May 10, 2008 Ship of Thieves! Stealing the Magic..AGAIN!!! Panama Canal FL to CA!!! Part 5

[HollyTyler]

Holly - thank you for posting those e-mail addresses. I'll fire off some e-mails when I get chance (probably when I'm back at work tomorrow ).

Now, shall I give Joseph a call to see if he still thinks I'm the only person complaining?!!!

Good luck with your e-mails! I sent one to each e-mail address and didn't receive a single response yet.

 

[HollyTyler]

Despite the heat, we had such an awesome time at the county fair today! We stayed 5 hours and were just too worn out to go see all the animals, so I told Tyler I'd take him again Saturday evening after I pick him up from his dad's. That's the last night of the fair, so it will be his only other chance to go this year. I expect trouble getting him up in the morning though. He's usually asleep by 8pm, but tonight that stretched until after 10 because we didn't get home until almost 9:30. PLUS he decided that this morning we should be up at 5:00! Not sure what that was all about, but it sure made for a long day. Oh well.....I haven't been late for work for a while, so it will work out.

 

[pjpoohbear]

Good luck with your e-mails! I sent one to each e-mail address and didn't receive a single response yet.

This could be a good thing, maybe we won't be getting canned answers.

 

[HollyTyler]

This could be a good thing, maybe we won't be getting canned answers.

Good point! And supposedly, according to the podcast, letters of explanation are on their way to all the passengers from DCL anyway. Maybe the wheels of progress have started turning.

 

[HollyTyler]

I must be out of my mind to still be up. In 20 minutes, I'll be 5 hours shy of being up for 24 hours. I was already quite non-functional at work today....I hate to see my condition tomorrow! Goodnight all!

 

[been2marceline]

Wow! Everyone has been really quiet tonight! And the DIS did not go down at 12:20! I didn't get home until 12:15 from working at the shop and I figured I would fall behind again!

Hope everyone has a great Wednesday!

Karen

 

[granmaz]

Morning Karen! The way the Dis goes down each day seems to have changed a bit. Goes down a bit later for about 20 mins, then back again for about 20 then down again!!

Nice to see you and hope you are keeping well.

 

[Ginamarie]

Hey guys, I had a thought in the middle of the night! I did a lot of reading about the Panama Canal's changes to the toll/tax structure, and was looking at the timeline, and came up with a new idea as to how DCL may have been playing with us with this increase. What if this were the scenario:


2006: DCL finalizes its decision to go back to the west coast in 2008 and starts to work on a price structure for the cruises. The accounting team is working on putting together the fee structure for port fees/taxes, etc. When they look into the fees for the Panama Canal crossing, they're stumped..

At this point Panama had announced it was going to do an increase in fees, but nothing had been approved or even presented for objections yet. The Panama Canal Authority just said they were going to make significant changes to the system, increasing the tolls for all passages in order to pay for canal expansion. However, no one was sure how much the toll increase would be. Additionally, there were rumblings about passenger vessels (like cruise ships) being charged on a "per berth" basis, but again, nothing was assured.

THe Panama Canal Authority wasn't scheduled to make a decision on the process until March/April, and DCL wants/needs to get its 2008 schedule out in January. So, a (not so brilliant) decision is made to leave the Panama Canal fees OFF of the fares for the eastbound and westbound passages, figuring that their cruise contract allows them to add on tax fees any time before passengers make final payments. The changes in Panama are made official in April, and DCL extrapolates the fee among passengers (unable to assess the fee only to those passengers who have already paid their entire passage in full and have no reason to make changes to their reservation-- which clearly is a VERY small percentage, if anyone at all, at this point).




If something like this happened, DCL may have been planning to sneak one by us from the very beginning! It would explain the line we keep getting from DCL that the tax wasn't included in our original fare though.

Honestly, I don't know which scenario makes me feel more upset! Just food for thought.

 

[granmaz]

Mmm, I could agree there, but if that was the case then they would have informed us that there would be the PC fees added later.

 

[Ginamarie]

Mmm, I could agree there, but if that was the case then they would have informed us that there would be the PC fees added later.

Well they SHOULD have!

I'm just trying to come up with explanations that could account for their line about the fee not being incorporated into our original fare.

 

[granmaz]

I guess in the end we just can't believe a company like Disney would do something like this. However they try to vindicate themselves, unless they remove the new charge, or refund the difference between old and new fees, we will not feel the same about the company.

 

[ragdoll]

I guess in the end we just can't believe a company like Disney would do something like this. However they try to vindicate themselves, unless they remove the new charge, or refund the difference between old and new fees, we will not feel the same about the company.

I absolutely agree with this. This has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I really want to cancel this cruise and my Nov. 2008 land/sea. I really hope that DCL comes through and cancels these charges. After all it is their best customers who are on these cruises. Why would they want to alienate us?

