Disney Cruise vs Celebrity Cruise pricing

[Intr3pid]

Just an FYI, you can get Celebrity to price a cruise without the bundle.

I did say that for families DCL is great, but once the kids are gone IMHO they are an overpriced option, unless you’re the type that must have the Disney vibe.

Only if you can accept a guarantee cabin. And not for every sailing anyways.

Does Celebrity have a private island? Castaway Cay is a big draw for us. We never sail any warm weather Disney cruise that does not offer CC.

No, and that's why we don't see any allure in sailing with them in the Caribbeans or the Bahamas. If we just want a 7-day upscale vacation in the sun, there are Four Seasons, Six Senses, and plenty of AI resorts all over the Caribbeans.

 

[RAD]

Only if you can accept a guarantee cabin. And not for every sailing anyways.

I’m new to the Celebrity game but I made a mistake and booked the Sky Suite, it wasn’t a guarantee cabin, that was cruise only. Only found out when I didn’t see my OBC on my account, Tracey had to fix it to get all inclusive.

BTW, I did find this link on their web site for cruise only cruises and yes it does look like they're all guarentee selections, https://www.celebritycruises.com/promo-controller?contentPromotionId=promotion-310

 

[mevelandry]

OK, before I begin I'm a long time DCL cruiser, Platinum CC member, and have been on all four ships. My last cruise on DCL was the WBPC in 2019 and my first was the DVC members cruise in 2005. It's just my wife and myself doing cruises now, grandkids too busy with school and other projects to take time off.

Last February we had book the 7 night eastern cruise on the Fantasy that leaves on 1/15/22. We had booked a 4A family veranda stateroom with a fare of $5,321.62. We had already book a couple shore excursions and spa appointments and even had a Palo brunch and dinner booked, we were ready to go.

But in the back of my mind I kept thinking maybe I should reconsider going on DCL again. For us the dinner menu's have gotten a bit stale, they really don't change much. We've seen most of the shows and while I like John Charles when he's one of the entertainers I've seen the Horse With No Name bit enough times.

Seeing posts from Tracey Heinrichs (Dreams travel agent) who's just completed a travel agent preview voyage on the new Celebrity Apex, and Twitter post from John and Kevin who were also on a Celebrity cruise in the last week I decided to check out what I could get on Celebrity.

Leaving also on 1/15/21 on the new Celebrity Apex for a 7 night eastern type cruise in a Sky Suite (video tour at

) would be $5,841.38, which was $519.76 more than what I had paid for the DCL 4A. But for that extra money, beside getting a larger stateroom (397 square ft vs 299 for the 4A) I also would get:
- The Retreat which is similar to concierge on DCL with private area on the ship (see

for a tour). Plus you also get a suite level only dining room, express check in, priority tendering and a Retreat Host, used to be called your butler, for personal service
- Unlimited streaming internet package ($398 value)
- Premium beverage package, which includes drinks up to $15 each ($966 value)
- $600 On Board Credit
- Gratiuties ($266 value)

So as of now DCL has been cancelled and we're book on the Celebrity Apex. I'm trusting Tracey, John and Kevin to not be steering us wrong on this and hope they are right that Celebrity provides service that's equal to Disney.

With all that said if your a Disney fan then DCL is great, we never had a bad cruise with them. But for us it's just at this time in our life its more of getting a good value, and trying something a bit different. So for others in the same boat just wanted to post my experience so maybe you might want to check for yourselves.

It looks like an excellent choice and amazing value for the price.

 

[mevelandry]

Thanks. We’ve done Carnival and Royal, really didn’t like Carnival and found the service on Royal lacking compared to DCL.

We were wanting to do another Alaska cruise later this year. We’ve done one on DCL and really enjoyed it, but when we looked at the pricing we looked elsewhere. We ended up booking Celebrity with a sea and land package for 13 nights that was the same as Disney. But then upgrade’its got me, the standard veranda looked a little small or us so went with a Sky Suite. But then looking later in their web site saw a Celebrity suite guarantee rate that wasn’t bad so booked that, not expecting to be given a cabin number until a couple weeks before the cruise. Then bang, a week later we were in a Royal Suite, OMG we’re going to be spoiled. A whirlpool on the veranda, don’t know if we’ll be using it in Alaska but what the hell.

I guess that’s another reason we wanted to give Celebrity a shot so in case we didn’t like them we could find an alternative.

You're gonna be visiting Alaska during summer. Where I live in Canada, a lot of Spas offer an outdoor experience during winter (you alternate between hot and cold and it's very relaxing) ... So I would recommend using your whirlpool in Alaska.

