Thank you for all the responses - especially the real world examples.
I apologize if my post was misinterpreted. I am not trying to argue value, service, or anything like that because it is so subjective of course. I was wondering what the circumstances and what lines people found significantly cheaper similar cruises because I hadn't been finding them in my searches. Cheaper from a pure Dollars and Cents standpoint, strictly cost. If we could take a cruise at 65% of the cost of a similar
Disney cruise, we would be very likely to take that risk. I wasn't trying to shame anyone for trying other lines. We just thought for "only" saving $100-$200 we'd stick with a known quantity for the time being. Disney has been our "safe-zone."
It appears there are a few factors (more than I thought at least originally) at play;
- booking past the initial 2 guests, especially kids (kids can be way cheaper, even free on other lines)
- booking in the summer, or anytime school is out of session
- booking in "limited appearance", or "exotic" areas
- booking upper category rooms
It seems if any one of those applies, there is a good chance DCL is some degree higher than other major market cruise lines. Once you start running into multiples of those, or 3 or even all 4 (IE; a family of 5, in the summer, on a British Isles cruise, in a concierge room) - you could buy a new car instead.
We have always booked fall/winter cruises in Caribbean or Bahamas on the classic ships, and always found our pricing to be very competitive. Clearly others have not for their own circumstances.
It is a myth that Disney is ALWAYS more expensive, and it is a myth that Disney is ALWAYS competitive. In my circumstances, I was finding very similar pricing and clearly other people are not. Thank you to people who chimed in saying in their experience they had seen the same, and others who said their experiences were the complete opposite.
As I mentioned the things we really enjoy about our cruises likely aren't specific to DCL so we are willing to branch out, maybe not to Carnival quite yet, but if the savings is great enough you just never know. Celebrity definitely sounds interesting, as does possibly Princess (didn't even know they did Caribbean, sorry). We would love to do an ABC cruise as our next cruise, and it will likely be February(ish) of 2021. It appears Celebrity has a 7-night Southern Caribbean Feb 27- Mar 6.
It is the Celebrity Summit, which appears to be an older ship, but also looks to be undergoing an extensive refurbishment soon. That might be just what we do. Maybe DCL will send the Magic there around that time (fingers crossed) and I can compare prices...
Thanks again for all the replies. I wasn't trying to offend, shame, or judge anyone. Just trying to get a better understanding of why what I was finding was so different than what some other people were finding. Seeing things like "half the price of DCL", I didn't doubt people were finding it, I just couldn't and wanted to better understand why. Turns out, given my circumstances, I was unlikely to ever find a cruise half the price of Disney's unless our parameters changed.