Castaway Cay costs

[vacation disney]

If Disney had to close all their parks for a day and you were forced to stay at the resort.........would you expect some sort of refund, or compensation?

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

Yes Disney plans for it, but what they offer as a back up plan is not what is stated on their web page as I mentioned earlier which is diverting to another port if weather is bad. And since everyone is so willing to over look this as a problem why should they address it, if everyone spoke up when the missed it what they would like to see happen, instead of just posting messages maybe they would make changes. I am in contact with DCL and will handle our issue. I can handle the dissappoinment in missing the Island all I am saying is I will address it with the proper department and hope for change in the future. Since you are so willing to pay for a cruise that may or may not go where it is suppose to, they will continue to sell you cruises, you are their dream customer. There are 2 types of people for certain, those who take action and those that don't.
Good luck in Sept we live in Florida Hurricane season is a blast.

Thanks for your well wishes but you will not see me complaining about a hurricane if we get hit since we are fully aware of the risks. It is MILs birthday and we want to spend it on the ship but onto the topic.

I would not feel gilted if we missed Castaway Cay. It is a beautiful island and we would love to stop there but what I have paid for is to cruise on DCL. I don't find it nessesary to complain for compensation for something I agreed to.

Take action for what? I am not harboring a grudge against DCL for missing CC. I don't feel that it is a cause worthy of getting all bent over. I enjoyed my time on the ship just as much as the time on CC. So obviously DCL doesn't see adding a sea day as much of a detriment as you do or they would change it. Others must not feel it a worthy cause either or they would state so in the surveys that are randomly sent.

Too many start yammering for compensation the second something goes off plan instead of trying to make the best of it is typical of society today. Disney states in the docs that we could miss CC. It is a risk with my money I am willing to take, if not yours don't do it but you certainly don't deserve compensation because you complained while others enjoyed themselves. To continue to act like DCL wronged you and say stuff like people are not "taking action" is absurd. Obviously the number who travelled on those ships enjoyed themselves are much more than the number of complainers or DCL would see the hit financially with fewer bookings. They don't so no need for change.

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

If Disney had to close all their parks for a day and you were forced to stay at the resort.........would you expect some sort of refund, or compensation?

Nope but I bet there will be a line of screamers that will.

 

[noseybuddy]

Quote:
Originally Posted by vacation disney
If Disney had to close all their parks for a day and you were forced to stay at the resort.........would you expect some sort of refund, or compensation?

Sure, why not. I paid for it. Don't expect more than what I paid for, but a least equal to what I missed out on.

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

Quote:
Originally Posted by vacation disney
If Disney had to close all their parks for a day and you were forced to stay at the resort.........would you expect some sort of refund, or compensation?

Sure, why not. I paid for it. Don't expect more than what I paid for, but a least equal to what I missed out on.

Unless you had the ultimate park hopper connected to your ressie you wouldn't be out anything monetarily.

Members of my family were at WDW on an UPH During Sept 11th. For security reasons they closed the parks down and everyone was instructed to go back to their hotels. SHould they have asked for compensation when WDW was worried about safety? What about during the hurricanes last year? Should people have complained for compensation while others lost their homes?

Again DCL would dock at CC if it was SAFE to do so. I would not want to risk the safety of my family because someone is yelling at the cast saying they didn't get what they paid for. Safety is more important to me than a day at a beach.

 

[noseybuddy]

Well I would avoid DCL mainly because of the CC issue. I just feel they need to come up with a better solution to this problem. As for the park issue, I don't think there should be any discussion or argument about being compensated for the closing of the park. If you paid for it, and they close it, then just compensate you for it. What's the big deal. My friend was at DW 9/11 and she did not have to inquire about being compenstaed for the day it closed, Disney just automatically did it. It's not like you are trying to get something for nothing, you already paid for it.

 

[vacation disney]

Well I would avoid DCL mainly because of the CC issue. I just feel they need to come up with a better solution to this problem. As for the park issue, I don't think there should be any discussion or argument about being compensated for the closing of the park. If you paid for it, and they close it, then just compensate you for it. What's the big deal. My friend was at DW 9/11 and she did not have to inquire about being compenstaed for the day it closed, Disney just automatically did it. It's not like you are trying to get something for nothing, you already paid for it.

Exactly..............and CC IS part of the total cost of this very expensive cruise!!!!!!

