oct cruise cancelled

[two-foxes]

Ahhhh, the fine print. They make it fine for a reason, I reckon. (I would consider this situation covered by that fine print, by the way, "in its sole discretion". I take that as DCL calls the shots, and they will call it however they wish.)

By the way, has anyone heard who and or what chartered that cruise? Is it a corporation, celebrity with a whole lotta money or what? And I am curious.....everyone (most of who are not sailing that date) is pretty perturbed about this, but if we all found out that it was some agency like MAW or some chartered cruise for underpriviledged families, would anyone be less upset? The only reason I wonder is because no one (at least that I have heard) knows who or what chartered it. I would assume it was a decision based on profit, but everyone is p.o'ed at this "corporation", yet we know nothing about who it is. We have no idea if someone with a "higher social status" is taking it over, it seems all we know it was chartered, people are being booted, but not losing their vacation $$ from what I understand, and have 6 months to make other arrangements. It is not a good situation for those cancelled cruisers, but as the saying goes....when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by K&D'smom
Being one of the families that was displaced from the Oct. 28th sailing on the Wonder, I have to say that Disney has been more than fair with my family. The cast member that contacted me about the cancellation has been superb to work with. She gave me her complete time and attention and listened to how this change had impacted my family. She then negoiated a much better deal for us than I really thought we would get.

That being said, I do realize that changing dates (even by a day or two), flights, etc. is a HUGE problem for some and I wish them the best in getting this situation resolved. However, I just felt the need to share that from my point of view they have lived up to the Disney name and the customer service I have become accustomed.

Thanks for sharing this. That is what I would expect from the Disney I know. I still don't get that people who are NOT affected have gotten so up in arms. In perspective, this is a 3-day cruise, more than six months out. The airlines that I use don't even book this far out! I doubt that there are many folks who are coming from "thousands and thousands" of miles away for a 3-day cruise only. Most will plan to visit WDW or elsewhere during the trip, and Disney appears to be bending over backwards to help in any way to rearrange cruise times and accommodations.

Again, things happen. For instance, for one trip we had scheduled to WDW, when I went to get my son dressed to head to the airport for a 6:00 am flight he was running a fever. It threw me temporarily, then we went to plan B. Did we get to do everything I originally planned? No. Did we have a wonderful trip full of great memories? You bet. Did I have Disney at my disposal working to make me happy? I wish!! (Actually, they DID work with me to change my reservations last minute, no sort of penalty whatsoever, and even extended my incredibly low rate to dates when it "legally" should have expired). Heck, I am probably a crabbier person than most, but sometimes you just have to think that sometimes the unexpected can lead to something better than what you expected.

Carelessness or bad decision on DCL's part or not, this is not the end of the world. I have had too many personal experiences with Disney Magic to let this ruin all of that. I am very glad that those actually affected by this seem to feel that Disney is doing their best to make things right.

 

[LAMPSKIES]

Two-foxes.........anyone who can charter a whole cruise ship is definately "of higher social status" than me. LOL

FredS......we did our first DCL land sea vacation in 2000. DW and myself were married young and had two beautiful DDs soon after. Dw was a stay at home mom and we did without MANY things. I booked our land/sea package more than a year out and paid it off a little at a time. When the plane started to taxi down that runway DW just burst out into tears. She couldn't believe we were actually going to WDW and on a cruise....yes, ONLY a three day cruise but to us it was a lifetime of waiting. We have since been on two more DCL sailings and have booked our 4th for this Dec. Yes, I would never do a 3 nighter again (definately not long enough) but I keep picturing my wife, how happy she was to travel "thousands of miles for a 3-day cruise only!" JMHO

 

[jiminyC_fan]

You know, I have been getting a little worked up about "only a 3 day cruise". If it is 3 day, 4 day, 7 day, it doesn't matter. It still meant the same to the cruisers. A DREAM come true. The amount of days means nothing. They were still treated wrong. Corporation or a celeb or what ever, money still talked to Disney.

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by LAMPSKIES
Dw was a stay at home mom and we did without MANY things. I booked our land/sea package more than a year out and paid it off a little at a time. When the plane started to taxi down that runway DW just burst out into tears. She couldn't believe we were actually going to WDW and on a cruise....yes, ONLY a three day cruise but to us it was a lifetime of waiting. We have since been on two more DCL sailings and have booked our 4th for this Dec. Yes, I would never do a 3 nighter again (definately not long enough) but I keep picturing my wife, how happy she was to travel "thousands of miles for a 3-day cruise only!" JMHO

I think that is very unusual. And I am not trying to minimize a three-day cruise as if it doesn't matter, but I think that it generally would be easier to make adjustments to travel for most taking a shorter cruise. I am sorry that wife was so upset, I would hope your wife would not have been ungrateful if the cruise had been a few days earlier or a few days later, alternating with your visit to WDW. (So actually you weren't flying "thousands of miles for a 3-day cruise only"?) I don't gather from your story that if the cruise had had to be rebooked with six months notice that it would have been devastating for some reason? I expect most, if not all, of us have several emotional moments relating to trips to Disney. That is a GOOD thing.

