Castaway Club ladder

atoz786

Earning My Ears
Joined
May 18, 2021
Messages
74
Does the castaway club levels only take into account the number of completed cruises, is there no weight given to length of cruises? Seems if you take multiple 3/4 day cruises you would get to the next level faster vs 7 days even though they cost more and are longer? Thanks


  • Silver Castaway – 1 completed cruise
  • Gold Castaway – 5 completed cruises
  • Platinum Castaway – 10 completed cruises
 
A weighting towards number of nights on board is literally how every other (besides DCL) cruise line builds its customer loyalty program. It's been a long time source of frustration as someone who has taken 5 transatlantic cruises on DCL, but the reality is that the 3/4 night Bahamas cruises are probably more profitable for the line, so they treat all of them the same.
 
On a per-night basis, the 3- and 4-day cruises are more expensive than most others (excluding maybe the summer cruises in Europe and Alaska).

To be honest, we find those short cruises too short. I don't know how many will chase the higher status through just those cruises - when the marginal tier benefits are nothing to write back home about.
 

On a per-night basis, the 3- and 4-day cruises are more expensive than most others (excluding maybe the summer cruises in Europe and Alaska).

To be honest, we find those short cruises too short. I don't know how many will chase the higher status through just those cruises - when the marginal tier benefits are nothing to write back home about.

Certainly these days the benefits are very poor
 
Does the castaway club levels only take into account the number of completed cruises, is there no weight given to length of cruises? Seems if you take multiple 3/4 day cruises you would get to the next level faster vs 7 days even though they cost more and are longer? Thanks


  • Silver Castaway – 1 completed cruise
  • Gold Castaway – 5 completed cruises
  • Platinum Castaway – 10 completed cruises
DIsney only considers number of cruises. Keep in mind that a 3-night cruise can easily cost more than a 7-night cruise depending on the time of year for each cruise and the stateroom type, so it's not so simple as "longer cruises cost more". We have to cruise during school holidays (I'm a teacher & my son is in high school), so our cruises routinely cost about twice as much as low-season cruises, but there is no Castaway Club extra credit for that. And concierge typically starts out about twice as much as a regular stateroom on any given cruise, and that gets no extra Castaway Club credit, either.

If Disney really wanted to make it fair, they'd base your level on dollars spent per passenger. But that would be too blatant. So they do number of cruises. If you do the math you'll find that it is more expensive to sail the same total number of nights on many shorter cruises than on fewer longer cruises, so that's more profitable for Disney and what they're going to reward.

Given the fact that we can only cruise during school holidays (and that DCL charges a lot more for holiday cruises), I appreciate that DCL gives us the same Castaway Club credit as someone who sails longer during off-season, yet pays the same or less than we do. It's at least a bit of compensation for DCL's massive school holiday upcharge, which affects a lot of families.
 
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There are simply too many Platinum members. Many children are Platinum members. Perhaps they need to introduce Titanium for 20 ore more cruises and Bitcoin for 30 plus?? The more members in each tier, the less 'special' it is, right?
 
There are simply too many Platinum members. Many children are Platinum members. Perhaps they need to introduce Titanium for 20 ore more cruises and Bitcoin for 30 plus?? The more members in each tier, the less 'special' it is, right?
The more tiers there are, the more negative the tiering is for people towards the bottom, and Disney wants to encourage new or relatively new cruisers, which are its core demographic: families cruising for their kids. A lot of these cruisers aren't going to even make it to gold level because they'll stop when the kids grow up, but since Disney is so expensive, they can still make a lot of money for the line regardless, especially if they cruise during school holidays and/or concierge. Disney doesn't need people to come back several times to start really making money off them- they make good money from their passengers starting from the very first cruise. So they aren't going to want to discourage lower-tier passengers too much.
 
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There are simply too many Platinum members. Many children are Platinum members. Perhaps they need to introduce Titanium for 20 ore more cruises and Bitcoin for 30 plus?? The more members in each tier, the less 'special' it is, right?

No official change to CC tiers, but they did do something like this for the first booking days on the Wish - 25+, 20+, and 15+
 
I think first time, newer, Disney cruisers are already being discouraged . . . they can't book cabins until after all the plat and gold passengers. They have to work hard to get into Palo or tastings and don't have a chance at a coveted Cabana. I think there are ways to reward loyal passengers that doesn't take away from those at the bottom of the ladder. That said, there are a lot of other cruise lines out there. No one has to put themselves into the expensive quest for platinum and concierge.
 
