Pay in full early so if canceled you get FCC?

[ljm23]

Am I right in thinking it makes sense to pay your cruise off in full early so that if it is canceled you will receive FCC to help offset any increase in price in a future cruise?

 

[DWillowBay]

Am I right in thinking it makes sense to pay your cruise off in full early so that if it is canceled you will receive FCC to help offset any increase in price in a future cruise?

That has been the pattern of the past. There's no way of telling what the future holds for cruising.

 

[Mommb]

Yes, if you can spare the money and intend to reschedule if your cruise is cancelled, and if DCL keeps the same policies, it would save you money to make final payment before a cruise is cancelled.

Under the policy used for the recent cancellations, if you have paid in full for a cancelled cruise, you would get your choice of a full refund of all payments or a 125% Future Cruise Credit good on a cruise in the next 18 months. If you have not paid in full and a cruise is cancelled, you just get a refund of all payments.

When my September 2021 cruise was cancelled a few weeks ago, the FCC was good on departures through September 30, 2022, with a note that some Disney Wish sailings would have black-out dates. My travel agent was able to apply it to an already-booked June 2022 cruise.

 

[SailorsWhyf]

This is my plan as well. I have an Aug ‘21 Cruise that is PIF. I intend to ride it out until they cancel so I can apply the (hopefully 125%) credit to our June ‘22 cruise.

Who knows how long they will keep the 125% going. I imagine at some point they’ll decide they’ve given away too much profit

 

[ljm23]

Yes, if you can spare the money and intend to reschedule if your cruise is cancelled, and if DCL keeps the same policies, it would save you money to make final payment before a cruise is cancelled.

Under the policy used for the recent cancellations, if you have paid in full for a cancelled cruise, you would get your choice of a full refund of all payments or a 125% Future Cruise Credit good on a cruise in the next 18 months. If you have not paid in full and a cruise is cancelled, you just get a refund of all payments.

When my September 2021 cruise was cancelled a few weeks ago, the FCC was good on departures through September 30, 2022, with a note that some Disney Wish sailings would have black-out dates. My travel agent was able to apply it to an already-booked June 2022 cruise.

Thank you, frankly my hope is that we said but if not then getting that extra 25% would likely help a lot because I expect prices to go up.!

 

[Budzooka]

Yep. We had a Greek Isles cruise booked for this summer and I went ahead and paid in full in Jan anticipating it to be cancelled. Sure enough it was and the 25% FCC was enough to cover the increase to rebook next summer. I was hoping to have some left over, but the increases were hefty!

 

[otten]

Am I right in thinking it makes sense to pay your cruise off in full early so that if it is canceled you will receive FCC to help offset any increase in price in a future cruise?

It depends on if you want Disney holding on to your money. We thought about this for our August 2021 Northern Europe once it became clear that cancellation was coming soon. We personally decided that we didn’t want Disney hanging on to that much money for that amount of time. Granted we already had the 40 percent discount we got from the 2020 Panama cruise so the 25 percent off wasn’t quite as appealing. It’s a personal decision though. Many people have decided to PIF to get the FCC.

 

[Travelling_Techie]

I think it should be pointed out that, unless I am mistaken, that the 125% FCC excludes port taxes and other fees, so isn't actually as good as it sounds! the extra 25% can easily be absorbed!

 

[Cheburashka]

I think it should be pointed out that, unless I am mistaken, that the 125% FCC excludes port taxes and other fees, so isn't actually as good as it sounds! the extra 25% can easily be absorbed!

Port fees and taxes hardly make a dent in the cost of a Disney cruise.

 

[Cheburashka]

Am I right in thinking it makes sense to pay your cruise off in full early so that if it is canceled you will receive FCC to help offset any increase in price in a future cruise?

Yes, some people do this. If you know you want a future cruise, there's nothing stopping you from doing this.

 

[Travelling_Techie]

Port fees and taxes hardly make a dent in the cost of a Disney cruise.