My plans have shifted before and I don't think that I can honestly say my life was ruined by dealing with it, even if it seemed "a lifetime of waiting". I have moved vacation plans to try to accommodate extended family and so forth and it has always worked out. I realize that not everyone has the same degree of flexibility. However, I think that most can and will be happily accommodated by Disney.

 

[CRB#33]

Aw Andy, I don't want to debate you either. I just thought it was a shame to see someone who has had such positive experiences, feel the way you do and was trying to turn it around a bit in my own way.

Especially when we really don't have all the facts yet.

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by jiminyC_fan
You know, I have been getting a little worked up about "only a 3 day cruise". If it is 3 day, 4 day, 7 day, it doesn't matter. It still meant the same to the cruisers. A DREAM come true. The amount of days means nothing. They were still treated wrong. Corporation or a celeb or what ever, money still talked to Disney.

It ISN'T the same. The significant difference is that people taking shorter cruises would have more flexibility in their planning. Many people who cruise for seven days are doing only that, often spending a vacation week to cruise. Many shorter cruises are supplemented with time on the front or end for visits to WDW or other central Florida attractions, thus having some leeway for perhaps cruising the Wonder just before or just after, if they are unable to reschedule to another time period altogether.

And I STILL don't understand the mentality that Disney thinks the average cruiser is some sort of peon, and this ship was chartered by some person or company viewed by DCL as more "important" than us regular Joes. And I really don't get anyone's anger being directed toward whomever chartered the ship.

 

[Disneyallthetime]

The notion that disney is "bending over backwards" to accomodate the displaced guests hardly addresses the question. If these had been cancellations due to personal reasons or some outside cause(virus, terror, etc.) I would stand in line to commend Disney Corp. on their response. However, this was a DCL CHOICE. They chose to cancel all these peoples vacations when it was completely optional. I view anything they are doing at this stage as the minimum response to THEIR decision. Also, this response probably says far more about the dedicated CM's than it does about the corporation as a whole. I feel sorry for the CM's left holding the bag and having to attempt to placate a shipful of irate guests.
As to all of us uninvolved interlopers casting our opinions about willy nilly, please keep in mind that we ARE all affected by this since we now realize we could just as easily and casually have our cruises cancelled. Also many of us old-time disneyites are a bit edgy about the downward slide that Disney guest relations have been on for some time and something like this just reduces that faith a little bit(for some, prolly a lot) more. To have to add Disney to our cynical list is not fun. We keep going and making the best out of it in hopes that the thousands of dedicated CM's that do their best(and that is frequently excellent) to keep the magic alive will ultimately prevail and perhaps one day Disney will return closer to its roots. It must be run as a business to survive, but there are many ways to run a corp., let's hope this is not another indicator of the direction it is heading.
BTW, I do believe many people who have any kind of flexibilty in their schedules would be more accepting of the situation IF it turned out that the charter was to benefit somebody besides a deep pocketed corp. having a fling. Nothing against that sort of thing mind you, I've been the recipient of such largess, but having my vacation interrupted to accomodate a late charter by such a thing is quite galling. Tell me its some sort of charity thingy and my response would ratchet down a level or two(though I would still suggest that scheduling it earlier would still be in order.)
Also, no one has argued against Disney's "Legal" right to do this. Its the ethics that are found wanting. There are many good reasons to change a scheduled sailing, this hardly seems to be one of them.
I hope EVERYONE gets at least the accomodations we've heard about so far. It still won't be enough to help everyone but I hope they take into account the special situations that some families will be having to deal with. They'll just have to live with the ones that basically lose out entirely. I know at least one man in the company that will sleep quite soundly on this decision.

-mark - A true Disney patriot.

 

[LAMPSKIES]

When is the last reservation DCL tokk for this sailing........I'm just wondering. How much planning had to go into the "corporations" thinking? Do someone just wake up Monday and say "hey, I think I'll charter the Wonder today." To book for 2000 people this had to be in the works for MONTHS. And once again, I am sailing Dec. 4, 2004 and I WAS cancelled once by DCL, I just don't like the way this smells......I smell a RAT.