I think people put a little too much weight in the Castaway Club levels honestly. Aside from the Cabanas (which I personally don't really see the crazy draw to) most things can be attained by a silver level member. Most first time cruisers don't know what they're missing with Palo and such but even Palo can be booked by a first time cruiser in some cases.

So most things can be booked on your second cruise. Your first cruise there is so much you're trying to do honestly you may not even miss it. My first cruise the only thing I was bummed I couldn't get was a scheduled character meet. I quickly realized it wasn't a big deal tho because we met all the characters with very minimal wait times on the cruise. (as a new cruiser I thought the ONLY way to meet them was the scheduled meet)

I am sure the shorter cruises are more profitable for Disney. In that aspect the levels make sense. Plus also if you're on a short cruise often people will tie it to a WDW trip making it even more profitable for Disney.

I think first time, newer, Disney cruisers are already being discouraged . . . they can't book cabins until after all the plat and gold passengers. They have to work hard to get into Palo or tastings and don't have a chance at a coveted Cabana. I think there are ways to reward loyal passengers that doesn't take away from those at the bottom of the ladder. That said, there are a lot of other cruise lines out there. No one has to put themselves into the expensive quest for platinum and concierge.

For us on our first crusie tho honestly we didn't care about not being able to book those things. I'm the weirdo that still thinks the cabanas are a waste of money LOL!

My first cruise was a short one and I was more focused on doing things with my kids so personally I didn't really care too much about Palo, tastings or the cabanas. I also tho honestly didn't really know about them until I was on board.

Waiting to book doesn't really bother me either. As a first time cruiser I didn't really care all that much which ship I was on (so for the first timers and the Wish it may not be as big of a deal as you'd think). We booked much closer to time than when the cruises were first announced anyways so it was already well past all the CC levels.

First time cruisers really don't know all the perks and benefits and may not even know what they're missing honestly. Most travel at this point we know have rewards systems. This is true for so many things: Cruises, rental cars, air travel, hotels, etc. At this point I think its an expectation that places have rewards programs and most new customers aren't crazy mad about it
 
Nope. 10 three night cruises in an inside room count the same as 10 Panama Canal cruises in a Royal Suite.
 
IMHO The Castaway Club was DCL’s attempt to show repeat customers that they were valued. The different levels gave us a goal to attain and strive for. After years in the business DCL has reached their goal of a great number of return cruisers. Therefore we are no longer need to be enticed back and are of no great value and they don’t need to “gift” us items to bring us back. Other than booking and the now lame Palo “gift” platinum is treated the same as silver level.
 
No official change to CC tiers, but they did do something like this for the first booking days on the Wish - 25+, 20+, and 15+

But they did not repeat it for fall bookings so it was a calculated decision knowing the likely popularity of the inaugural Wish sailings. And they were right. With almost nothing left for Platinum 10-14, and being sold out by Gold, it was the right move.
 
But they did not repeat it for fall bookings so it was a calculated decision knowing the likely popularity of the inaugural Wish sailings. And they were right. With almost nothing left for Platinum 10-14, and being sold out by Gold, it was the right move.

Sure, but it might be a sign of future changes. It will be interesting to see if the pattern holds when those early Wish cruises open for dining/onboard activity/port adventures bookings.
 
Sure, but it might be a sign of future changes. It will be interesting to see if the pattern holds when those early Wish cruises open for dining/onboard activity/port adventures bookings.

Something I also wonder tho is for situations outside of the Wish would that breakdown really be beneficial or a waste of time. Most normal situation cruises I don't believe there is a big issue with platinums being able to book things. MAYBE booking a cabana but even that my understanding is there sometimes are some leftover for gold to book. So would having a breakdown of the platinum level be beneficial or just more work for Disney when in a normal situation Platinum members usually can get any of the bookings and such they want regardless.

The Wish is its own beast since its the inaugural sailings for it but would it be worth the time for Disney to do it for say a 3/4 day bahamas cruise on the Dream? Meh probably not.
 
I think they need to add new levels above Platinum. Incentivizing a platinum with 10 cruises to reach 20 brings them in the same revenue (maybe more) as incentivizing a first time cruiser to hit Platinum. For the money the Platinums bring in, they can afford to increase the perks. Gamification works. People will strive for points/status.
 
If Disney really wants to get frisky, they'll introduce a combo of Nights + $ similar to the big 3 domestic airlines :rolleyes1. I hated it when Delta rolled it out, but as much as I fly it is rather nice having less folks at the top with me compared to the before.
 

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