Just Saying No?

[cyclenut]

We do love cruising and are not exclusive to Disney. We find that when booking on other lines, we don't typically book that far in advance. Always less than a year. We are busy and tend to plan well in advance, so we know with much greater certainty whether or not we'll be able to sail if the date is less than 12 months away. Fully refundable deposits are less of an issue in that case.

It's not uncommon for hotels to require that you pay for a single night of your stay up front and not refund that amount when staying in a resort area, especially Florida. When I travel there for work it plays havoc with expense reporting. There is always a question when I submit an expense report for a hotel stay when I haven't even made the trip yet. I could see Disney changing policy to a non-refundable deposit in exchange for certain benefits such as lower fares, free category upgrade, small OBC, free 8x10 photo or things like that. Disney knows what their cancellation rate is and can probably use predictive modeling to see if that type of change makes financial sense. How much of a discount or how many extras would it take to get x% of people that ordinarily cancel after booking to lock in? The risk is upsetting people who have to cancel for good reason and not refunding their deposit.

There are so many nuances to pricing, it is really fascinating to think about. How much you can charge, when you can charge it, how m any different pricing tiers can be supported, how does the loyalty program influence sales, what other sources of revenue are there that should be considered (e.g. specialty restaurants, shore excursions, spa, photos, etc.), the halo effect of the Disney brand and many more. I'm sure they look at everything that influences the revenue side of the equation. I don't even want to go into the cost side. We'll just assume that Disney starts with understanding variable costs, adding fixed cost overhead and then including a profit margin just to get to the starting point. From there, it gets really interesting.

 

[ludari]

I haven't completely said "no" to DCL but I agree the prices are getting a bit out of control. I used to do two maybe three Disney Cruises a year and not giving a second though about repeating the same itinerary. I now carefully choose what DCL I do and restrict cruising to once a year. I've tried other cruise lines and although I have a great time every time I cruise I sure do miss some of that Disney magic that I'm used to when I sail with DCL.