Well....
.... since I'm a well established skin flint in these parts - I figured there's no harm in tossing in my 2 bits here...
< dramatic collective
Groaning may now commence >
Let me begin by saying OUR sailing is a good deal considering what some of the other Disney sailings are costing my family on a per day basis WITH ports that are a bit out of the ordnary for Disney. AND... let me add that no other line has many of the special things we find so endearing... and there are MANY distictive differences.
Having said the preceeding... let me also confess that on the day we paid off this sailing (last week friday) we put a deposit on another cruise for 1/3rd the cost. Granted Disney is 15 nites versus 7 on this other unnamed line - but it also is the 2nd best cabin catagory on thier ship versus our Disney sailing in a humble window cabin. If we had taken a window on the newly booked voyage - the price difference would have been such that we could have sailed 4.25 weeks versus the 2 weeks on Disney. So it's slightly better then half the price of Disney. Plus - the ship sizes are nearly idenical with 89,000 versus the Magic at 83,000 tons ... however, the new booking is on a ship that was launched under a year ago and is their fleets' current flag ship.
Is Disney worth the 2:1 window for window difference? Well... obviously, we think it is worth the difference. And also, it is OK to try this half priced cruise line too. We've never tried it before - so how bad could it really be? We're going to find out.
< gulp >
Seriously, our position is we love crusing with The Mouse. That much is obvious. And the price... well... we know to each is their own ... and ya gotta respect that. Including that The mouse has priced thier "experience" the way that it is. I think it is within reason how they've priced it - however for some it will be kind of expensive while for others it will be cheap. As such - we have a "routine" in which we cruise - and we're happy with it. We try to sail roughly once a year with Disney but sort of skipped last year on account of a shift in priorities (we concentrated vacation time with family who were ill).
At any rate, we're comfortable with our window on the Magic - and we're thrilled to be going. We would probably not pay anything extra for booking early and might view charging for he privilage of being among the first as tolerable. Especially if it means every other cabin saves $20 or Mickey Bars remain FREE for all. However, if they began to charge for Mickey bars - I might view it as petty... while others might be Ok with it. So you see - to each is their own opinion, eh?
Put another way - wouldn't it be interesting to have
DCL charge $500 for the privilage of being the 1st twelve to book... and IF they took that $6,000 to offer it as a $6,000 REFUND to someone on each sailing on a random basis!? Now THAT would be nice in my opinion... something they could promote the HECK out of and cost them nothing except the $6000 in lost revenue ... or from another POV... it would be comparable to having another vacant cabin on every sailing... or $306,000 annually allowing for 1 week in dry dock. OR... how about allocating that $306,000 for 12 service excellance awards to the staff that works so hard to deliver a great experience for us? THEY would most certainly appreciate the strength of this kind of bonusing?
At any rate ... may I now suggest that the collective goans may now subside.
Now I know they are not all going to WDW but YIKES!! This is our 1st trip during the summer and that was making us nervous enough. This should b e very interesting.
..here i was thinking....the free bee, spa..offer..would have all
...well @ the wenches. 
.....meant.."junking " alot of orginal packing
.
...dust..alot of
