2018 Watch: All 2018 Itineraries are announced as of May 11th, 2017!

[pillow]

I am looking to book for late feb, early may 2018 as soon as possible, and will be my first time on DCL (and first cruise in 10+ years)...so a few questions:

How soon after itineraries are announced can you book?

What is the best way to book of you have a specific stateroom you want, yourself online so you can do it asap (forgoing obc from an agent), or with an agent to get the full obc, but knowing they might be working with several other people and might not get to your booking right away.

Does this make sense? Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

Bookings usually go something like this: Announcement Tuesday, Gold and Platinum book Wed, everyone else Thursday.

I think your question about strategy to book a specific stateroom depends on who you use as an agent. We use Costco, and there is no particular agent assigned. So, you're just calling/going online at Costco as opposed to DCL. If you're using another agent, I think it depends on your relationship with that agent and where you believe you'll be on his/her list. I know many have great relationships with their TA's, but we're more comfortable handling things ourselves. We do go through Costco for the huge cash card, but you're still pretty much in charge of the reservation. I would call them a no frills agent with not much hand holding. Perfect for us.

 

[Mddad1210]

Thanks...are you able to price out different itineraries as soon as they are released (Tuesday in your example), or not until Thursday?

 

[Flossbolna]

Thanks...are you able to price out different itineraries as soon as they are released (Tuesday in your example), or not until Thursday?

Pricing will not be available until booking starts. Usually we have a thread here on the DIS where Gold and Platinum Castaway Club members post the quotes that they got via the telephone on Wednesday. This often gives an indication of what prices are like. For the last release @AquaDame organised that thread. I think there often was also a "quote request" thread where Silver or new cruisers were asking if someone who was calling for quotes could get them a quote for the cruise they were interested in.

However, for a general idea of pricing the 2017 opening day prices should give an indicator as to the 2018 prices (just add 5-10%) as long as you compare the right weeks, so take into account certain holidays moving around (especially Easter) as they influence pricing. I find the fare tracker on touringplans especially helpful for that purpose: https://touringplans.com/disney-cruise-line/tools/fare-tracker

 

[pillow]

However, for a general idea of pricing the 2017 prices should give an indicator as to the 2018 prices (just add 5-10%) as long as you compare the right weeks, so take into account certain holidays moving around (especially Easter) as they influence pricing. I find the fare tracker on touringplans especially helpful for that purpose: https://touringplans.com/disney-cruise-line/tools/fare-tracker

I love touring plans, but didn't know this existed. Nice tool!

 

[Flossbolna]

I love touring plans, but didn't know this existed. Nice tool!

Yes, I recently discovered it and was surprised that it is not more widely recommended on here. I love how you can even go back until 2013 and look at prices. Much better than cruisefish in my opinion. The only disadvantage is that the names of the itineraries are a bit confusing and you might need to search around a bit for what you are looking for. With the new website, DCL does not name the itineraries anymore like it did previously, so who knows anymore if you are on a Western A or B. I also like that you can search for different traveler groups.

 

[pillow]

Yes, I recently discovered it and was surprised that it is not more widely recommended on here. I love how you can even go back until 2013 and look at prices. Much better than cruisefish in my opinion. The only disadvantage is that the names of the itineraries are a bit confusing and you might need to search around a bit for what you are looking for. With the new website, DCL does not name the itineraries anymore like it did previously, so who knows anymore if you are on a Western A or B. I also like that you can search for different traveler groups.

I had that problem too. I couldn't remember which itinerary (A, B, C, etc), so I just guessed and then looked for my dates. For our spring break cruise, its interesting to see how in previous years, the prices increased earlier (and more) than prices this year. I assume that is because people aren't booking as quickly with the higher pricing structure. I'm hoping that means we may be hitting a ceiling on pricing. I'll be curious to see what spring break 2018 looks like.

 

[AquaDame]

I had that problem too. I couldn't remember which itinerary (A, B, C, etc), so I just guessed and then looked for my dates. For our spring break cruise, its interesting to see how in previous years, the prices increased earlier (and more) than prices this year. I assume that is because people aren't booking as quickly with the higher pricing structure. I'm hoping that means we may be hitting a ceiling on pricing. I'll be curious to see what spring break 2018 looks like.

I think I agree with the sentiment... we keep waffling on doing a holiday cruise since it is SO expensive. Twice as much as sailing earlier in the month! I expected the price to go up by now but it has been minimal - only $50 or so pp up from when they were released.

 

[pillow]

I think I agree with the sentiment... we keep waffling on doing a holiday cruise since it is SO expensive. Twice as much as sailing earlier in the month! I expected the price to go up by now but it has been minimal - only $50 or so pp up from when they were released.

Similar to our spring break cruise. But curiously, the ship is almost full. So, people aren't booking super early and driving up prices, but they are booking eventually. Its tough when you're married to the school schedule!

 

[Flossbolna]

I think the algorithm that they use to determine the price hikes must have something to do with how many people book in which amount of time. So, for example if you have one booking every second day, nothing happens, but if you have 10 bookings in one day, it jumps up. So, possibly after a month both cruises have the same number of bookings, but one has had a price jump, the other did not. That's why you have those crazy price jumps on opening day for some cruises and it appears that the same happened right now with so many people changing their reservations from the cancelled and changed itineraries.

