didn’t match expectations. She has stated she didn’t have evidence or the right staff to determine if her suspicions were founded. It seems increasingly likely that the owner has experienced some sort of a breakdown, suspected everyone of being against her, and then terminated a bunch of agents, withheld commissions and absconded to a cliffside resort in Europe.
Closing Thoughts
Disney’s decision to cut ties with a large agency over business practice concerns shows how important trust is in the travel ecosystem, not just between guests and the brand, but between suppliers, host agencies, and its contractors. The conflicting accounts from Smart Moms Travel leadership and former agents underline how fragile that trust can be when money, contracts, and non-compete clauses collide. This is a messy situation but if the 70+ agents are, in fact, innocent, or equally the agency owner can’t support her claim with proof, they should be made whole. Unfortunately, that may not happen. Likewise, if there is proof of widespread collusion, the agency owner should be similarly vindicated.
What do you think?
Not a shot at you Kyle in particular, but who the hell needs a Travel Agent to book a Disney trip in 2025? We truly have become a land filled with morons.
I believe the ” Disney ” authorized travel agents have incentive discounts and special offers they can pass on to their customers. Stuff like a character breakfast or line passes etc. Kyle might be more familiar with this arrangement.
@Maryland – This is correct. My agency isn’t a Disney specialty agency, it accounted for less than 0.08% of our sales last year so I am in no way an expert on being a Disney agent. That said, there are a ton of little nuances that those agents are pros at, like securing Lightning Lane at the exact moment it opens prior to your trip, or locking in special events, etc. Personally, we have annual passes but the Disney-focused agents are on another level.
There are benefits to using an authorized agent. They will be familiar with any special offers or discounts and can apply them even after you book with no effort required on your part. I once had an issue getting the room grade we wanted for the whole trip and thought we’d have to switch partway through, but my agent kept at it while we were there and got it done. They will also book dining reservations. Costs nothing extra, saves my time. And it’s nice having a knowledgeable professional watching our backs. 36 Disney trips, a few self-booked, prefer the agent.
@Dave Edwards – Of all of the times I’d recommend an agent, that would actually be it. There is a ton you have to know and figure out with regard to access, extras, and how to manage it all. For a lot of things, skilled, experienced travelers that like doing it themselves may not find value in an agency. I don’t have access to better flights than you do. For hotels, that’s different, we have (6) different chains/programs where we have an FHR-like benefit (Virtuoso, Hyatt Privé, Shangri-La Luxury Circle, etc.) and those are usually better priced than FHR with more hotels in the programs. And we also have unpublished rates on 10+ luxury cruise lines as well.
But for Disney, this is one you do not want to do alone if you intend to maximize your experience.
The hits keep on coming. Yet another self-own projection from Douchebag Dave Edwards, #1 on the list of morons in the land. Thank you Douchebag Dave Edwards for making it so incredibly easy to call you out for what you are, a caveman could do it because you clearly have less intelligence and class than a caveman. (No insult to cavemen intended.)
Douchebag Dave Edwards, proving with your every (too frequent) comment that your nickname is absolutely accurate and completely deserved and that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic waste-of-oxygen life than to post abhorrent revolting moronic comments here over and over again every single day. Thank you for confirming once again that you and other MAGAs are stupid hateful racist cretins. Trolling or not, the extent and frequency of your comments are indicative of severe psychiatric and/or addiction problems. Your insults, undoubtedly projection, speak much more to your lack of character than to anyone you attack. Hope you get deported back to whatever rocks you crawled out from you SHPOS.
25 yeas ago, one could affordably visit a Disney property on an off day and have the run of the place regardless of whether one stayed at a Disney property or not.
Today the parks are much more crowded and expensive. Poor (or under informed) planning can result in experiencing more lines than attractions.
Not so much that people are morons for needing a Disney planner. More like we live in a moronic world where even something like going to a Disney property requires Operation Overlord level planning and budget.