 

[lillygator]

Wednesday!! Month end close for me so I'll be pretty busy at work the next few days. It was raining this morning, I hope it clears up so I can take the kids in the pool tonight....it really helps tire them out!
John has to close so - girls only for us!

We talked about the extra $400 last night...and while we wouldn't cancel over it we are both so surprised at how DCL is handling it.

 

[pjpoohbear]

Hey guys, I had a thought in the middle of the night! I did a lot of reading about the Panama Canal's changes to the toll/tax structure, and was looking at the timeline, and came up with a new idea as to how DCL may have been playing with us with this increase. What if this were the scenario:


2006: DCL finalizes its decision to go back to the west coast in 2008 and starts to work on a price structure for the cruises. The accounting team is working on putting together the fee structure for port fees/taxes, etc. When they look into the fees for the Panama Canal crossing, they're stumped..

At this point Panama had announced it was going to do an increase in fees, but nothing had been approved or even presented for objections yet. The Panama Canal Authority just said they were going to make significant changes to the system, increasing the tolls for all passages in order to pay for canal expansion. However, no one was sure how much the toll increase would be. Additionally, there were rumblings about passenger vessels (like cruise ships) being charged on a "per berth" basis, but again, nothing was assured.

THe Panama Canal Authority wasn't scheduled to make a decision on the process until March/April, and DCL wants/needs to get its 2008 schedule out in January. So, a (not so brilliant) decision is made to leave the Panama Canal fees OFF of the fares for the eastbound and westbound passages, figuring that their cruise contract allows them to add on tax fees any time before passengers make final payments. The changes in Panama are made official in April, and DCL extrapolates the fee among passengers (unable to assess the fee only to those passengers who have already paid their entire passage in full and have no reason to make changes to their reservation-- which clearly is a VERY small percentage, if anyone at all, at this point).




If something like this happened, DCL may have been planning to sneak one by us from the very beginning! It would explain the line we keep getting from DCL that the tax wasn't included in our original fare though.

Honestly, I don't know which scenario makes me feel more upset! Just food for thought.

See, if this was the case and DCL explained this in advance, I think about 90% of cruisers would have been satified. It is the brush-off of the inquires that is making many cruisers upset.

 

[fourmcds]

Silly Question.....

Does anyone know if a disney door bell exists? Our door bell currently sounds like a dying cow so we need a new one. There are tons out there but we thought it would be fun to have one that played one of the milder disney songs (ie-NOT IASW! ) I have searched but haven't been successful in finding anything. Anyone ever heard of such a thing?

 

[Jhalkias]

Silly Question.....

Does anyone know if a disney door bell exists? Our door bell currently sounds like a dying cow so we need a new one. There are tons out there but we thought it would be fun to have one that played one of the milder disney songs (ie-NOT IASW! ) I have searched but haven't been successful in finding anything. Anyone ever heard of such a thing?

I found this:

http://www.bcsideas.com/yourbell.htm?gclid=CN2N8Pn21I0CFQqgYgodWz52mA

Then YOU can program it to whatever you want . . .

If you do a Google search on "programmable doorbell" you will find even more.

GinaMarie - nice try on an explanation, but if that is truly the case, I am almost as disappointed in Disney for being so dumb and not up-front.

 

[HollyTyler]

I guess in the end we just can't believe a company like Disney would do something like this. However they try to vindicate themselves, unless they remove the new charge, or refund the difference between old and new fees, we will not feel the same about the company.

My thoughts exactly! DCL handled this in such a non-Disney way. Disney is usually so customer oriented. I'm sure they will lose customers over this.

 

[lillygator]

well we just got out of the pool...I am cooking up some snow peas, shredded carrots, shredded zucchini, broccoli, shrimp and scallops and tossing it with bow ties....yum!!

 

[HollyTyler]

well we just got out of the pool...I am cooking up some snow peas, shredded carrots, shredded zucchini, broccoli, shrimp and scallops and tossing it with bow ties....yum!!

Yummy! I'll be right over, so I hope you have enough to share! I wish I could work up the motivation (and find the time) to make a good meal like that, but it's just not worth the effort for just me. Tyler would never eat something like that.

 

[gouodux]

I often compare Disney's customer service with Nordstrom. We have always been treated professionally and with great care with Disney. The extra charge has had us scratching our head. I want to think that Disney just goofed. It happens! The only difference now is, if it was Nordstrom, they would absorb the cost. Quite honestly, if they did this, and made a media announcement about it, they would have only secured their loyal Disney customers. Think about the "wow" factor and the warm fuzzies that individuals would have felt had they done this correctly. Perhaps they would have lost a little bit of revenue up front, but it would have kept folks coming back and booking in the future. Not that we won't, we just wouldn't give it a second thought. Smother consumers with customer service and they will be with you for a lifetime. Most of us are obviously already sold on the DCL product, imagine what this would have done for them. An example would be what Dreams Unlimited did for their customers - we previously were not DU customer's, but I guarantee you, we will be transferring our next cruise to them just because of what they did. They just get it!