 

[anolaw]

I just booked for 12/10/2006. Is CC that big of a deal? I think we are going for the overall experience. Of course I want to be able to dock at CC (especially with all of this hype of going to CC and not going to CC). I just don't think that Disney could be blame if they can not dock on a particular day. I guess the backup plan are the activites on the ship. As far as the floats, yes they should probably be free. But we have two choice rent them or don't. You can also bring your own and save a few bucks and there yours to keep.

N

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

As far as a backup plan, I'm not sure what else can be done. I would think that a different port would require a decision to be made prior to even getting within site of Castaway Cay. I'm sure this would cause much more acrimony amongst passengers if the ship didn't even try. Assuming that the ship has to at least give it a try, I believe the options are limited, and a day at sea is probably the best one.

The two nearest ports which could accomodate a cruise ship are Freeport and Nassau. Now, on 3- and 4-day cruises, the ship has just come from Nassau, so there's the consideration of whether passengers would want to just turn around and go back there. I think more important to consider is that both ports are roughly 100 miles from Castaway Cay. That's a four-hour trip if the ship is making top speed, which it doesn't usually do during the day when the engines also have to power things like the kitchens, spa, and other public rooms. Assuming the ship could get there in 4 hours, you'd have half a day at best to be in port. In the case of Nassau, substantially less, as it is 100 miles further from Port Canaveral, and the ship would have to get back there by early the next morning on all but the 4-night itinerary, and in that case, they can swap the sea day with Castaway Cay day and try again the next morning. Freeport is at least closer to Port Canaveral, but I'm guessing there's a reason that they dropped this as a port on the 4-night itinerary, probably having to do at least in part with guest feedback.

Now, I've never piloted a cruise ship, so I can't speak to all of the different reasons that would prevent the ship from docking. I do think that it's overstating it to say that there must be perfect weather, since I keep a history of how often the ships can dock and they are succesful about 95% of the time. I realize that this is of little consequence those whose sole cruising experience involved missing Castaway Cay. I don't pretend to understand the disappointment and frustration, since I'm lucky enough to have made it on all of my cruises.

 

[vacation disney]

If CC is only missed 5% of the time, then why is it so wrong for these people to ask or expect a little something in return. You cannot tell me that it would hurt Disneys bottom line that much if they did something for the 5% of passengers who lost out on the highlight of their vacation! It is obvious that Disney is not concerned that at least 5% of their customers are starting to look at other options for there yearly vacations!!

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

Exactly..............and CC IS part of the total cost of this very expensive cruise!!!!!!

Again they are not saying "Oh lets not dock today and screw these guests" There is a reason they cannot dock and I trust the captain of the ship to make the decicion best for the safety of the ship and those on board. CC is less than 1/4 of a 4 night cruise and less than 1/3rd of a 3 night. At best you could be there what 7 hours total max on the beach? So what is that out of a 3 night cruise? Say you are on the ship from 5pm day of sailing till 9 am day arriving back in port. That is a total of 64 hours. So CC is not as big of a part of the 3 day even. Most of the experince centers around the ship. To let 7 hours make or break whether you enjoy a Disney Cruise is ridiculous. Add another 24 hours to it and you are basically letting 7 hours of a cruise dictate a 88 hour vacation. I don't even want to touch a 7 day. It is crazy not to take a Disney Cruise because there is a 5% chance you will miss 7 hours on CC.

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

If CC is only missed 5% of the time, then why is it so wrong for these people to ask or expect a little something in return. You cannot tell me that it would hurt Disneys bottom line that much if they did something for the 5% of passengers who lost out on the highlight of their vacation! It is obvious that Disney is not concerned that at least 5% of their customers are starting to look at other options for there yearly vacations!!

BECAUSE it is stated in all the documentation AND because if every company had to be held financially accountable for the weather none would survive. I guess because they are a rich company they can handle it right?

I don't want the rates to go up more than they already are because people complained enough for compensation and held DCL accountable for the weather, thank you very much! Of course you know that free bees and comps are not swallowed by the company right? In the long run we pay for it in rates.

I am all for compensation for when a company made a mistake and is at fault but here they are not. Does anyone honestly believe they should be held accountable for the weather or sea conditions? You are on a ship for crying out loud!

