Disney Cruise Line in Austraila?

[elsawasajedi]

As far as I can tell, Royal has 3 cruises from Bayonne to the Caribbean next year. They're 9, 9, and 11 nights. One of the 9-night cruises isn't really a Caribbean cruise because it only visits two places in the Bahamas (Nassau, CocoCay) and their private resort on Haiti. The other 9-night doesn't return to Bayonne.

So, it's like I said. Disney would have to offer longer, more expensive cruises to get to the Caribbean from New York. And what for? Getting to Bayonne isn't any easier than getting to PC for most of the east coast.

I don't know why you keep saying NYC is had to get to for "most of the east coast". I'm in DC. getting to NYC is a 4 hr drive i get to do in my car. If I have to go to PC it's 4 hrs in an airport or on a plane plus an hr ground transport.

anyone further north than me is an easier car trip and even a few hrs south of me it's still less hassle than having to get on a plane. and far less cost. plane tix for a family.of 4 are 1600 dollars out of dulles these days.

 

[Kwami]

I don't know why you keep saying NYC is had to get to for "most of the east coast". I'm in DC. getting to NYC is a 4 hr drive i get to do in my car. If I have to go to PC it's 4 hrs in an airport or on a plane plus an hr ground transport.

anyone further north than me is an easier car trip and even a few hrs south of me it's still less hassle than having to get on a plane. and far less cost. plane tix for a family.of 4 are 1600 dollars out of dulles these days.

I would take a 2.5-hour flight over a 4-hour drive any day and it's not even close. Especially when at the end of the flight, Disney takes care of all the logistics of getting me to the ship. The drive from here (MA) to NY is traffic, construction, bad drivers, and tolls. Driving in the city itself is the worst. And, it's $40/night to park at the cruise port, *if* they have a spot for you (no reservations, no guarantees).

Maybe I just prefer the simplicity of flying to MCO and hopping on the DCL bus. To each his own, I guess. But I think anyone south of DC or north of Boston will have an easier time with MCO.

 

[disneydreamer781]

I don't know why you keep saying NYC is had to get to for "most of the east coast". I'm in DC. getting to NYC is a 4 hr drive i get to do in my car. If I have to go to PC it's 4 hrs in an airport or on a plane plus an hr ground transport.

anyone further north than me is an easier car trip and even a few hrs south of me it's still less hassle than having to get on a plane. and far less cost. plane tix for a family.of 4 are 1600 dollars out of dulles these days.

I agree. We're in the Boston area and even if not deciding to drive, we can be in NYC in a few hours on the Acela. Either by car or an NEC train is pretty quick and a lot less expensive. It's one thing if I were combining WDW or another attraction and doing a cruise but I don't understand how traveling all the way to PC, just to take a Disney Cruise would be somehow better? It's a pretty hefty additional expense to tack on to your vacation.

 

[Royal Consort]

Disney isn't a big player. It's a niche cruise operator.

Australia's cruise market is fairly saturated as is. They are used to seeing ridiculously low fares from P&O and Carnival.

That's not at all true. It has been decimated due to our lockdowns and restrictions. We are going to be rebuilding the industry over the next several years. We are not "saturated" but we have increasingly more options with cruising being more and more popular pre-covid. We sail the premium and boutique cruise lines like everyone else. Disney wouldn't be registering for GST if they had no intention of sailing here in the not too distant future. That said, things can change based on market and global conditions.

 

[Intr3pid]

That's not at all true. It has been decimated due to our lockdowns and restrictions. We are going to be rebuilding the industry over the next several years. We are not "saturated" but we have increasingly more options with cruising being more and more popular pre-covid. We sail the premium and boutique cruise lines like everyone else. Disney wouldn't be registering for GST if they had no intention of sailing here in the not too distant future. That said, things can change based on market and global conditions.

Pre COVID, Australia was the highest penetrated cruise market in the world - meaning it sported the largest proportion of population that was already cruising. That's what I mean by saturation.

The premium cruise lines sail down under for roughly four months a year. The majority of those cruising on the premium lines aren't Australians. They are global travelers - North Americans, Europeans, Japanese, even Chinese, and, yes, Australians too. Many are looking to spend their northern winters in the southern hemisphere and like to cruise with their familiar brands.

How much market there is going forward is a good question. Long-distance air travel remains very tricky for many cruisers. Celebrity, HAL, and NCL, for example, were all committing two ships to the Australian summers before COVID, but now it's down to one each until 2024. Princess in 2019 had five ships down under - and now it's 3 or 4. (It may all rebound at some point, yes.)

Disney faces the additional issue of having to appeal to families. Can it fill the Wonder six times over every month with its prices just from Australia? A country smaller than Canada? Not really. At least not in a way that can be sustained every year. It needs to bring families over from the northern hemisphere.

Maybe with all seven ships running, Wonder ventures beyond Hawaii. Right now, even the timing of a return to Hawaii is uncertain.

As I noted, there are reasons for registrations. Whether it's for quoting AUD fares, setting up an Australian company to manage locally sourced employees, doing a tie-up with ABD tours, marketing Hawaiian packages when the Wonder is in Honolulu, or, yes, cruising in Australia. Of these, cruising down under is the least likely scenario for now. It may change after Triton III is sailing - but 2023, as the video claims, is quite a stretch.