Would you pay for a cruise board

[HappyLawyer]

you know i was reading through these boards for both disney and the cruise and i am so glad they are free, then i thought about if it was not free would i pay a fee to have this board. I think as long as the fee is reasonable i would pay to have access, i am very careful with my money especially since our economy is not at its best right now, but i don't know how i would survive without these boards.
any thoughts?

ps. Thank you dis boards for starting and for being here

 

[MrsMork]

I love reading these boards, but nope, I wouldn't pay.

 

[jgiants21]

If the price was right, I could see the users of the boards helping out with the financial burnden.

 

[HappyLawyer]

i agree i would say like 5 bucks a year but i would not pay alot, but i would consider it

 

[Mike320]

Exactly, if it were minimal per year or per month, I'd do it. There's not a great deal of new things being said since I booked my 1/22/05 cruise a YEAR ago but I just love to read the fun times and great things everyone says..get's me ready for my cruise next week!

 

[soccerdad-Chris]

My experience with the boards (twice now, and actively working 2 new cruises) is that, if used properly before a cruise, numerous potential friends are made before the ship sails, those friendships are enhanced during the cruise (in which case the cruise becomes a lot more fun), and in some cases, those friendships last beyond the cruise, sometimes involving booking future cruises with the same people (some of our cruise-mates on our Oct 29th 2005 cruise are friends we met on our cruise last October--no accident).

I'm glad the boards are free, and I certainly wouldn't want to encourage anyone to charge for them. But if it came down to it, I would pay a lot more than $5 (per cruise, say) to have access to the boards. We are booked on 2 DCL cruises this year, and paying even $100, compared to what we're spending and the value of the relationships we build, I would view as a rounding error in our annual Disney vacation budget.

Even though the natural, visceral reaction to paying for something that has heretofore been free is to not want to pay, I reject that idea. That's penny-wise and pound-foolish in my opinion.

Chris

 

[Rence]

The reason everyone loves the DIS boards is because of the large amount of people who contribute. Because there are so many people here, you get a lot of info, a lot of diverse opinions etc.

I would probably be willing to pay if I knew that the quantity of information would stay the same. The problem that I have seen in the past, is that when a board goes from free to pay, a huge percentage of the contributers leave. They aren't willing to pay so they go elsewhere. Those that pay, find a board that is a faint shadow of what the former board is. Without all the people, the information isn't there and it suddenly is no longer worth paying for.

So a board that may be worth paying for, suddenly becomes not worth paying for if you have to pay for it.

Also note that this is a speculative thread, no one said that DIS was going to start charging.

 

[tvguy]

I frequent this board, and two TV professional forums. The TV forums offer basic access for free, and charge extra for "premium" access. Basic access gets you access to everything posted in the last 48 hours, premium gets you access gets you access to everything ever posted in the past 2 years.
Very few pay for the premium access, and I do not, and would not.
I WILL however consider using the sponsors of this board for booking my next cruise in consideration for their advertising support.