Help - Trying to book at 2006 cruise!

[Michigan Mommy]

While my husband and I have been members for 3 plus years, we have never booked a Cruise.

In celebration of our 10 year wedding anniversary, we would like to take our children on a Disney Cruise.

We have been trying to book a 2006 Cruise, for January no less, and according to the guidelines, we are allowed to book 11 months out. Member Services continues to tell me that the 2006 points requirements is not out, that there are changes to the cancellation policy that need clarifying, and that they have no ETA on when the points requirements will be issued. AND that until they are issued, we cannot book the cruise.

I am growing increasingly frustrated and worried that we will not be able to book the cruise as we would like - and NO ONE seems to be an advocate for the members in getting these points requirements issued!

can anyone give me there thoughts, experiences, advice on what to do? any thanks in advance....(this was posted on the cruise area also)

 

[Lew]

We have taken two cruises on the Disney Magic.

We used points for our first which was a four-nite cruise to Nassau. When we made the reservation for that first cruise using points, the point requirements had not yet been published. We were told that if we were not happy with the number of points required we could cancel without penalty.

We have since decided that using points for a Disney cruise is not their best use. We paid cash for our recent seven-night eastern cruise on the Magic. I would suggest you look into paying cash for your cruise and doing in through an agent other than DCL. We saved over $1500 by going through cruise.com.

You might want to consider renting the points you would have used for your cruise. You could then use the cash generated to purchase the cruise.

Good luck...

 

[melkimmom]

Cruising with points is not the best idea, but is not the worst idea ither. You will save some money if you have the cash in hand to buy it, specialy if you buy it using the internet...Icruise.com, Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, Priceline.com, Cruise.com or a similar site.

Cruising with points is not the worst idea, specialy if you don't have the cash in hand or have the points available and won't use them for DVC Resorts right now, It's better to use the points than loose them....you can only bank so many points. I you don't want to get in the hassle of renting your points out at $10 or $9 a point and dealing with a extranger you know nothing about, then it make sence to cruise with points. You will still be saving more than a non DVCer if you add a few nights stay at the Resorts with points to your cruise.

I booked my 4 night cruise with points to avoid the hassles of depending on someone else to pay por my cruise. That is why I bought my points in the first place, to have wonderful Disney Vacations when I want to and how I want to. I added 3 nites at the BCV and comparing the prices to what Disney is offering right now I saved a little more that $1,000.

I know I would have save more, I lot more maybe renting out my points and using my money towards the cruise. But, I am no sells person and hate to deal with the pay me my money aspect of it. In the future maybe I will do this but I am not ready now.

Have fun whatever you do and dealing with people to get my money for Disney vacations what never my idea when I came into DVC. If you don't mine this than by all means rent out your points out, get the money and buy it cash. I am just not ready for all that now.

I admire the point renters thouhg and hope that in the future I might be able to rent too. But, for now.......Paying for a Cruise $75 for me and my family was a gift and a hassle free transaction.

Hope that everything works out for you!!!

 

[LIFERBABE]

That DCL is already taking cash ressies for 2006 cruises.

We have already booked for Sept. 2006 and picked our cabins. If you were interested in certain staterooms or decks, I would look into booking for cash now and renting the points as Lew suggested. Even with booking early, we still missed out on the Secret Porthole rooms and some other preferred cabins.

We got a great price booking so early and if I compared my 2006 cash price to 2005 points required for our family of 4 in a Cat 9 (510) we will save at least 250 points by renting and using the cash to pay for our cruise. 250 points is more than a week in a studio or at least 6 nights in a 1 bdrm.

There are already meets planned on the Dis Cruise Board for most 2006 sail dates and www.allseastravel.com lists prices, so I would definitely start checking cash prices now and then decide if you want to use points when DVC releases the chart.

 

[Michigan Mommy]

What is a secret porthole room?

i checked into the dreams unlimited site and their prices seem good. any others to recommend>?

 

[LIFERBABE]

What is a secret porthole room?

i checked into the dreams unlimited site and their prices seem good. any others to recommend>?

The secret porthole rooms are Cat 10 staterooms that have a porthole that is obstructed. If you can book them, you will save about $100. There are only 6 of them and sell out quickly. They are on deck 5 and they are really not a secret anymore. I know one of them is #5520.

We booked through Dreams and they were offering a $50 stateroom credit (not sure if that is still available) Disney Visa also has DCL offers that include 0% financing for 6 months and stateroom credits.

 

[barkley]

I have done both the disney cruise and the holland america alaska cruise using my points-while some consider this to not be a good value i figured the points are there to use and 75.00 to book a 4 person cruise is the best 75.00 spent.

as for getting help-you can call your original salesperson (if you bought through disney) they can help out. also, try asking for a manager in member services. member services has abilities to do amazing things when motivated to do so. we got a very nice rep when making our alaska curise reservations last year-our use year ends on 7/31-the trip was schedualed to start in august, we could'nt firm up travel dates until late april so we technicaly could only bank 50% of our existing points to use for the trip. she banked 100% of our points so we wouldnt lose out on over 175 points.

rattle their cage a little!

 

[maminnie]

Does anyone know why it takes DVC and DCL so long to figure the points out for a given year? I know they are separate Disney entities but they are still part of the same corporation.

You would think they would have the point requirements for a year at least by Feb. 1 so members could start booking for Jan. at the eleven month window. Makes sense to me??????

 

[wildcatwmn]

They want to give people time to get the best ressies with cash! lolol

 

[JimMIA]

In addition to the point value cost of cruising on points, you really need to be aware of the cancellation penalties. If you book a cruise on points, and subsequently have to cancel, you can no longer use those points at a DVC property. You can use them on another cruise or at one of the other Disney resorts, but NOT at DVC.

On cruises generally, you should be aware that there are a million cruise brokers out there and you can often get much better prices from them than buying direct from any cruise line. That's not unique to Disney; it's true of all cruises.

Other posters have mentioned several options. Or, do a Google search for "cruise broker" or "travel consolidator" and you should get thousands of hits.