If you were in charge of DCL, what would you change?

[PrincessShmoo]

I am disabled so this is a good wish for me! I have a light card that works a treat! Let me dream..

Well, sadly, you'd still need some sort of card-type ID for use in port. I doubt that Disney will spring for the costs involved to set up all the ports they call at to have the necessary equipment to read the magic bands.

 

[phinz]

I am disabled so this is a good wish for me! I have a light card that works a treat! Let me dream..

I always keep the hotel room key from the night before.

 

[lorimay]

There is a definite pattern with the menus. I always wonder if the chefs get tired of making the same thing over and over year after year.
Why not offer a "daily special" every night for a slight change of pace and another option.

 

[JW9DVC]

On the flip side, if you eat at cabanas every night you have to tip the server there, plus still tip your dining room team that you never used because it isn't fair to them to not do so. Thus you are wasting quite a lot of extra money for the pleasure of eating at a convenient time if you are a family of 6 on a 7 night sailing.
I get it why my time wouldn't work well on DCl though. Maybe they could just shuffle the current dinner times back by 30 mins or something. I don't know what the best solution would be. Meanwhile, we will continue to do 2nd seating I guess.

You don't have to tip your MDR staff if you don't want to, you can have guest services remove it. As long as your tip goes to the service provider.

 

[Jennifer777]

The recent talk of character tickets getting booked out right away when the excursion window opens is something I would change. If someone is paying a premium to sail with my company, and one of the selling points I use to sell my product is the characters, it's silly to have only a limited number of tickets. Let anyone who pays the DCL premium prices the option to get a ticket in advance so they can plan around it. You would think it would be helpful for scheduling purposes to have as many passengers as possible register ahead of time anyway so it's a win/win.

I would also look into expanding the features of the DCL app when on board. It would nice if passengers could view and order photos from shutters, make dining reservations at Palo, book excursions and future cruises and contact G.S. or your room stewards (for certain things) directly through the app.

 

[Shamrock927]

First, let me say we have enjoyed both Fantasy cruises with our daughter (age 2, then 3) very much since listing changes can look like being unsatisfied or complaining.... but....

1. Lower the max age at Nemo's Reef and insist parents watch their kids there. Too many 8 and 9 year olds running and knocking over toddlers both times. Maybe an exceprion if the kids are with young siblings.

2. Find some way to make the prices easier to digest.

3. Try to prevent or stop older kids from running and yelling through halls late at night. We were on deck 8 both times and daughter would wake up when kids went hauling full speed and yelling at 10, 11, or 12 at night. Have "quiet hours" and try to enforce them.

4. Change the shows up. Same show two years in a row.

5. Change how Castaway Club works. If someone does a 12 night cruise in a premiere suite they should get more "credit" than someone on a 3 night with lowest interior cabin.

6. Change Remy to another type of restaurant. I just don't like the di nervous menu.

7. I really don't want to hear my service team beg for "excellent" reviews every night. It actually gets uncomfortable. Any way to prevent that would be nice.

 

[TestingH2O]

You don't have to tip your MDR staff if you don't want to, you can have guest services remove it. As long as your tip goes to the service provider.

While yes, you CAN do that, your tips are the majority of the team's wage and helps pay for their work during breakfast and lunch too. The ethics of this system are debatable, but removing your gratuity is removing a person's wage that s/he expected due to having a table filled in the section.

 

[JW9DVC]

While yes, you CAN do that, your tips are the majority of the team's wage and helps pay for their work during breakfast and lunch too. The ethics of this system are debatable, but removing your gratuity is removing a person's wage that s/he expected due to having a table filled in the section.

If no service was rendered for dinner then. You could pay less to that staff and more to others. Not saying don't place a tip. Just saying tip who worked for you.

 

[phinz]

If no service was rendered for dinner then. You could pay less to that staff and more to others. Not saying don't place a tip. Just saying tip who worked for you.