 

[scrappinginontario]

If it helps at all, we booked our February 2017 cruise on opening day one year ago today so hopefully the new cruises will be announced soon!

 

[RedSox68]

Spoke to my TA -- because of the storm, everything is upside down and Disney may not announce for a while until the offices, etc. are back in full speed.

 

[kmix78]

[QUOTE="Flossbolna, post: 56504629, member: 125530"

"Winter" means first cruise in the new year up to April/May (not including the transitioning cruises).
"Summer" means about May to August/September.
"Fall" means about September until the end of the year (ending with the last cruise starting in the old year).

It still is a bit of a work in progress and I will verify dates more specifically. I will also try to add on more historic dates.
My plan is to post it as a seperate thread that then is easy to refer to and I am planning on keeping it up to date as new release dates come.

Fall 2017 - May 24, 2016
Summer 2017 - April 12, 2016
Winter 2017 - October 6, 2015
Fall 2016 - May 18, 2015
Summer 2016 - March 24, 2015
Winter 2016 - October 28, 2014
Fall 2015 - May 19, 2014
Summer 2015 - March 25, 2014
Winter 2015 - November 12, 2013

These are the easy years, before that things were released in different batches and I still need to verify things better, but this is what I have so far:

revised itineraries Dream, Magic, Wonder (they had originally scheduled the ships very differently) for October to December 2014 - June 18, 2013
Dream/Fantasy September to December 2014, Magic/Wonder May to December 2014 - February 12, 2013
Dream/Fantasy January to August 2014, Magic/Wonder January to April 2014 - December 4, 2012
Magic/Wonder all 2013 - June 26, 2012

To me it seems that with the new ships arriving they had some scheduling difficulties at first, but now seem to have settled into a rhythm on releasing the itineraries for all the ships in three season batches.

[/QUOTE]


When do the PC cruises get released? Are they separate from the regular releases? I put a placeholder down last week, with hopes of booking either an EBPC or WBPC in 2018- but I want the best price so want to make sure I'm on top of the dates.

 

[adSimba]

based on previous releases, the 2018 WBPC cruise should be released in the next set

 

[apple9117]

can't wait for the 2018 itineraries!

 

[Flossbolna]

When do the PC cruises get released? Are they separate from the regular releases? I put a placeholder down last week, with hopes of booking either an EBPC or WBPC in 2018- but I want the best price so want to make sure I'm on top of the dates.

based on previous releases, the 2018 WBPC cruise should be released in the next set

I checked with the articles on www.disneycruiselineblog.com about the releases and according to the data I found there the 2016 and 2017 WBPC were announced with the summer release and the 2016 and 2017 EBPC were announced with the fall release. So, if they keep the previous schedule, the next release for winter 2018 (which kind of can happen any week now) would not yet have any Panama Canal cruise. However, it makes sense to keep an eye out for it, things might change.

 

[Neptune's Fork]

Pricing will not be available until booking starts. Usually we have a thread here on the DIS where Gold and Platinum Castaway Club members post the quotes that they got via the telephone on Wednesday. This often gives an indication of what prices are like. For the last release @AquaDame organised that thread. I think there often was also a "quote request" thread where Silver or new cruisers were asking if someone who was calling for quotes could get them a quote for the cruise they were interested in.

However, for a general idea of pricing the 2017 prices should give an indicator as to the 2018 prices (just add 5-10%) as long as you compare the right weeks, so take into account certain holidays moving around (especially Easter) as they influence pricing. I find the fare tracker on touringplans especially helpful for that purpose: https://touringplans.com/disney-cruise-line/tools/fare-tracker

I thought if you book on the release date or shortly thereafter, the prices are supposed to be lower not higher?

 

[Flossbolna]

I thought if you book on the release date or shortly thereafter, the prices are supposed to be lower not higher?

I am talking comparing 2017 opening day prices to 2018 opening day prices. Expect 2018 opening day prices to be higher than 2017 opening day, but most likely lower than current 2017 pricing (however, this might not be the case for all cruises).

I amended the post you quoted to make this clearer.

 

[RedSox68]

I thought if you book on the release date or shortly thereafter, the prices are supposed to be lower not higher?

It also depends on the itinerary -- if it is a new popular and highly anticipated itinerary, the prices start out higher to begin with! That seems to be Disney's new way of starting. When we got the WBTA for 2017 at lower than we paid in 2007, my TA said it was because they are not that popular a cruise anymore, so Disney starts the prices out lower to begin with. But as always with Disney -- there is never any rhyme or reason as to how they do this anymore, so who knows.....

 

[Keyser]

As someone who just recently got Gold status, I understand Gold and Platinum get to book one day ahead (is that right?). Do we get some kind of email notification when the schedule is about to come out, and if so, how far ahead do we find out?

 

[chinarider]

keeping an eye and ear on all the buzz.... just booked Dec 2017 so probably will wait to rebook on ship but excited to see what comes out