Priced out

[Lumee23]

We are going on our first Disney cruise early Dec 2017 and I definitely had sticker shock. It was a little under $6k for the four of us in an extended balcony room for the 7 day western itinerary on the Fantasy. We were just on a group cruise on the NCL Gem out of NY beginning of Jan in a mini suite for a little over 4k with unlimited alcohol package. It was a 10 day eastern itinerary and the price included a kids sail free promo.

While the NCL cruise was a great value hubby and I agreed we would not sail it again unless it was one of the new mega ships. Our girls were 4 and 1.5 at time of sailing and there was nothing for them to do. The only kids activity for the entire cruise outside of the kids club was a cupcake decorating event. My 4yr old would not go into the kids club and since we were sailing out of NY in the winter and hit some bad weather the pool was mostly unusable. We spent a LOT of time in our room on our six sea days and they did not have 24 hr kids programming on their TVs so we watched the same two movies we had saved on our iPad over and over again. Dinner in the MDR took on average 2.5-3 hrs and we ended up eating at the buffet exclusively after the first couple of nights because the kids could not make it through the seated dinner. It was a vacation and we still had fun but after experiencing a ship that isn't tailored for young kids I would not do it again. I think the loss of the Nickelodeon partnership really diminished the kid-friendliness of the NCL Gem. The rest of the family that came with us (who did not have kids) greatly enjoyed the cruise. We felt the entertainment was very well done (both stage and musicians around the boat) and the girls really enjoyed watching the musical numbers. My aunt went on the Escape with her 8 and 10 year old and they all had a blast and felt they got a good deal so it definitely varies from ship to ship.

We were on an older RCCL ship twice back in our 20's (about 10 years ago). I am sure a lot has changed since then but we found the food and service on our RCCL cruises superior to our recent NCL cruise. If we were to book a non-Disney cruise for the family we would probably try RCCL again. If it was just the two of us I think we would give Celebrity a shot.

Right now we are able to sail off-season so I can justify the Disney tax. Assuming all goes well we may squeeze in one more but once taking off of school becomes an issue we will be mostly priced out as well. The summer prices are pretty nuts and while we could probably spend an extra year to save in order to do it, I could not convince hubby to spend that sort of money when we could do an amazing land vacation instead. I am the Disney nut in the family and hubby tolerates it lol. He does grudgingly admit that to a certain point the Disney magic is worth the extra price. He was won over when we did BBB with our then 3 yr old. The cast members at WDW bowing and greeting her as "Princess" for the rest of the day totally made her vacation. We are hoping for similar experiences while onboard the Fantasy in Dec 2017

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

We just finalized our cruises for 2017 and have the following:

6/3/17, 8 night Southern Caribbean on Carnival Vista
6/11/17, 6 night Western Caribbean on Carnival Vista. B2B cruises in 2 connecting aft insides on deck 8 for 4 people out of Miami.

10/1/17, 7 night Western Caribbean on RCCL Liberty of the Seas out of Galveston, deck 6 midship, 2 connecting Promenade View cabins.

Total price for 21 nights on the 3 ships including gratuity and trip insurance is $12,600. I did not book these on opening day.

Just for kicks, I checked out the 11 night Southern Caribbean on the Fantasy for 6/20ish/17. The 4 of us in 2 connecting insides on deck 8 aft comes in at $16,500 NOT including gratuity or trip insurance.

As much as I don't want to admit it, I really think we're done with DCL, that is just crazy amount difference for me. I will always look back on our DCL cruises fondly but I really think they're a thing of the past unfortunately.

When you break it down to a per person/day price it's frightening. For our 21 days is $150/person/day, the Fantasy is $375/person/day. I just can no longer justify that, wish I could!

 

[BigredNole]

Our first cruise will be on DCL. The reason is if my DD and DW do not like cruising, at least Disney will keep them occupied until it is over. If they wind up enjoying cruising, we will definitely look at other cruise lines. It is simple mathematics. We do not have a social circle where you are judged based on what you spend. Yes, I know many people that revolve in social circles where everyone is measuring themselves up against each other on what they spend for a house, car, private school, vacation regardless of their financial situation. Some go into $100s of thousands in debt to maintain their ladder rung within the group. Why? I have no clue.

It is funny to watch from the outside. I worked for a guy who bought a Lexus (something like $60,000). He showed it off and his neighbor saw it. Well, he showed it to his neighbor. Guess what? The neighbor went out and bought an Inifiniti that was better the very next day. This owner was on the phone screaming at the Lexus dealership that they had to let him give it back and get the Lexus better than the Infiniti his neighbor just got. Cost didn't matter. He just had to be 1-Up. Simply because he could not allow this neighbor to move up 1 rung on him on the social ladder.

Look at other cruise lines. They are great values out there. Even on the massive new ships, the cost is 50% of DCL. I keep looking and trying to justify the $2,000 (minimum) price difference.