 

[WDWguru]

Originally posted by FredS
The significant difference is that people taking shorter cruises would have more flexibility in their planning.

Actually, I would argue the opposite, at least in our case. We booked the cruise to coincide with a stay at WDW through our DVC membership, which we had to book 11 months out to get the view we wanted. Because of this, the two separate plans complicated things significantly for us. Those staying at WDW on a cash basis had a much easier time to rebooking the land portion, but with DVC (or any other timeshare property) it becomes much more difficult. The points are higher for the weekend and the availabilityof our view is gone.

Had we simply booked AKL on a credit card, it would have been much easier to change. Or had we been on a 7 day cruise with no land portion at all, one step could have solved it for us.

 

[luvmk]

In regards to the three day cruise being easier to reschedule, that may not be the case for many people. We had looked at booking that cruise as part of the land/sea package. It worked with our children's fall break and we wanted to go to mnsshp. If others booked this way, then technically, it is a week vacation. That cruise might have been chosen because of special activites on the ship and in the parks related to halloween. This would be the same as rebooking a seven night cruise. While it is six months out, if people were trying to take advantage of the halloween party, I feel bad that those plans fell through. I hope that the people who are affected are able to reschedule for a time that works out well for their family.


Rachel

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

Originally posted by WDWguru
Actually, I would argue the opposite, at least in our case. We booked the cruise to coincide with a stay at WDW through our DVC membership, which we had to book 11 months out to get the view we wanted. Because of this, the two separate plans complicated things significantly for us. Those staying at WDW on a cash basis had a much easier time to rebooking the land portion, but with DVC (or any other timeshare property) it becomes much more difficult. The points are higher for the weekend and the availabilityof our view is gone.

Had we simply booked AKL on a credit card, it would have been much easier to change. Or had we been on a 7 day cruise with no land portion at all, one step could have solved it for us.

I totally agree with this in our case we are cruising in Nov and staying at our home resort immediately folllowing. We are taking a weeks vaction for the cruise AND the land stay. Being we booked 2 seperate things (ship and rooms) it is actually more a PITA to reschedule IMO. What if the rooms aren't available when they are able to rebook the cruise? It seems like a nightmare to me no matter how you look at it.

With that said I really think in good faith they should allow you to spend less points for the weekend night and "charge" the weekday points. I have been following this thread and think that the excuse that they are two different companies doesn't matter. They know tons of people do both sea and land and you should not be penalized for it either.

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by Disneyallthetime
The notion that disney is "bending over backwards" to accomodate the displaced guests hardly addresses the question. If these had been cancellations due to personal reasons or some outside cause(virus, terror, etc.) I would stand in line to commend Disney Corp. on their response. However, this was a DCL CHOICE. They chose to cancel all these peoples vacations when it was completely optional.... As to all of us uninvolved interlopers casting our opinions about willy nilly, please keep in mind that we ARE all affected by this since we now realize we could just as easily and casually have our cruises cancelled..... BTW, I do believe many people who have any kind of flexibilty in their schedules would be more accepting of the situation IF it turned out that the charter was to benefit somebody besides a deep pocketed corp. having a fling.....

Again, that is my point. No one really knows exactly what happened and I personally don't feel like Disney is about to willy nilly start cancelling cruises anytime a "deep pocketed corp. having a fling" comes along.

I was unable to find a "cruise meets" thread for this particular cruise. Our cruise on another date in October has something like 351 posts. It might be interesting to actually know the FACTS and see how many families were displaced, and what the circumstances were to cause this. If there was some kind of booking screwup and it was between Disney honoring a previous commitment to a group who had booked the whole ship and a small number of individuals who had booked, or even if it was a later request to charter but was a group such as MAW, then they may have, as already suggested, had to chose the lesser of two evils. I am not ready to assume guilt without more evidence, besides feeling like I don't really have "standing" to complain about something that didn't cause me any problems.

I can and will continue to empathize with anyone actually bumped and for whom it causes problems, but those seem few and far between, at least as far as I can see. Disney has done me no wrong so far, and I still have faith that they won't.

 

[LisaGoeke]

I'm sorry to hear that.

My parents had that happen to them once. MICROSOFT employees and their families had the whole ship to themselves.

 

[makaylee]

It still doesn't make it right in my eyes, but I am glad that most of you who got misplaced are being taken care of somewhat by DCL.

 

[Nick@ VB+OKW]

Originally posted by LAMPSKIES
I just don't like the way this smells......I smell a RAT.

..........I agree 100%.