 

[Intr3pid]

I’m new to the Celebrity game but I made a mistake and booked the Sky Suite, it wasn’t a guarantee cabin, that was cruise only. Only found out when I didn’t see my OBC on my account, Tracey had to fix it to get all inclusiv.

And that's what I mean when I refer to Celebrity's prices as a bit opaque. The website shows, for example, only guarantee cabins as cruise only - you have to talk to an agent or a rep to find the other combinations.

Disney's prices are transparent. A TA can't get your any different price than what you can see on your own off the website.

 

[jujubiee4]

I’m new to the Celebrity game but I made a mistake and booked the Sky Suite, it wasn’t a guarantee cabin, that was cruise only. Only found out when I didn’t see my OBC on my account, Tracey had to fix it to get all inclusiv.

That suite does look nice. Is that the "covid" price or what they go for normally? Also I wonder
if that particular ship sails to Alaska?

 

[jujubiee4]

We don't care much for Celebrity's new all-inclusive pricing - I should note. It penalizes families and seems to attract a different sort of crowd. I'm glad they are now offering more options after the feedback - but if you are used to Disney's attention to detail, Celebrity's prices would come off as a bit opaque.

Between the two, we have six cruises booked for next year. They can co-exist in your travels.

What do you mean? I heard the cruise skews towards more older clientele which makes me
pause as I have teens and wonder if they will have a good time or the cruise will appear "stuffy".

 

[RAD]

That suite does look nice. Is that the "covid" price or what they go for normally? Also I wonder
if they particular ship sails to Alaska?

The price I quoted was one that they are running on a sale for most sailings this year. It was a bit lower then what I had originally booked at and Tracey was able to get the lower price. I checked the DCL booking I had that I cancelled and it had gone up from when I booked it last February.

When we looked for the Alaska cruise the reason we looked at Celebrity for that cruise was DCL was just outrages. The 13 night sea/land was very close to DCL's 7 night sailing.

Celebrity has two different ships that they sail in Alaska. One mainly does a one way between Vancouver and Seward or Seward and Vancouver. The other trip is round trip from Vancouver and the various Alaska ports.

 

[jujubiee4]

Hey, I love Disney cruise line. That's why I've done 10 cruises on them from 3 days, to a Med cruise, Alaska cruise and a Panama Canal cruise. But for us at our time in life it was time for a change. We asked Tracey, one of the Dreams agents here what would she recommend as an alternative to DCL, she said Celebrity. I then went and looked at a couple old Dreams shows on YouTube which Tracey, John and Kevin compared Disney, Royal and Celebrity for their concierge class service. They rated it as Celebrity 1st, Royal 2nd and Disney 3rd. Now Pete, a co-owner with John of Dreams rates Disney as 1st but can't rate Celebrity since he's never cruised on them.

So I guess my reason for starting the thread was before automatically going to Disney to book a cruise is unless you just need to have that Disney touch, or need to see fireworks at sea, but still want to receive a high level of service maybe you should check out Celebrity.

Do you have a link to the videos? I just went to youtube and could not find them.

 

[RAD]

Do you have a link to the videos? I just went to youtube and could not find them.

Here's the one where John and Kevin compare conceirge,

Here's the one that Tracey did on the Edge,

The one that Pete talked about DCL concerige was in a Patreon only show.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

This is very interesting. I hope those that sail on Celebrity will follow up with details.

 

[RAD]

If you follow Tracey who was just on Celebrity and now on Royal, and Kevin and John on Twitter, they just got off the Apex last week.

 

[bethy]

Thank you for this discussion I looooove DCL and we will always sail DCL some for the time but it would be so nice to have some other options. We tried RCCL once and really disliked it.

 

[Intr3pid]

What do you mean? I heard the cruise skews towards more older clientele which makes me
pause as I have teens and wonder if they will have a good time or the cruise will appear "stuffy".

Due to their smaller sizes, a limited number of cabins accommodate more than 3 people. A family of four or five has to book two rooms. That family of four will pay 4x the full beverage package price even with two kids. And same issue with solo cruisers, who have to pay 2x.

DCL cruisers can afford most other cruise lines, one might counter. But, I'm also referring to the crowd on board. Eventually it will start to skew towards couples or small families (who are looking to justify paying the cost of those included beverage packages). On our 14-night holiday cruise on the Millennium in December 2019, for example, there were about 350 kids on board The sailing before ours had just 50. With about 2,000 adults.

