POLL -- How many cancelled out?

[Ofinn]

Just booked a seven-night Alaska for May 2017. Since we are quite early in season, and willing to sail oceanview without a verandah, it looks like the family of three (2A, 1 teen) can sail the week for about $3,500. That's about what I was hoping to spend - and not tremendously more than what we were quoted by Princess for a similar itinerary in a similar cabin. Our daughter, however, is still very interested in sailing Disney - and I generally prefer Dis to Princess - so we will stay DCL for now. Fingers crossed for some dry dock improvements to the Wonder before summer 2017!

How did you get that price? I was quoted around 4300 for 2a1k in an oceanwiew May 22 cruise 2017. That was with an obb. Are you sure you booked three people.

 

[ResilientRabbit]

 

[ResilientRabbit]

Holy cracker bars! It looks like the prices for inside staterooms and oceanview just jumped! Like, in the past hour or so? I don't know. We booked yesterday, but I could have sworn those prices were still available earlier today. I did notice, however, that cabins are def filling up on the cruise. Darn. I didn't mean to give anyone false hope!

For what it's worth, that's still a decent value compared to sailing in June, July or August. And even less than what it would cost to sail Alaska in an interior cabin this summer. Still - boo on demand pricing!

Just checked Princess again and they still want just over $4,000 for roughly the same cruise in the same category of cabin. So at least I don't feel that I'm paying a tremendous Disney premium for this sailing. That definitely impacted my decision. I sailed Princess to Alaska about 20 years ago - and they do a fine job; but that was before I had kids. With husband and daughter in tow, I think Dis will be a better choice.

 

[katellynne]

I booked when I called at opening day for Gold/Platinum. Even though I asked if the cruise can be held for 24hrs, she said no that I would have to pay the deposit at that point. Not sure if it was because it was a placeholder. Either way, it's a bit annoying that some are allowed to hold for 3 days and all I was asking for was 1 day.
.

That is strange. When I called opening day as well, the booking agent was hesitant for me to place a hold as well. It made more sense after she explained that since I was transferring a placeholder OBB reservation if the hold expired we would LOSE the placeholder. She did give me the 3 day hold but she had a point-I almost forgot and paid the deposit at the 11th hour. Whew!! If we want to move cruises around now we can, but can't revert back to that original placeholder. Sounds like you were in the same situation but your booking agent was less informative. I called at like 9pm CST and she said she had been on the phone since 8am est.

 

[katellynne]

We settled on b2b 5/28 Baltic and 6/4 Fjords cruises. We hadn't done either of these before because we kept delaying the Baltic because Disney was priced twice as much as other cruise lines and we didn't feel it was worth paying the Disney difference for such port intensive cruises. Well before booking, I did check out other cruise line's itineraries. Royal Caribbean did have almost identical itineraries a couple of weeks before and if we took a smaller cabin we could have saved money (about $1,000 per cruise). But if we were sailing Royal, to be comfortable we felt we'd need to upgrade so that did away with most of the savings so we stuck with Disney.

I did book the 10 night Baltic on 6/18 opening day but had to go down to an 11b to afford 2 cabins for 6 people. We have never cruised in anything but a verandah but we are willing to give it a go!! Just yesterday I checked out pricing on the ones you booked - the 5/28 B2B with the 6/4. It gives more more of the ports I want to see if I am all the way over there and for the same price per night of $288 for the inside 11b on the 10 night we can book oceanview on the 14 days. Since I used up our 2 OBB on the 10 day I will have to wait until we cruise 5/23 to move to the B2B so I can get the OBB on both.

 

[katellynne]

I booked the 5/28 Baltic cruise. Not really happy with that cruise. If I'm going to fly all the way to Europe I would really prefer a longer cruise. I laugh every time I look at the price of the 10 night Baltic cruise. It's higher than opening day prices were on the 12 night Iceland cruise the same week this year. As everyone know that cruise didn't sell. So it makes perfect sense for them to raise the prices..... I'll probably just hold out, and see if they offer discounts again. My second choice would be the WBTA so I'll probably move my OBB to that when it's released.

