Are the ship usually full?

[lanejudy]

@party-of-five I don't believe the DCL website shows ALL available staterooms on any given search. Also, if someone else is in the booking system and selects a stateroom (as you did playing with it) that stateroom is taken out of inventory for a period of time. I can't say why the system is changing a first booking when you opt to add a second cabin, unless it's trying to give you connecting rooms. But most likely the reason you get different available rooms is simply that random rooms (of the correct size) show on each search. I haven't played much in the new system, but the old online system used to also allow you to enter a specific stateroom if it did not show in your initial search. I do not believe there is an easy way to make the DCL website show how many rooms are available.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

I'm sure that there are formulas and reasons behind all of this that are beyond my understanding, but I stick by my original statement that going to the website to "see what rooms are still available" isn't a good way to see how full the ship might be.

Yes I agree with you, especially after the new update. On two recent occasions the cabin I wanted wasn't showing available online so when I moved my OBB/Placeholder cruise to a real one I gave Costco some cabin numbers and all four of them were available to choose from but on the DCL website none were showing. So - that just adds more mystery to it now since there potentially are *more* available than what's showing. I felt the prior system/website was a lot more accurate and once it wasn't showing online it wasn't available unless as mentioned, someone else froze it up for 30 minutes by clicking on it.

Heather

 

[party-of-five]

@party-of-five I don't believe the DCL website shows ALL available staterooms on any given search. Also, if someone else is in the booking system and selects a stateroom (as you did playing with it) that stateroom is taken out of inventory for a period of time. I can't say why the system is changing a first booking when you opt to add a second cabin, unless it's trying to give you connecting rooms. But most likely the reason you get different available rooms is simply that random rooms (of the correct size) show on each search. I haven't played much in the new system, but the old online system used to also allow you to enter a specific stateroom if it did not show in your initial search. I do not believe there is an easy way to make the DCL website show how many rooms are available.

I liked the feature of being able to select a particular room. I wish they still had it, as I too haven't been able to find it on the new system.

Sorry OP for getting slightly off topic.

 

[SuperDry]

I understand these ideas... Capacity of the room, capacity of lifeboats, total # of kids on board. At least I think I do. But I don't think that's what I'm seeing. For example, I'm looking at the 9/12/16 4 night Dream cat 4a-c. When I select 2A3C a particular set of rooms appear available (of course, because not all of those rooms can accommodate 5). But if I select any combination of adults or children less than 5, a different set of rooms show available, some of the same but not all. Some of the rooms that's showed available for 5 no longer show available. Now, it would make sense that if those rooms/lifeboats/kid clubs could handle 5, why can't they handle less?

Here's a scenario: Consider that lifeboat station assignments are fixed per cabin - not only is it printed on you KTTW card, but it's also permanently noted on the sign on the back of the stateroom door. As such, consider a situation where there's one room open in a particular lifeboat station, the room sleeps up to 5, and there are 5 spots open on that lifeboat. In that case, Disney may want to sell that cabin only if it will have 5 passengers, as the remaining spots in that lifeboat will go out empty otherwise (unless someone in another cabin adds additional net passengers, which is far less likely than a new booking). There are probably all sorts of other situations that the website takes into consideration in order to encourage each sailing to go out with max passengers.

Yes I agree with you, especially after the new update. On two recent occasions the cabin I wanted wasn't showing available online so when I moved my OBB/Placeholder cruise to a real one I gave Costco some cabin numbers and all four of them were available to choose from but on the DCL website none were showing. So - that just adds more mystery to it now since there potentially are *more* available than what's showing. I felt the prior system/website was a lot more accurate and once it wasn't showing online it wasn't available unless as mentioned, someone else froze it up for 30 minutes by clicking on it.

I don't think that's true. With the old website, you could look at a cruise far in the future and see only some cabins open, when you'd expect most of them to be so for a cruise that just started booking (I doubt that "most" cabins on a particular cruise are sold soon after the booking window opens).

 

[Quellman]

on the updated DCL website, you can actually put in as if you are pricing a cruise (make sure to put in just 2 adults) and then choose your cruise. The site now lets you actually see which cabins are available. You can count those. Ive been doing this for my upcoming cruise (very nerdy, I know). Thats how I know that there are about 85 cabins still available.

Plus what ever they have out of service for maintenance or for other use.