 

[aggiedog]

I'm late to the party, but we are priced out too. Not because we can't afford it, but that I'd rather get more (much more?) for my money. We have 4 kids, ages 11-17. I love the DCL esthetic (reference the cheesy bar window posted earlier!), but I can find other ways to get my travel fix than DCL now. We've also decided we're not really a family who loves cruising per se, but loves the ability to hit lots of foreign ports without having to change hotel rooms every 1-2 nights. So for us, cruising would be best anywhere but the Caribbean. That area of the world is not as appealing to us. As a family of redheads, we're not "fun in the sun" folks either. With 3 highschoolers, we can't travel anytime but peak. Take that all together and DCL does not offer anything we like for the price we'd have to pay. And sadly, the DCL Med itinerary is underwhelming. It would have to be significantly cheaper than other lines for us to do that cruise. We're moving towards more group travel arrangements - Tauck, InsideJapan, etc. They are also not cheap, but at least offer more of what our family likes, and we'll just deal with changing hotels.

If DCL prices ever come back down out of the stratosphere, I'd reconsider.

FWIW, we loved our DCL Baltic cruise last year, but had as much fun doing Iceland and Copenhagen on our own prior. We also did a Merrytime cruise last year, at almost twice the cost as the same cruise 2 weeks prior. Yes, peak times, that. It was nice to get away, but that was not our favorite vacation. Dh and I have also cruised other lines without the kids.

And yes to Iceland! Love that place. And yes, one of my teens is obsessed with South Korea as well. Korean culture is a thing with teens now, apparently. Who knew??

 

[Love2Cruz]

We just finalized our cruises for 2017 and have the following:

6/3/17, 8 night Southern Caribbean on Carnival Vista
6/11/17, 6 night Western Caribbean on Carnival Vista. B2B cruises in 2 connecting aft insides on deck 8 for 4 people out of Miami.

!

I board the Vista last week of June on the 6 day Western as well

Also have the Magic for NYE in a 4J category (look those up, they are sweeeeet and cheap) for a 7 day for $1800. It's considered an upgraded inside but it has a porthole to the very front of the ship where there is a large deck. A door right next to cabin accesses it and there are hardly any other people out there, other than the other 4J guests, which are about 4-6 cabins per deck. I snagged one on the Lido deck. I normally do balcony's, this is as close as you get to one with Inside prices...plus you still get a window.

 

[Love2Cruz]

I so want to sail the Fantasy, but I'm limited on sailing it during school breaks which means $$$$. I am a freak when it comes to scheduling and like to have cruises booked in way in advance to take advantage of early booking discounts but I think they only way I can ever do Fantasy is to hold out for a Florida resident discount..which means, last minute booking. I may just have to leave a summer open and unschedued and hope that I can score one one year.

 

[Ofinn]

I so want to sail the Fantasy, but I'm limited on sailing it during school breaks which means $$$$. I am a freak when it comes to scheduling and like to have cruises booked in way in advance to take advantage of early booking discounts but I think they only way I can ever do Fantasy is to hold out for a Florida resident discount..which means, last minute booking. I may just have to leave a summer open and unschedued and hope that I can score one one year.

All of our DCL cruises have been last minute. If your eligible for discounts I wouldnt book ahead. Thats why I cant say Im done with DCL because I just dont know. I will say they did offer some discounts on the Fantasy this July. The Fantasy is worth it if you can snag a deal.

 

[wombat_5606]

All of our DCL cruises have been last minute. If your eligible for discounts I wouldnt book ahead. Thats why I cant say Im done with DCL because I just dont know. I will say they did offer some discounts on the Fantasy this July. The Fantasy is worth it if you can snag a deal.

I think the majority of cruisers are better off booking as early as they can. The deals Disney offers are only for Florida residents, certain Military and occasionally Canadians. I think the *GT and GTY deals are open to interpretation, which are the only discounts those of us who don't fall into the above categories have access to.

If you only look at a cruise and compare *GT and GTY deals with the price listed on the day you want to book, you may not be getting a deal at all. I think this happens most of the time. You really should compare the history of the prices to know if those are truly deals.

For example, I quickly looked at the Fantasy sailing on Aug. 27, 2016. If I had booked a 5B on opening day the price would be $1666 per person, according to Cruisefish.net. Today that GTY rate is $2107 per person. Cruisefish.net shows, if you could book a 5B without a GTY, it would be $2206 per person. So someone may think GTY is a deal, others may not. It's as good as you can get on that day, but to me, it's no deal.

I always hear about Disney, from CM themselves, offering great deals last minute to CM families and I wonder why they don't offer those last minute deals to their loyal customers. I believe they don't because they want to perpetuate the illusion that their ships sail full and a majority of the uninformed believe everyone's paying these inflated prices.

 

[Ofinn]

I think the majority of cruisers are better off booking as early as they can. The deals Disney offers are only for Florida residents, certain Military and occasionally Canadians. I think the *GT and GTY deals are open to interpretation, which are the only discounts those of us who don't fall into the above categories have access to.

If you only look at a cruise and compare *GT and GTY deals with the price listed on the day you want to book, you may not be getting a deal at all. I think this happens most of the time. You really should compare the history of the prices to know if those are truly deals.