Hi Ofinn We booked the 10 night. PIF is February so I am def shopping discounts by then...and I am actually considering switching to the 5/28 IF we can do the 6/4 in conjunction. It surprised me as well that the 10 night was so high given that this summer and last summer they went *gt.

 

[katellynne]

I originally booked the first week of September 7 night Western on the Fantasy 5A stateroom, at what I felt was an ok price - a little over $3,000 for 2 adults after OBB credit but we don't want a Halloween cruise (still shaking my head at Disney celebrating before Labor Day but oh well) so I switched to January 2017 but was stumped by the super high price until I realized it was a SWDAS cruise. For that same price we can do August 2017 which gives us a bit more time to pay off the cruise comfortably and that is what I ultimately booked. Will keep my eye out for January 2018 prices. Would love to switch to that timeframe if there are no SWDAS cruises to push the price ridiculously high.

I thought the 2017 SWDAS prices were really inflated too! We loved our 2016 SWDAS but a LOT of them didn't sell and they discounted them - for that matter we got a vgt rate on our SWDAS sailing 3/5/16.

 

[katellynne]

Just booked a seven-night Alaska for May 2017. Since we are quite early in season, and willing to sail oceanview without a verandah, it looks like the family of three (2A, 1 teen) can sail the week for about $3,500. That's about what I was hoping to spend - and not tremendously more than what we were quoted by Princess for a similar itinerary in a similar cabin. Our daughter, however, is still very interested in sailing Disney - and I generally prefer Dis to Princess - so we will stay DCL for now. Fingers crossed for some dry dock improvements to the Wonder before summer 2017!

That's a GREAT rate for Alaska!! We are going 5/23 and generally the first couple weeks are the least expensive. Our 5A came to $6219 with an OBB so that is almost 2x as much as yours. I think oceanview is great, that verandah is going to be cold brrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

W booked the 11 night June 28 2017 fantasy cruise that hits Aruba, etc. three cabins, two inside and one outside. Over $22,000. Which of course doesn't include getting everyone there, excursions, alcohol, Etc. We love taking the family and as long as they want to go, we grandparents will be paying. Pricey, but the memories help make up for it.

You can adopt us if you want to add on a 4th cabin!!! We'll pay our own airfare and we don't drink. Seriously, I think that is really cool that you do that with your grandchildren, that kind of stuff is priceless.

 

[Bishoparc]

I booked, even with a 10% increase from last year. This will be DS's last year in the Vibe, which he loves, so that is the main reason I'm sticking with DCL. With that said however, I have started looking at some RCCL info and if prices increase as much for 2018, we may have a different outcome then.

We went and booked too. We, to date, have only done the 3 night cruises on the Dream but wanted to expand our time a little next year so I booked the 5 night Castaway double dip in June and a 7 night Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy for September. Having never booked the longer cruises I definitely had sticker shock...$8,400 later...

Thoughts that I had after booking:

• Excitement about 2 stops at Castaway and new places to visit on our eastern
• Disappointment because that's definitely all I can afford next year (whereas we'll have taken 4 this year)
• Looked into pricing on RCCL and now understand why people think so much about switching
• May try an RCCL in 2018 but my concern is, will we feel as good about it as we do DCL. Is part of the reason we love cruising because we love Disney? I realize that the only way to answer this is to try RCCL but we LOVE DCL.

I guess my biggest thing with other cruise lines is we don't drink nor gamble so what will we fill our time with. I guess I need to look and see if there is an equivalent to a Navigator for RCCL to see what activities are available (I am sure someone on the boards has posted something, just haven't searched yet).

I will be hard pressed to switch because quite honestly our two 3 night cruises on the Dream have been some of the best $ I've spent and have provided so many memories and great times with my wife that I don't know what can compare. Sappy, I know but it's how we both feel about them.

Just my musings for the night.

 

[terrybsw]

Now that the dust has settled and people have recuperated from the shock, just curious what everyone's decisions ended up being.