Looks to me that it's about 10% which was lower than I was expecting, so yes ok you still get around 15% extra. I'm sure that for one of my cruises that was cancelled, even the extra 25% FCC wasn't enough to buy the equivalent the following year!

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Looks to me that it's about 10% which was lower than I was expecting, so yes ok you still get around 15% extra. I'm sure that for one of my cruises that was cancelled, even the extra 25% FCC wasn't enough to buy the equivalent the following year!

I think your math is fuzzy. Remember that the taxes and port fees are refunded, so you also have that money back to spend on a future cruise. Consider a $1000 basic cruise cost with 10% additional for taxes and port fees. Total is $1100 for that cruise. Now, you take the FCC and receive the $100 taxes and port fees as a refund. You now have a $1250 FCC plus an additional $100 from the refunded taxes and fees, so a total of $1350 to apply to the total cost of a new cruise (including taxes and fees). $1350/$1100 = 1.227, so the net benefit is 22.7% even when taxes and fees are taken into account. Of course, the actual benefit will vary depending on the actual percentage for the taxes and port fees. Taxes and fees would have to reach 66.7% of the base cruise fare to make the effective benefit only 15% (I won’t bore the readers who got this far with the wonky details of the calculation).

 

[braysmommy]

We PIF for our EBTA cruise that was canceled this May knowing we would rebook the one in '22. Completely paid for the '22 EBTA plus put down a portion on the 3 night prior. The other thing is if you use a travel agent and are PIF they get their commission from DCL which I thought was nice of them to do. (I'm not a TA just reporting what mine told me).

 

[Drfate102]

Yes, I paid off our Alaska cruise and rebooked it when I could. Got the same room and at least one paid excursion.

 

[auntlynne]

Took the FCC. Cash returned for taxes, For the new cruise, we now have $66 onboard credit from the leftover FCC value. Plus tips were paid with FCC money. Another $135.

Not same dates, not same itinerary, but same ship, same cabin type, same length. And cheaper airfare. And we kept our OBB discount and onboard credit.

I think we came out okay. Savings accounts aren’t paying enough to match that.

 

[Cheburashka]

Looks to me that it's about 10%

No, taxes and port fees are not 10% of the cost of a cruise. It might happen to be around 10% for a certain cruise that you're looking at, but that's coincidence. It is not a 10% rate or anything even close to that. For example, a 7-night May Alaskan cruise for 2 with an obstructed verandah has a total price of $7,754. Only $404 of that is for taxes and port fees.

Port fees are going to vary based on which and how many ports you visit. And taxes are nowhere near 10%.

 

[Travelling_Techie]

Ah ok thanks for the clarification - yes I was looking at a 3 night dream cruise, rooms around $1350, taxes $120.

 

[Breezer4]

We paid in full about a week before June 2020 cruises were canceled. The FCC allowed us to lift and shift to next summer and pick up an extra night. So we essentially got a 7 night cruise for the price of a 6 night cruise in the same stateroom category. We had to pay about $25 when we rebooked, but we also received a $220 refund from the previous cruise. The only thing we can’t carry over is all the great onboard activities we were able to “book” because there wasn’t much competition.

 

[ljm23]

We paid in full about a week before June 2020 cruises were canceled. The FCC allowed us to lift and shift to next summer and pick up an extra night. So we essentially got a 7 night cruise for the price of a 6 night cruise in the same stateroom category. We had to pay about $25 when we rebooked, but we also received a $220 refund from the previous cruise. The only thing we can’t carry over is all the great onboard activities we were able to “book” because there wasn’t much competition.

Thanks! So glad it worked out for you!

 

[DisneyParkLover]

Can you get the FCC credit more than once? If I had a cruise cancelled and applied the 125% to another cruise, then paid that one in full, would they give 125% of that one, or can you not stack it that way. For example, let’s say first cruise was $1000, so they applied $1250 to second one. If second one was $2000 and you paid it off, if it was cancelled, would they apply $2500 to the third one?