Gee, thanks, DCL, for blacking out all of spring break 2021

[we"reofftoneverland]

Three words: try another line
Very liberating. There are only so many times you can get excited about the truffle purseittes any way.

 

[Allison]

If they can sell it for full price, why wouldn't they black it out?

 

[ray3127]

Ray3127---I'm in Ohio and the Spring Breaks are the same around here. I love our school district, but the one thing I hate about it is the inconsistency of when Spring Break will be each year. It can be anytime in March to the beginning of April. They won't announce it for 2021 until Dec or Jan. I'd like to book during dd's Spring break, but we don't know when it is yet, but I really don't want to spend $2000 more for the same cruise, so we cruise in Jan. My dh isn't able to take off work during the summer, so we are limited to Jan-March which is when he can take off.

Don't they know we have vacations to plan?! Argh!

I teach for the University of Nebraska system, and they have academic calendars published through 2030. I always say I don't understand how/why school districts struggle with this. It's a calendar--there are 7 possible configurations (with MINOR adjustments during leap years)!

January is a great time. One of the cheapest times of year, and a nice respite from the cold Midwestern winter.

 

[fredandkell]

Are you a teacher? My wife is, and last year it was far cheaper for her to take a week off and a paycheck hit than to cruise during the break week. Her district only gives her 2 personal days; the rest are sick days. So she took 2 personal and had to take 3 unpaid, but the cheaper cruise fare more than made up for the difference. Her administration has no problem allowing for unpaid days, though YMMV. Doing it this way and pre-arranging the same sub for the whole week usually works out well for all involved.

Also note that not everybody has the same spring break. I often read about "spring break" on these boards like it's a national holiday, when in reality the weeks can vary widely. Where I grew up (in CT) we had two separate weeks, one in Feb & one in Apr. Here in the Omaha area, we have multiple school districts (literally 7 in the major metro area), and virtually none of their spring breaks line up with each other. This school year, my wife's break is the middle of March; in 2021 they moved it to float with Easter. I teach at a local university, whose spring break does not line up with my wife's at all. And my son goes to school in yet another district, whose break is also completely different. Within our own family, in one city, we have 3 different break weeks.

Point being... while the weeks before/after Easter are likely popular for breaks/travel, it varies widely. So even for though my wife and I work in education, we'll arrange our schedules to go on cheaper cruises and take advantage of the 10% off. If you have no option to do that, I sympathize. Just wanted to share my perspective/experience.

Not a teacher but my kids are older and keeping them out of school causes major issues with makeup work etc.

 

[mtmueller]

In business discounts and sales are not done cos the business is trying to be nice, its purely a business decison in order for the business to gain revenue.

For things like cruises and flights and hotels, the companies will loose money having to operate when not at full capacity.

One could write an entire Master's thesis on cruise line pricing strategies, breakeven, and customer retention costs. I would argue, in comparison to similar capacity and displacement cruise ship operations, Disney has a far lower threshold for breakeven than any of their competitors due to the higher cost of entry for the average customer (based upon anecdotal evidence, their employees are as poorly compensated as the other lines so labor costs aren't a significant percentage...) People will continue to pay more if there is a perceived value justifying the higher price.

Full disclosure: I am a shareholder and want to see a high return on my investment. We have loved our DCL experiences to date, but I am curious when the relative inelasticity of DCL pricing will finally impact profitability. Again anecdotally, we have witnessed a demonstrable divergence betwixt DCL quality of experience over the past few years with rapidly escalating pricing. At some point this will break the business model.

Apples and oranges comparison, but Cadillac wasn't always garbage quality, and now folks in that market just by a Lexus... At some point, one of DCL's competitors will move on this opportunity.

Will we see an impact with the additional capacity of three new ships? Or is demand still so high DCL will continue to increase prices above the rate of inflation?

Its well known in Europe that flights, hotels and package holidays are far more expensive during school holidays then in term time. In the UK it causes chaos as parents are fined for taking their kids out of school to go on holidays. Many parents still do as to them paying the fine is worth it to get a cheaper holiday.

We moved back from Europe about a year ago. We were STUNNED to see hotel and airfare in some cases TRIPLE or MORE during school holidays. Since almost all the schools across Europe are on similar calendars, the demand was funneled into a few weeks a year. For example, check out a Club Med ski week in France - it would triple instantly for those weeks. They have true "demand pricing", and its families with kids that are hit. We see seasonal pricing here, but nothing on the scale we experienced in Europe.

 

[daisyx3]

I am also a teacher. My spring break in 2021 is the week before Easter and the Monday following. The 4 night Dream that week is NOT blacked out, but the one the day after Easter is. We sailed the day after Easter in 2016 and it was certainly a full ship! I don't think we are cruising in 2021 anyhow, but it is an option.

 

[Karin1984]

We moved back from Europe about a year ago. We were STUNNED to see hotel and airfare in some cases TRIPLE or MORE during school holidays. Since almost all the schools across Europe are on similar calendars, the demand was funneled into a few weeks a year. For example, check out a Club Med ski week in France - it would triple instantly for those weeks. They have true "demand pricing", and its families with kids that are hit. We see seasonal pricing here, but nothing on the scale we experienced in Europe.

And the fining is the same for most of Europe, I think. At least in NL, the fine is not that bad (depending on pov) of 100 euro a day. Depending on your vacation you could still come out ahead instead of travelling during the busiest time of the year. And it's not a guaranteed fine, some schools don't report it and you can get away with it. Also the department in charge of 'luxury absense' / 'first world problem absence' (freely translated ) make extra visits to schools to do a head count. But he has the option to fine. If he sees reasons not to, he doesn't have to.
I wish we had homeschooling here, it would help tremendously with this problem.

Most extreme I've seen in Disney pricing is for next Spring Break at DLP. A night at the value resorts in low season is about 100 euro, but is now sold for 400 euro a night.

 

[AZMermaid]

I’m a teacher in AZ. My spring break is always the first full week in March and my kids who go to school in a neighboring district is always the following week. We never have the same break, so we never travel that time of year, but if we did, we wouldn’t be blacked out! So it’s not accurate that the entire spring break season is blocked out, just unfortunately, yours is. But, high travel times are always blacked out of everything.... just the way it goes.