 

[suwoogie]

"Actually, I would argue the opposite, at least in our case. We booked the cruise to coincide with a stay at WDW through our DVC membership, which we had to book 11 months out to get the view we wanted. Because of this, the two separate plans complicated things significantly for us. Those staying at WDW on a cash basis had a much easier time to rebooking the land portion, but with DVC (or any other timeshare property) it becomes much more difficult. The points are higher for the weekend and the availabilityof our view is gone. "


I agree with this. I am not a DVC member but I rented points from someone on these boards who is a member. I had to go through him to get things changed with our reservation at the Beach Club Villas. DVC had no more studios at the Beach Club Villas at this late date. Luckily the Boardwalk Villas did. And as I said, I am satisfied with that. But still, the agrivation and stress was enormous. I was thinking about cancelling everything and going somewhere else instead. Next time I will not consider a Disney cruise at the top of my list as a vacation destination.

Also, since I had to move the cruise to the front of the trip it caused conflicts with plans I had for a meet with several people from all over. I will miss these now. Hopefully I will be able to meet up with a few of them when I get to DW after the cruise. This trip has been planned since last year. I made all my reservations very early so I could take advantage of lower prices and planned events with friends.

 

[3DisneyNUTS]

Originally posted by suwoogie
"Actually, I would argue the opposite, at least in our case. We booked the cruise to coincide with a stay at WDW through our DVC membership, which we had to book 11 months out to get the view we wanted. Because of this, the two separate plans complicated things significantly for us. Those staying at WDW on a cash basis had a much easier time to rebooking the land portion, but with DVC (or any other timeshare property) it becomes much more difficult. The points are higher for the weekend and the availabilityof our view is gone. "


I agree with this. I am not a DVC member but I rented points from someone on these boards who is a member. I had to go through him to get things changed with our reservation at the Beach Club Villas. DVC had no more studios at the Beach Club Villas at this late date. Luckily the Boardwalk Villas did. And as I said, I am satisfied with that. But still, the agrivation and stress was enormous. I was thinking about cancelling everything and going somewhere else instead. Next time I will not consider a Disney cruise at the top of my list as a vacation destination.

Also, since I had to move the cruise to the front of the trip it caused conflicts with plans I had for a meet with several people from all over. I will miss these now. Hopefully I will be able to meet up with a few of them when I get to DW after the cruise. This trip has been planned since last year. I made all my reservations very early so I could take advantage of lower prices and planned events with friends.

Gosh I am so sorry this happened to you guys. I don't know where I was reading this but someone had said that the Wonder is getting renovated could it be possible that they are doing all this so they can get the work done?

 

[bettemom]

I Have read this whole thread and find some of the " demands" from some of the displaced cruiseers incredible.

1) Until Disney states the facts pertaining to why they accepted this chartered cruise and canceled the general public everything above and beyond the fact on how/why the cruise is chartered is pure speculation.

2) For those cruisers that have been cancelled, you are 100% + correct it totally stinks, as is not a good customer service decision.
One thing I have learned, is I always read the fine print of any contract I enter into. It drives sales people crazy, too bad...

3) Do I think that anyone who was sailing on the cruise deserves a free cruise, not in this lifetime, that is totally preposterous.

4) The cancelled cruisers should have some compensation, however it needs to be appropriate not absurd.

5) Disney should absolutely pay all expenses for those cruisers who have to change plane tickets, or hotels and so on...

6) We have sailed the Disney 7 night cruise 2x and a third 7 night cruise for Oct 04. On the first 2 cruises we had some major problems, " can you say downgraded room"... however it took time but Disney made right ( yes I know whats coming, you got to go on your cruise) but our cruise was chartered. If you demand anything from a company especially a totally unrealistic demand ( which is what Disney is) then you will not get far.

7) What would be fair compensation to all ( cruisers & Disney) after non-refundable expenses are taken care of ? Cabin upgrade , on board credits, selection of excursions at port,
or a comprable exchange ( dollar to dollar) to a vacation on land at the resort.

I hope that those who are displaced for this sailing do get compensation, but it must be reasonable, and fair for all.

 

[suwoogie]

I didn't "demand" anything. I made them a deal and they actually made out better. Again, by changing my flights DCL would have had to pay $100 per ticket (2 tickets= $200). Instead I asked them to put us up a hotel and get us to the port the next day so I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of FINDING a seat on ANY flight (seeing as how we used FF miles, airlines DON'T make available many seats for users of these) The Hyatt's rate for one night is $179.00 and I'm guessing that DCL gets these rooms at a discounted rate. But even if they didn't they still were $21 ahead.

And I"m the one who had to do all these changes!!! Yes, I don't like it, but I didn't DEMAND anything of them.