Holy Greece....

[travelmomof3]

I planned it on my own after doing a TON of research. We were actually going to book through ABD, but when I started reading up on Greece, I realized there was so much more to see, so I just did it on my own. There are so many amazing, very professional Greek tour companies not only on the mainland, but on the islands as well. Once I figured out who to hire for the touring portions, it was quite easy to put the hotels and internal flights/ferries together (the ferries, especially, were a lot of fun). Greece has tourism down to a science and all tour guides at the archaeological sites have to be credentialed so they really, really know their stuff. Doing it ourselves also gave us the freedom to go off the beaten track and we met amazing people and found incredible restaurants. I would go back in a heartbeat, explore more of the mainland and do some more island hopping. It is a truly, magical place.

Greece as a land trip is something I didn't consider but really should! Thanks for your input. I actually often check out ABD to see what they have planned in certain destinations and research it for my own trip. We've done a lot of Europe on our own (land trips) but haven't been to Greece yet. I wanted to do the DCL cruise but not for those prices!

 

[travelmomof3]

If you have 5 people in your family, the price for an 11 day Iceland or Mediterranean Disney cruise is currently above 30k for one stateroom. If you get two Oceanview rooms you can save 5k.

That's us, family of 5...crazy talk!!!

 

[travelmomof3]

I thought I posted yesterday, but it disappeared.

I love DCL but can't justify their prices for the Med. We did a 7 night MSC in concierge for less than half of a non-concierge DCL cruise a few years ago. We saved enough money to do a wonderful week in France before the cruise.

It's crazy that there are enough people that will spend that kind of money, but to each his own. As long as there are, DCL will continue to price accordingly. Similarly, ABD opened a new trip to Japan last year, for $11-13K/person. All dates sold out almost immediately. We found a family trip thru Nat Geo (G Adventures, their less luxe subsidiary) that is $5,400/person, 1 day longer, with a full time, dedicated tour guide for just our family of 8, instead of the 40 people on the ABD trip. Crazy, I say!

I just don't get it. And not to sound flippant but we can afford these vacations. However, I cannot justify the cost and would feel wasteful to spend that large sum of money on DCL or ABD. I really don't get how they are able to price ABD and DCL the way they do...

We spent about $12,000 for our family of 5 to spend 10 days in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. That included all flights to/from, internal flight from Stockholm to Bergen, Norway in a Nutshell in Norway, trains, Airbnbs, food...and it was wonderful to spend time in these places as well.

 

[vegs1]

I really don't get how they are able to price ABD and DCL the way they do...

As long as people keep buying them, they can keep pricing them this way. You see on this forum in the 2021 quotes how many people are paying $30,000 for some of the cruises. In my own mind, no cruise would ever be worth that kind of money when you could do it for far less but to each his own.

DCL will continue to charge a premium as long as we all pay it. With some of the European cruises being so Port intensive, I don’t feel I would get the value of what makes DCL different.

 

[o&smom]

Agree that the longer cruises, except for TA and PC are CRAZY. The one that shocked us the most this release was the 6/26 7nt E Car Fantasy Cruise. We have been planning a Fantasy Cruise for summer 2021 for DS’s HS graduation. When the dates were released I took a look at current cruises, and made a guesstimate of mid to upper $7000 for family of four cat 8C. On platinum booking day, I took the info disneycruiselineblog posted for 2 adults, lowest price in all categories. I then added in pricing for our two kids based on the most expensive cruise already available to book. With that info, we were looking like mid to upper $8000. We justified that we had our onboard booking discount to apply and that it was one of our last few cruises with our kids. The next morning, my husband looked online and our basic, standard 7 nt E Car Cruise was $10,100!!! It was $1100 more than a 7 nt Med cruise or $1500 more than a 7 nt Alaska cruise around the same time, and $1300 more than the 10 nt Northern Europe cruise with 2 days at St Petersburg in August. What!?!? We ended up transferring our booking to a pre-graduation cruise in April of 2021. It will “only” cost us $6000 for the exact same room, on the exact same cruise just two months prior! Even the Costco rep thought it was crazy.

 

[DCLCrazy64622]

NCL actually! This year and next, NCL's Getaway (admittedly, a pretty big ship) is sailing the Med for 10 and 11 night cruises. We had an 11 night cruise booked with them for Aug 2020 before my kids and I decided we would rather to go to WDW. Anyway I scored an amazing deal (sad I gave it up) - for 5 of us in one oceanview it was about $4,900 USD. I figured the Getaway had a lot of kid friendly activities (more than DCL Magic, IMO).

PS: the non-refundable part does make me hesitant to book with RCCL who we have never tried. NCL does refundable deposits and they are low, which is nice. My deposit was only $200 CAD.

We are on the getaway Nov for the 11 night Greek isle cruise. Balcony for 3 ppl cost us $5K. The Disney difference doesn’t even come close to being worth the price diff.

 

[lilsonicfan]

I hope you’ll post about the experience!! I am vaguely thinking of 2021 but more likely 2022 at this stage, if it’s still the Getaway in the Med!’

 

[dclpluto]

I will wait until the prices become reasonable at least for DCL reasonable. At one time the Northern Europe DCL cruises was outrageous. I thought I will never go on one. Next year going on a 10 night Northern Europe.