 

[cvjw]

To those who have sailed in a suite of celebrity, how crowded was the private sun deck area? That area alone is making us want to try a suite on celebrity!

 

[tinkerone]

So much of DCL has gotten stale for us - the food/menus, entertainment (although we do have a few favorites), and most of all, the itineraries. The lack of active activities is what originally pushed us to look elsewhere. It's been a very long time since I cruised Celebrity but it was awesome back then. We had great suites (piano and butler included). Since then the ships have gotten bigger with more amenities/activities so I don't think you will be disappointed. (We're not fans of CC so don't care about the lack of a private island - never found that BBQ food good on any of them - and it's really just a beach). Concierge on Disney is "nice' but definitely not "wow". I would love it if they had a separate pool - that's our big want. And other lines have definitely stepped up their own concierge-type offerings, surpassing DCL. We have a Wonder concierge coming up with extended family and it will likely be our last Disney cruise. We're okay with that. We love RC Oasis class and would love to try some of the new Celebrity or Princess ships. Hope you have a great cruise!

We are pretty much feeling the same. Being Platinum, most of the food, entertainment, itineraries are just same ole, same ole. We seldom get off for more than a stretch of the legs on CC. As you mentioned, the BBQ food is just okay, kind of on the blah side. Pretty standard picnic stuff. With everything DCL has taken away, and continues to take away, they have lost that bang for the buck. We have one more cruise booked with DCL and I'm not sure we will ever be back. Not saying never but it would take a 'please, please, please' from our grandchild. Don't see that happening.

We switched to Royal but have been looking at Celebrity for a bit and just may give it a go. The thing we really like about other lines is the wi-fi and drink packages. It's great to get off the ship and not have a massive bill. And really, the cost of wi-fi on DCL is nuts! They could do better, much better.

I enjoy the specialty dinning on Royal, so much to choose from, and I would imagine it would be similar on Celebrity.
Does anyone know if you can book Celebrity in Canadian funds? You can't with DCL, which is a negative right there, but you can with Royal. We have a B2B booked on Symphony of the Seas next October. With both dinning package and drink/wi-fi package, it is less than one week on DCL when you take into account the exchange rate. It would be nice to do that on Celebrity.

Anyways, you can't go wrong with stretching your wings a bit and trying other lines. Took us years to do because of all the naysayers who warned us we would be nickel and dimed. Service would be subpar. We would surly regret it. None of that happened.

 

[randumb0]

We will be done with DCL once my kids are older. Celebrity sounds great

 

[bobbiwoz]

We book Celebrity for special cruises, like around the horn of South America, and we have a Med cruise that hopefully will go to Israel next October. We have gone to Hawaii on RCCL twice.

However, we always will have some DCL cruises in our planning book. Senior citizen here who ALWAYS has smiled more on our DCL cruises.

 

[mevelandry]

We are pretty much feeling the same. Being Platinum, most of the food, entertainment, itineraries are just same ole, same ole. We seldom get off for more than a stretch of the legs on CC. As you mentioned, the BBQ food is just okay, kind of on the blah side. Pretty standard picnic stuff. With everything DCL has taken away, and continues to take away, they have lost that bang for the buck. We have one more cruise booked with DCL and I'm not sure we will ever be back. Not saying never but it would take a 'please, please, please' from our grandchild. Don't see that happening.

We switched to Royal but have been looking at Celebrity for a bit and just may give it a go. The thing we really like about other lines is the wi-fi and drink packages. It's great to get off the ship and not have a massive bill. And really, the cost of wi-fi on DCL is nuts! They could do better, much better.

I enjoy the specialty dinning on Royal, so much to choose from, and I would imagine it would be similar on Celebrity.
Does anyone know if you can book Celebrity in Canadian funds? You can't with DCL, which is a negative right there, but you can with Royal. We have a B2B booked on Symphony of the Seas next October. With both dinning package and drink/wi-fi package, it is less than one week on DCL when you take into account the exchange rate. It would be nice to do that on Celebrity.

Anyways, you can't go wrong with stretching your wings a bit and trying other lines. Took us years to do because of all the naysayers who warned us we would be nickel and dimed. Service would be subpar. We would surly regret it. None of that happened.

Yes, you can book Celebrity in Canadian $

 

[DCLMP]

What do you mean? I heard the cruise skews towards more older clientele which makes me
pause as I have teens and wonder if they will have a good time or the cruise will appear "stuffy".

It definitely skews older. It wouldn't be my choice with kids.