We got quotes, but let the holds expire -- I don't want to have to take a second mortgage for one trip!

We are looking at other lines.

We booked 7 night Alaska June 19, 2017. Nav Veranda $6824 2 adults. No ins or transfers. OBB so 10% off. We were just on the Wonder in March. I will say that if the ship has not completed drydock by the PIF date, I will reconsider the booking. I am Gold and love the Disney experiance but what many have said is true...we could do another line, more room, same itinerary for lots less and the Wonder is showing her age.

 

[KayKayJS]

We booked anyway with an oceaniew 9C Alaska , $3233 for 2A after OBB is competitive with Celebrity Solstice (other ship we were looking at). But we booked the first Alaskan to make it work.

Beyond excited.

ETA: Going to use Target disney giftcards to pay for it and save another 5%. I was planning on spending 3k so im getting exactly what I wanted... can't complain.

 

[ShelleyTaylor]

We were planning on a DCL Vernadah room for Alaska, June 2017. We decided against it due to prices, even put a downpayment on RCCL. But after thinking about it, I want Disney, so we are doing DCL afterall!!!!!!

 

[Simba One]

Keeping the WBPC. The longer cruises are more reasonable.

 

[rosaciri]

DCL - why the big increase in price We ar traveling all the way from Australia in April 2017 to do our second DCL cruise. This time we are doing Eastern cruise on the Fantasy. Sadly it will be our last with DCL. We will be doing 1 week at WDW before we sail but due to the price hike its making it not affordable for us aussies. We fly to LA and onto Orlando with Qantas FF points but still works out to be a expensive holiday for our family of 4. Will be looking at RCCL Ovation Of The Seas for our next cruise after 2017 and Im pretty sure my DDs will be ready to move on from DCL after our last one.

Can I ask y prices increase if a cruise doenst sell out? I thought they would decrease inorder to get bookings and to get the ship at full capacity.

 

[Ozarkglittergirl]

We booked our first cruise this year. 2 grandchildren so had to do the summer prices. Since it's our first cruise we weren't really aware of the price increase. Not cancelling though. Have to do Disney for kids at least once.
Ozarkglittergirl

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I found the prices in the summer made my eye balls pop out like a cartoon character but the fall was much cheaper. We sail in september and the price was only 100 dollar increase. I could live with that. I love my DCL. For those that can't sail out of peak season I feel very bad for. I wouod be tempted to hold your poker faces and keep your cards off the table. They might lower the price later in the year.

 

[Flossbolna]

We had a placeholder to move that expires early June 2017. We decided to put it on the 5/28 Balitc cruise. The likelyhood of us actually going on the cruise is very low however. But with only 10% deposit, I only had to pay another 130 $ for the deposit right now, so it made more sense to get that booking. I looked at the September 7-night Med cruises and those are actually cheaper than last years opening day prices. For a European who can get a 100 € plane ticket to Barcelona, those cruises are actually quite well priced. I just am not thrilled with the Med itineraries as those ports are far too focussed on big cities that are pretty far away from the ports themselved. The great thing about the Baltic is that all these cities (with the exception of St Petersburg), you can just get off the ship and walk around and have a great day. I have our fall cruise to pay off this summer and I guess then I might decide that I don't want to have 330 $ sitting around with DCL as a deposit when I can use them to pay off my Fantasy cruise...

I am surprised that only 11% are in my category of having paid the deposit, but are still thinking about it...

 

[bobbiwoz]

I did not expect to book, but we booked EBTA!

We had already booked WBTA on Princess for September, 2017, never thought we would go to Europe twice in 1 year, but we are, and on Princess we even have our pre cruise itinerary planned!

Prices for the cruises are comparable. On Princess we are going with 2 other couples. We have friends who really like Princess, and finally we'll be sailing with them!

Bobbi

 

[daisyx3]

I wish I could change my vote...keeping my July 17 cruise but actively looking at other spring break options instead of my 4 night; more days for a couple of hundred more dollars.