CRISIS...DCL freezes reservations

[Ker-Bear]

My TA Tom from All Seasons Travel (the best TA ever!!!) called to tell me that DCL has stopped allowing changes to reservations for my Sept. 3, 2006 4 night Wonder cruise and in addition is no longer accepting reservations for this cruise. Plus they have done the same thing for the cruises over the next couple of weeks after my cruise. Not sure if this is just for the Wonder or if it applies to the Magic. Tom says that DCL has not released why and there are multiple possiblities. One scenario is a change of itinerary and another is dry dock. I knew my trusted DIS friends would offer info or previous experience.

So....what do you all know/think or have you had experience with this in the past? Of course you could be experiencing the same thing I am. I am not upset because my travel dates are very flexible and hopefully DCL would feel extra bad about doing something so horrible as canceling my cruise they would throw lots of incentives at me to book for another date.

Let me know guys. If anyone has the answer it's the DISer's!

 

[Andrea N]

Wow! I wondered what was up - I went to check cabins for someone over at Travelocity for the Sept. 8th cruise and it wasn't listed anymore. Figures I would finally decide what to do for my birthday and something would happen!

Edited to say I guess I missed the part about it being in 2006...I guess my cruise THIS September is still on!

 

[cjsmith]

Some company may have reserved the entire ship. This has happened in the past and those who had reservations were offered a different sailing.

 

[Scott H]

Could be DVC, maybe.

 

[Andrea N]

I doubt the ship has been reserved - there is a 6 week break between the August 11th and September 22nd sailings where there are no cruises available. Seems a little long for a dry dock too.

 

[pbharris4]

I hope not! We'll be on the 3 day in a few weeks and were going to book (onboard) for the 9/23/06 7 day western! Mostly because it was pretty cheap!

 

[lbgraves]

Dry dock has already been scheduled for two weeks in October I believe. People on those cruises were notified a while ago. That is a long span of time for that many companies to reserve the ship. Hmmm...

 

[DrCavin]

I vote for ship is being taken by an entire group. Has been done in the past & made some people pretty upset!!!

The company that is wanting it probably gave DCL a range of weeks to check or DCL is waiting for the company to decide which days they want. So to be safe DCL is blocking the entire range until a final decision is made.

 

[Andrea N]

My thoughts exactly Lisa...

 

[kris1973]

I just got off the phone with Disney Reservations and they are taking bookings for that date....they have not heard anything about the ships being frozen. Hopefully this helps. I totally freaked because we are planning on going at that time.

Kristin

 

[Rence]

Well this pretty much matches the dates of the 2005 DVC cruise. So my guess is that they are planning another DVC cruise, same time, next year.

 

[DrCavin]

I just got off the phone with Disney Reservations and they are taking bookings for that date....they have not heard anything about the ships being frozen. Hopefully this helps. I totally freaked because we are planning on going at that time.

Kristin

Sounds like samething that happened last time. DCL reps knew nothing about it, but TA's were being notified.

 

[kris1973]

Ok now just got off the phone with All Seas Travel and the wonder is on hold for that time but the magic is available. They could not give any other info.

Kristin

 

[Ker-Bear]

Since Tom knows I am obsessed with DCL (I am slightly crazy about going on this cruise) I know he would NEVER call me and tell me something like that if it wasn't true. DCL better be offering some great incentives if they force me off this cruise because of DVC. I will literally cease my infatuation with DCL if that's the reason. They should just let the people who have already booked stay on that cruise. Who's on it doesn't really matter to me. Now if DCL wants to do something extra special and compensatory for me and my parents changing our reservations then I would be okay with that. As soon as I know something I will post. If you all hear anything, let me know.

 

[Pineapple]

What is DVC? Disney Venture Capitalists? That is the only group that I could think of that would be rich enough to reserve an entire ship.

 

[UGAFan0829]

What is DVC? Disney Venture Capitalists? That is the only group that I could think of that would be rich enough to reserve an entire ship.

No, it's the Disney Vacation Club! Sometimes they take cruises as a group, but I can't explain how to whole vacation thing works. There are a lot of DVC members here, so I'm sure someone can explain!

 

[Rence]

There is a seperate forum on here for Disney Vacation Club that will tell you more than you want to know about DVC

About a year ago when Disney put the Sept 2005 cruise on hold there was similar confusion. Some people were told that it was on hold, others were told it was not.

I believe that DCL did take care of the folks that had to have their cruise dates changed. There would be some messages about it from when it happened, but they might be hard to find. I do recall that as it was happening information was hard to come by and not always accurate. I remember reading one thread where the individual was assured numerous times that they would not have to rebook their cruise (even after the DVC cruise was announced) and then they were notified that they would need to rebook. If I recall correctly, everyone had to rebook, even if they were a DVC member.

 

[Dis]

Disney Vacation Club They have reserved the entire ship before. When a DVC cruise is announced it sells out very quickly.

 

[mommommouse]

Hi everyone!
I'm also going on the Wonder Sept. 24,2006. I went on the disney site. The only date for the 4 day in Sept.3,2006 And the 3 day is Sept.28,2006. I called DCL. She was shocked and said let me check. Came back and said "your right, I don't know why it says that" She went to check with her supervisor. I had to wait while the supervisor went to check with someone else. OK she said it is strange but even the supervisors don't know anything. She has been working there along time and never seen it happen before. She saw one week for a charter but never this long.I guess we'll just have to wait.

 

[shelly3girls]

Someone may have already mentioned this but maybe it is an itinerary change? It seems like a long time to block off the whole ship just to let one group decide when they want to charter.