 

[noseybuddy]

Again they are not saying "Oh lets not dock today and screw these guests" There is a reason they cannot dock and I trust the captain of the ship to make the decicion best for the safety of the ship and those on board. CC is less than 1/4 of a 4 night cruise and less than 1/3rd of a 3 night. At best you could be there what 7 hours total max on the beach? So what is that out of a 3 night cruise? Say you are on the ship from 5pm day of sailing till 9 am day arriving back in port. That is a total of 64 hours. So CC is not as big of a part of the 3 day even. Most of the experince centers around the ship. To let 7 hours make or break whether you enjoy a Disney Cruise is ridiculous. Add another 24 hours to it and you are basically letting 7 hours of a cruise dictate a 88 hour vacation. I don't even want to touch a 7 day. It is crazy not to take a Disney Cruise because there is a 5% chance you will miss 7 hours on CC.

Well I don't think it is ridiculous to base your decision on taking the cruise or not because of CC. For some people, that might be the one thing that they are looking forward to. Things that are important to you are not necessairly important to everyone else. It just seems that we agree to disagree so maybe we should just move on.

 

[vacation disney]

BECAUSE it is stated in all the documentation AND because if every company had to be held financially accountable for the weather none would survive. I guess because they are a rich company they can handle it right?

I don't want the rates to go up more than they already are because people complained enough for compensation and held DCL accountable for the weather, thank you very much! Of course you know that free bees and comps are not swallowed by the company right? In the long run we pay for it in rates.

I am all for compensation for when a company made a mistake and is at fault but here they are not. Does anyone honestly believe they should be held accountable for the weather or sea conditions? You are on a ship for crying out loud!

I am sorry if I am making anyone upset over this........I guess I expected a little more from a cruise that costs 1,000.00-1,500.00 dollars more than most of DCLs competetors......thought that the money we spent in the parks/resorts the last 4 years was totaly worth it.....but after this years trip I must say that I do not feel this way about DCL!!!!!

 

[BeenHad]

Don't miss out on some of the basic issues that DCL does have some control over.

1) The setup for docking at CC. Very poor and it requires near perfect weather conditions. We are not talking about downpours and thunderstorms keeping a ship for docking, just a light breeze. The island could have been set up a little better. The 5% only miss CC that we see is a useless number. Only DCL can provide an accurate number. Just today someone posted that they could not dock until after 12noon because of weather. In my case, 3 unsuccessful attempts in 2 days was 100% failure rate and the alleged 95% success rate means nothing.

2) You pay MORE for a DCL experience and therefore your expectations have every right to be much higher. Similar experiences on other cruise lines yielded on board credit during the cruise and taken to another port when one was missed. You don't pay for a gourmet meal at a nice restaurant and have them bring you a McDonald Happy Meal to the table do you? If we all expected the lowest for our money and purchased based on price we would all be driving Yugos.

3) Customer service of yesteryear is gone and somehow forgotten. Happy customers are the key to business and making a profit on each and every customer without fail is not always the best business decision. I know, I am self employed and don't profit on every customer but everyon customer that I take a loss on ends up providing more back to us than any advertising dollar can buy. Does Walmart look like they are going out of business any time soon? What other company allows you to return items like that? Even with the small percentage of folks who abuse the system does not affect the bottom line.

I will ramble on until DCL attends to this matter in a satisfactory way and to my liking. If not, I will be sure to continue to spread the word.

My life, my money and my opinion.

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

Don't miss out on some of the basic issues that DCL does have some control over.

1) The setup for docking at CC. Very poor and it requires near perfect weather conditions. We are not talking about downpours and thunderstorms keeping a ship for docking, just a light breeze.

Interesting point. I have no idea whether the dock is in the best place. I would assume that people that do know about such things were consulted before the pier was constructed. The fact that the vast majority of cruises do dock succesfully would seem to support that. However, since you seem to have some knowledge in this area, I'd be interested to hear where/how the pier should be configured. Here's a satellite photo of the island. Again, I don't know, but it seems that the pier is built in as sheltered a part of the island as possible.

The 5% only miss CC that we see is a useless number. Only DCL can provide an accurate number. Just today someone posted that they could not dock until after 12noon because of weather. In my case, 3 unsuccessful attempts in 2 days was 100% failure rate and the alleged 95% success rate means nothing.

I agree that it's a useless number for you, and made comments to that effect in my previous post. And yes, it's not a complete number, but it does represent 1021 cruises. The only thing "alleged" about it is that it is a compilation of the reports from this board, so it's no more alleged than your "alleged" miss.

