Makes sense. Alas, my family didn't spend much on
DCL to begin with, so that money can't be so easily cut. We bought $90 worth of pictures on the first cruise and they have been looked at two times. It's annoying because on each DCL cruise we've been on, the photographers have showed up on 2/3 or 3/4 (or 2/4 once) of the evenings at dinner. We haven't yet gotten a complete set. I don't quite understand that. We won't wait in lines, we don't take the time to find photographers. We rent a float on CC. We once got a cabana but that's a one-and-done. Palo brunch twice, Palo dinner once...not worth it even though it's officially not that expensive. There's just not room to cut to make the new prices available to us. I look at price per night, but I ALSO look at total cost. and cutting out Palo brunch just doesn't give us the room to budget it.
I do enjoy the island 5K! THAT is something DCL has that others don't.
I really should come up with a "blurb" to paste in for questions like this.
There's nothing *wrong* with DCL. But I'm very much a "price for what you get" person, and DCL just doesn't get the ratio right for what you pay. IMO.
Our first family cruise (vs our honeymoon cruise) was a 3 night concierge cruise when the upgrade to concierge was only $300 TOTAL more than what we had booked. (category V on Dream) It was 720.22/night.
That's our most expensive per-night cruise. (second most is another Dream concierge, but still when prices weren't heart attack worthy) Third most was an INSIDE cabin, 4 nighter, 575.415/night. Come on.
Freedom of the seas 7 nighter, wonderful cruise, great time (though we had been sick the 3 weeks leading to it, and slept a LOT to make up for the lack of sleep we had had while trying to get better). 466.51/night So much better. Ice skating, ice skating show. We don't go to the other production shows anyway (not even on DCL) so we don't care about that. Availability of flow rider and rock wall. Ben and Jerry's ice cream available. Packages that include lattes, bottled water, sparkling water, fresh squeezed (they have a machine squeezing oranges in the buffet there) OJ...there is no package on DCL that includes those things. We don't drink soda so that's just money we're paying in to subsidize others' soda habits on Disney. And Freedom is gorgeous, we had a terrific aft corner balcony room with a HUGE balcony.
Since we hadn't been sick leading into it, probably our best cruise so far was on Vision of the seas, and it was 324.50/night. We were never bored, especially not DS. He was in the kid's club (he loves Royal's program more than Disney's because the counselors actually play with the kids, they aren't just on the periphery), he was participating in dance sessions (he dances) with adults who were total strangers, etc etc. Great time. Only bad note on that cruise was because they have a "centrum", we had bad weather, the casino opens out into the centrum, and after the first 24 hours the smoke was coming out of the casino and filling the centrum (not just going UP but making it hard to be downstairs from the casino as well). But I am VEHEMENTLY anti-smoking, I am also asthmatic (thanks to genetics and parents smoking on me), and I have a sensitive nose. It wouldn't be as hard for other people.
We feel we get more on Royal than on Disney. We aren't interested in Cinderella or Mickey Mouse, we don't go to the big performance numbers (not sure what I'll do if DS ever gets a job onboard, LOL). We don't swim on DCL because their pools are tiny little cesspools. (I prefer a bigger cesspool, and Royal has those, though they are not heated) DS has fun in Disney clubs, but he has MORE fun on Royal's.
We are vegetarian and the veg offerings on Dream have, for the most part, been terrible. AP's potato celeriac gratin is a standout dish for me, but plenty of others hate it. The rest of the entrees, holy moly, ick. When a grown adult has to get the kid's mac and cheese because the dishes on pirate night are so bad, that's just sad. YES they will make Indian food for you after the first night if you request it that first night...should that *have to* happen? Or maybe they could just OFFER a vegetarian Indian menu?
On Royal we will still often ask for vegetarian Indian food*, but they actually have some decent veggie meals on some of the nights. There's no standout great veg dish like on Dream, because there are more good dishes (and none AS bad as on Dream) on Royal's menus.
I could go on and on LOL. Short story, we feel that Royal gives us more for our money.
Someday we'll try Celebrity because I've read that they are very similar in food/offerings as their sister Royal, but their casino is smoke-FREE. This will enable my husband to get in some light gambling, which he enjoys, without having to throw away his clothes before entering our stateroom.
*(if you're wondering about that, OP, apparently many of the chefs onboard are Indian, and they are cooking for themselves and other Indian national employees, and if you ask for them to include you, they will make enough for those who ask for it)
As for Disney characters, we stood in line at most 20 min so that was awesome! Our kids were not huge fans of the Carnival kids camp so were hesitant to go to Disney kids club but they quickly fell for it once trying, the kids camp counselors are amazing, cast members are awesome, just all around great cruise!!
We love the casino, even though we never use it. It's a huge revenue source for RCL, so everyone who uses it subsidizes everyone who doesn't. Having a casino on board that we never enter reduces our cruise costs 
