Thanks everyone for the advice.
The issue we are having boils down to the options we have. When Hurricane Sandy hit, like some many in NJ and NY, we lost power for days. Our plans were to save from the insane airfare that week out of NJ by driving down to Florida. We would have left Thursday and taken two days to get down. We lost power and did not get it back all week. Without power, we could not leave as we needed to keep a generator running to keep our basement from becoming an in-ground pool. On top of that, gas was hard to come by and many roads were blocked in the area for days. Last minute, we had to cancel our trip when we realized there was no way we could make it.
I immediately contacted the insurance and filed claims as instructed by our
travel agent and Disney, fully expecting them our claims to be denied and for DCL to issue us a cruise credit in the amount we paid for this trip to put towards a future sailing. Short story long, the insurance company Allianz, screw up handling of our claims and after my follow up after 7 business days discovered this and was told our claims were then sent to the right place, but we'd have to wait another 5 - 7 business days. We are still waiting. In the meantime, we are looking at future sailings on the Fantasy with the same (Eastern) itinerary, that we might be able to reschedule our trip to. Without taking our kids out of school for a week (they already missed two weeks thanks to Sandy) and conflicts over the summer with other family functions and kids activities, we found the ONLY sailing we could make was June 29th, 2013. Problem was, this sailing is about 50% more expensive than that which we had booked for November this year. I personally called DCL (after finding my TA useless) and spoke with a supervisor, explaining our situation and hoping to find some sympathy, asked if they might be able to help us at all with the price of the June sailing, or at least help us with a little on board credit to help us out given the situation. The supervisor I spoke with was very courteous and sympathetic and said he would ask higher up to see if anything could be done. After not hearing for a few days, I called back, only to learn that they would do nothing.
I understand, business is business. I wasn't asking for the world, just some assistance so that our family could reschedule our trip. Our kids grandparents who were also coming with us, are both retired. The increase in price will be really difficult for them. This was an extreme situation that forced us to miss this trip. DCL doesn't seem to care if or when we'll ever be able to go again. Under this circumstance, I was shocked that Disney would not be any more helpful.