I will ramble on until DCL attends to this matter in a satisfactory way and to my liking. If not, I will be sure to continue to spread the word.

But why will rambling on about it here be likely to force their hand?

 

[BeenHad]

I have been in contact with DCL moving up the ladder with unfavorable response of "No, we won't do anything for you". I have not stopped my communication with them and will continue until they stop responding to my emails which may have already happened.

Posting this information here will educate folks and show DCL true profit driven colors and maybe someone will not book for the wrong reason like we did. We booked because of CC, that was the deciding factor that made us willing to pay all that extra money for.

http://www.disneyblunder.blogspot.com

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

Don't miss out on some of the basic issues that DCL does have some control over.

1) The setup for docking at CC. Very poor and it requires near perfect weather conditions. We are not talking about downpours and thunderstorms keeping a ship for docking, just a light breeze. The island could have been set up a little better. The 5% only miss CC that we see is a useless number. Only DCL can provide an accurate number. Just today someone posted that they could not dock until after 12noon because of weather. In my case, 3 unsuccessful attempts in 2 days was 100% failure rate and the alleged 95% success rate means nothing.

2) You pay MORE for a DCL experience and therefore your expectations have every right to be much higher. Similar experiences on other cruise lines yielded on board credit during the cruise and taken to another port when one was missed. You don't pay for a gourmet meal at a nice restaurant and have them bring you a McDonald Happy Meal to the table do you? If we all expected the lowest for our money and purchased based on price we would all be driving Yugos.

3) Customer service of yesteryear is gone and somehow forgotten. Happy customers are the key to business and making a profit on each and every customer without fail is not always the best business decision. I know, I am self employed and don't profit on every customer but everyon customer that I take a loss on ends up providing more back to us than any advertising dollar can buy. Does Walmart look like they are going out of business any time soon? What other company allows you to return items like that? Even with the small percentage of folks who abuse the system does not affect the bottom line.

I will ramble on until DCL attends to this matter in a satisfactory way and to my liking. If not, I will be sure to continue to spread the word.

My life, my money and my opinion.

You have got to be kidding me? Light breeze is your way of trying to bilk DCL out of $$ with that ridiculous statement. Sticking to it is the only way to make your justification for compensation. You take no ones opinion into consideration and you just keep saying this completely false statement. Of course it was more than a light breeze. Did you find out about riptides or anything else that could negatively affect the ships docking? No you are just sticking to you completely uniformend mantra about light breeze. This gives you no credibility and hopefully DCL is recognizing this. Hopefully their decisions of not offering compensation reflects their realization that you will say anything to get some $$. Call it compensation but they didn't do anything to wrong to you or the cruisers of that ship to justify giving you a thing.

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

I am sorry if I am making anyone upset over this........I guess I expected a little more from a cruise that costs 1,000.00-1,500.00 dollars more than most of DCLs competetors......thought that the money we spent in the parks/resorts the last 4 years was totaly worth it.....but after this years trip I must say that I do not feel this way about DCL!!!!!

Unfortunately you did not have a good time because of missing CC and that stinks. IMO without CC it is still completely worth it to cruise DCL but we can disagree on that.

I personally feel that DCL offered an amazing experience onboard the ship and we are cruising again in Sept. Right dab in the middle of hurrricane season (mils b-day) So there is a chance that we will not make it to CC or Nassau even. It would be dissappointing but it would not ruin the trip.

 

[sasser05]

You have got to be kidding me? Light breeze is your way of trying to bilk DCL out of $$ with that ridiculous statement. Sticking to it is the only way to make your justification for compensation. You take no ones opinion into consideration and you just keep saying this completely false statement. Of course it was more than a light breeze. Did you find out about riptides or anything else that could negatively affect the ships docking? No you are just sticking to you completely uniformend mantra about light breeze. This gives you no credibility and hopefully DCL is recognizing this. Hopefully their decisions of not offering compensation reflects their realization that you will say anything to get some $$. Call it compensation but they didn't do anything to wrong to you or the cruisers of that ship to justify giving you a thing.

I was on the cruise- it was a light breeze it was ideal weather- compensation should offered without even having to ask- not money back but if they want us to cruise again a credit- for trying their cruiseline again even though where they say we are going we may never get to- this is not something that happens rarely it happens enough to be addressed and should be. And if we want $$ that is our right you are so rude really!!!