And your regular wait staff worked for you during breakfast and lunch. They don't work solely for dinner. They are there before you drag your backside out of bed, putting food out on the buffet, cleaning up after your children and making sure you can eat when you feel like it. Wait staff are not exclusively employed in the MDRs. They do much more than that. Not tipping them their regular tip because you *chose* not to eat in the MDRs and left them with an empty table that they can't just randomly fill with a walk-in (since there are no walk ins) is about as cheap as you can get.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

And your regular wait staff worked for you during breakfast and lunch. They don't work solely for dinner. They are there before you drag your backside out of bed, putting food out on the buffet, cleaning up after your children and making sure you can eat when you feel like it. Wait staff are not exclusively employed in the MDRs. They do much more than that. Not tipping them their regular tip because you *chose* not to eat in the MDRs and left them with an empty table that they can't just randomly fill with a walk-in (since there are no walk ins) is about as cheap as you can get.

 

[FigmentSpark]

How about, pay all the staff a living wage so there is no tipping. Don't say that'll increase the price of the cruise, because we already pay an increase by tipping. It would just be added into the price, but they could advertise 'no tipping'.

 

[CamColt]

Hey gang, this is a great thread with lots of interesting ideas. Lets keep it on track and not turn it into a debate about tipping.
Keep the ideas coming!

 

[Dug720]

I do like the idea that I remember seeing floated before of letting you have the option at booking of selecting your dining rotation. Even if there was a slight fee to do so - people who wanted to select could pay the fee and those who didn't care wouldn't have to.

Yes, sometimes a rotation might sell out, but that's not that different from a cabin type selling out.

Also on the itinerary go ahead and say what is Pirate Night (or whatever the special night is on the cruise). ESPECIALLY when you have a random weird itinerary that has no past Navigators to look at.

It would certainly make scheduling things easier...

 

[CamColt]

Also on the itinerary go ahead and say what is Pirate Night (or whatever the special night is on the cruise). ESPECIALLY when you have a random weird itinerary that has no past Navigators to look at...

I believe when you go into the cruise activities on your planning page, it shows which night Pirate night is.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I believe when you go into the cruise activities on your planning page, it shows which night Pirate night is.

Not always, or for all people. Our recent TA never did show when Pirate night was on the online cruise activities calendar.

 

[Dug720]

I believe when you go into the cruise activities on your planning page, it shows which night Pirate night is.

Yes, but apparently now you can't see that until your booking window opens. I certainly can't find it since they went away from the old "button" format.

I don't see how it would be that hard when inputting the itinerary they could add those two little words "Pirate Night" to that day.

 

[CamColt]

Yes, but apparently now you can't see that until your booking window opens. I certainly can't find it since they went away from the old "button" format.

I don't see how it would be that hard when inputting the itinerary they could add those two little words "Pirate Night" to that day.

Ah! It must have been on the old format that I had seen it. You would think they would want to make the new format more helpful, not less.
And I agree. I'm no techie but Im sure adding pirate night, formal night, etc... wouldn't bee too difficult for them. Such little things that would be a huge help.

 

[phinz]

How about, pay all the staff a living wage so there is no tipping. Don't say that'll increase the price of the cruise, because we already pay an increase by tipping. It would just be added into the price, but they could advertise 'no tipping'.

Then everybody would screech that they're even farther priced out of Disney.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Then everybody would screech that they're even farther priced out of Disney.

But that would be reality. If you can't afford the tipping, then you can't afford the rest. Paying for them after the cruise is still paying for them.

 

[Dug720]

Ah! It must have been on the old format that I had seen it. You would think they would want to make the new format more helpful, not less.
And I agree. I'm no techie but Im sure adding pirate night, formal night, etc... wouldn't bee too difficult for them. Such little things that would be a huge help.

Yes, I would also add go back to the old page with the buttons with icons (I always liked seeing which character was going to "represent" my cruise)!!