Disney "Cruise" VISA vs. Other "Cruise" cards

darkwing818

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 5, 2011
With all of the "discussions" lately about DCL raising their prices (happens every new release) & all the comparisons to other Cruise lines rates, it got me thinking about how folks pay for their cruises regardless of which line they are sailing.
For us using the Disney VISA with the 6 month 0% interest feature, is a great way to pay for our cruise. Spreading the cost over 6 months helps to reduce the sticker shock (at least mentally).
I know other cruise lines have credit cards, with various perks, but do any, especially RCCL or Celebrity offer a feature similar to DCL. If they do it would make switching to another line a little less dramatic.
Just an aside, we always pay our cards off every month, so we don't incur any finance charges.
 
I suspect for actual dollar savings, the best return would be on a non-cruiseline-branded travel credit card that gives real-world cash back for travel purchases at a rate higher than typical rewards credit cards. I've spoken before of barclay's arrival+ card, which is a great card for cruises because of the way their rewards system works. (You redeem points for cashback against individual travel purchases, and since you can break your cruise payment into lots of little purchases, it gives you lots of opportunities to redeem at the higher rate.)

Most of these cards will also have attractive signup bonus (cash, miles, etc).

I find that the cruiseline-branded cards are more of a 'psychological' bonus than cold hard cash.

That said, I'm generally running cruise purchases through them to gain points, not carry balances, so the APR isn't significant to me.
 
canadians can not get a disney visa….sadly. i do have a us master card that gives me air miles which i can convert to lots of things, i seldom fly on my miles. i have gotten 5 day disney park passes which is a great bonus. i always paid y cruises with this master card as it was better than purchasing on my canadian card. the exchange rate was the kicker. now that i have 'discovered' there are cruises out there that can be booked in canadian my us card will be used less and less.
 
Like you we do not carry balances on our cards so the 6 month 0 interest is not a perk to us. APR doesn't matter because we don't pay interest. We like our cash back and airline rewards cards best. We run major purchases through them for the rewards. With earning miles through my husband's work travel and our mileage cards we've ( family of 5) traveled to Europe at least once a year for the past 6 years on award tickets. I just recently booked flights to Barcelona and returns from Athens for June 2016 using miles.
 
We use the Disney VISA as our main card. We'll be on the Fantasy over Thanksgiving and ended using about $2500 Disney Dollars saved over the past two years toward the cruise. It certainly lessened the sticker shock of a very expensive cruise. We don't do Disney too often so we save up the reward dollars. We live in California and the $2500 Disney Dollars also gives us a "free" 4 night stay at Disneyland for a family of 4 every few years.
 
Royal has a cc similar to Disney. Not sure about 6 months interest free. I use the interest free for deposits on cruises, I cancel before the 6 months is up if I'm not going to take the cruise. I'm not always sure what I want to do and when I want to do it so I like the option of being able to "hold" a cruise for 6 months.
 

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