Tiffany Tarter can send you on your dream vacation
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Tiffany Tarter leads a busy life. If she’s not being part of the worship team at the First Baptist Church, spending time with her seven (soon to be eight) grandchildren, working as an accountant/CPA, she’s booking dream vacations through ‘Fairy Tale Getaways’.
“I am the owner and lead agent,” Tiffany told us. “My husband Marty also enjoys traveling and plays a role in my agency as well.”
Before becoming a travel agent, Tarter had a photography business, ‘Captured Moments by Tiffany’.
“When I started the travel agency business, I soon found that I couldn’t do both, so I chose to stick with travel,” Tarter said. “Like many travel agents, I also have a day job where I am an accountant/CPA, so as you can see I like to keep busy.”
For many years, Tiffany had been unofficially helping friends and family plan Disney vacations due to her love of Disney and her frequent visits. While on a Disney Cruise, she met another travel agent.
“After talking to her, I decided to join the industry,” Tiffany said. “I love to travel and being a travel agent. I am up to date on all the travel news, especially Disney news, which I enjoy. Plus I hoped it could provide me the additional income to allow me to travel more often.”
Being that the agency is Disney focused, most of the agents share a love for the business. “Once I joined the agency, we had to go through training and the Disney College of Knowledge to be able to sell Disney vacations,” Tarter said. “Most of our vendors have similar programs we have to complete to be able to sell their products.”
If it’s a cruise you are looking for, Fairy Tale Getaways can plan it for you regardless of the cruise line. The most popular cruises are Disney, Royal Caribbean, Virgin, Norwegian and Carnival. “The most popular lines with my clients are Disney and Royal Caribbean,” Tarter said.
Like all travel, when COVID hit, restrictions were set in place. Now that requirements for the vaccine have been lifted, the cruise industry is seeing a huge rebound. Cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival have lifted all requirements, while Virgin allows a certain percentage of unvaccinated on board each sailing. Disney recently modified their requirements and now children under the age of twelve no longer have to be vaccinated.
“There are also some great sales for cruises, so now is a great time to lock in a low price because we expect the rates to start to creep back up.”
Along with the restrictions, travel virtually stopped for a time. With travel stopped, agents had years worth of work that they did not get paid for due to agents only being paid once a client travels.
In addition to not being paid, many hours were spent undoing the work that was in place and canceling vacations. “I have fantastic clients who re-booked once the world opened back up to travel again,” Tarter said. So many did that, last year, Tarter was awarded ‘Top Seller’ in her agency.
Tarter’s love for Disney started at a young age when her parents used to take the family there every couple of years when they were kids. She passed on the love to her daughter, Chelsea, who has Disney as her favorite vacation spot.
“For those of us who love Disney, it’s the feeling you get when you walk through the gates and walk down Main Street and see the first glimpse of the castle,” Tiffany said. “While you are there, you are within the Disney ‘bubble’ where you can temporarily forget about the normal stressors of the real world and just be a kid, even if it’s just for a little while.”
If a cruise is not what you’re looking for, Tiffany can literally send you anywhere you would like to go. Though she specializes in all things Disney such as DisneyWorld, DisneyLand, Disney Cruise Lines and Adventures by Disney, Tarter also sends a large number of clients to other destinations. Some of those destinations include Universal, Cruises, Caribbean, All Inclusives, Beach Vacations, Hawaii, Alaska, New York, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Chicago, St. Louis and Europe.
“I had a large group return from Spain and Portugal last month,” she said.
Being a travel agent, sending people to their dream destinations makes Tiffany plan for her next trip. Recently, she sent a client to Disneyland Paris. Though she’d been to Paris, France twice, Disneyland wasn’t a stop.
“Someday, I’d like to make the trip.”
Even though she sends people on vacations, the Tarter’s and family have taken some great vacations of their own. Some of her destinations include, of course, Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. Exotic vacations include Mexico, Haiti, Belize, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, St. Lucia and Morocco.
“Our favorite beach vacation is St. Pete/Clearwater. They have beautiful beaches,” Tiffany said. “We did a dude ranch in Colorado when my daughter was younger where we rode horses in the mountains everyday and stayed in cabins with no tv. It was one of the best vacations.”
For her European vacations, a trip to Rome with a visit to Pompeii ranks high on the list. “I’ve told my mom that her and I are going to either do a Transatlantic Cruise or a River Cruise in Europe,” Tarter said.
If you have a dream vacation that you would like to make a reality, you can contact Tiffany Tarter by email at tiffany@fairytalegetaway.com or by phone at 217-597-1593. You can also send her a message on her Facebook page, ‘Tiffany Tarter- Travel Agent-Fairy Tale Getaways or visit her website at www.fairytalegetaway.com.
“I love traveling anywhere, even if it’s just a quick weekend roadtrip,” Tiffany said. “Travel is part experiencing things you haven’t experienced and part making memories with those you are traveling with.”