For example, I quickly looked at the Fantasy sailing on Aug. 27, 2016. If I had booked a 5B on opening day the price would be $1666 per person, according to Cruisefish.net. Today that GTY rate is $2107 per person. Cruisefish.net shows, if you could book a 5B without a GTY, it would be $2206 per person. So someone may think GTY is a deal, others may not. It's as good as you can get on that day, but to me, it's no deal.

I always hear about Disney, from CM themselves, offering great deals last minute to CM families and I wonder why they don't offer those last minute deals to their loyal customers. I believe they don't because they want to perpetuate the illusion that their ships sail full and a majority of the uninformed believe everyone's paying these inflated prices.

I said if you are eligible for discounts such as pp poster is then you are better off waiting for a discount. Obviously not everyone is because most of the discounts they offer are not public. I was not referring to gty rates which by the way are not discounted rates.

 

[wombat_5606]

I said if you are eligible for discounts such as pp poster is then you are better off waiting for a discount. Obviously not everyone is because most of the discounts they offer are not public. I was not referring to gty rates which by the way are not discounted rates.

Pardon my mistake.

In my example above, the GTY is discounted. Why do you say it isn't?

I just think it's worth pointing out they *GT and GTY rates are considered to be good discounts by a large number of people. Although GTY may not be a discounted rate, a lot of people book that thinking/hoping that they are going to be upgraded, thus the apparent discount. Sadly, in the recent past, most people that book a GTY get the category they originally booked. They should have just picked the cabin they wanted, instead of taking the risk of being assigned an undesirable cabin.

Then we go back to the rest of my post. Look at the pricing history of the cruise before you book!

 

[tinkerone]

I always hear about Disney, from CM themselves, offering great deals last minute to CM families and I wonder why they don't offer those last minute deals to their loyal customers. I believe they don't because they want to perpetuate the illusion that their ships sail full and a majority of the uninformed believe everyone's paying these inflated prices.

This!
Says it all.

 

[CaterFamily]

This is why we love homeschooling and being business owners. We're not stuck to certain times of the year to cruise - we go when the mood strikes us. Heck, we're already booked for Merrytime 2017.

Being "priced out" is extremely subjective, obviously, but I can see the rational. Its all about perceived value - and that will differ from person to person. We find value still with DCL (we're also seeing value in RCL, Carnival, etc) and continue to book with them.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

This is why we love homeschooling and being business owners. We're not stuck to certain times of the year to cruise - we go when the mood strikes us. Heck, we're already booked for Merrytime 2017.

Being "priced out" is extremely subjective, obviously, but I can see the rational. Its all about perceived value - and that will differ from person to person. We find value still with DCL (we're also seeing value in RCL, Carnival, etc) and continue to book with them.

Unfortunately, being a business owner doesn't afford me the opportunity to cruise when I want. My business level quadruples during the off cruise season and for some reason my business partners don't want me taking time off then. They're so selfish .

 

[Ofinn]

Honestly all cruise lines fill ships with private discounts this isnt something exclusive to dcl, and I imagine most ships sail near capacity. Dcl gets enough people to pay the premium, and honestly their private discounts puts their prices at about what full price on other cruise lines is. They are still making a lot of money with their discounted rates.

 

[CaterFamily]

Unfortunately, being a business owner doesn't afford me the opportunity to cruise when I want. My business level quadruples during the off cruise season and for some reason my business partners don't want me taking time off then. They're so selfish .

How rude! Lol!!

It's my wife and I who own the company. So if my business partner doesn't want to cruise at the same time as me...

 

[wombat_5606]

Honestly all cruise lines fill ships with private discounts this isnt something exclusive to dcl, and I imagine most ships sail near capacity. Dcl gets enough people to pay the premium, and honestly their private discounts puts their prices at about what full price on other cruise lines is. They are still making a lot of money with their discounted rates.

But my point is, Ofinn, is that it isn't really a discounted price, just a perceived one.

I really have to disagree that their private discounts puts their prices at full price of other cruise lines. I don't even know what full price means. Virtually all cruise lines discount their fares. No one pays brochure rates and you can get discounts at any number of TAs.

I know other cruise lines offer discounts, but I don't usually see where they are only offered to a select clientele. I've also never met anyone that had a connection with an employee on the 5 other cruise lines I've sailed with. Not that it doesn't happen, just not to the extent that I believe Disney does.

 

[wombat_5606]

I just wish people would quit bringing up these so-called discounts when someone is unhappy with the prices Disney charges. Seriously, if you can't book the already inflated prices on opening day, in a majority of the cases, you are only going to be paying more, unless you fit into the 3 discount categories.

And for those people that are priced out, I feel for you. I do understand where you are coming from. I do understand if you've cruised with them in the past and now can't justify the cost. I do understand if you wanted to cruise with them for the first time and you are horrified with the cost.

But I will tell you that you can cruise on another cruise line and still have fun, still have a great vacation. The important thing is do some research and see what cruise line is right for you. www.cruise critic.com has cruise profiles you can read.

I've never had service any worse that I have had on DCL. I've never seen a ship that was in any worse repair than DCL. I've had a lot better food on other cruise lines. Even DCL has norovirus. DCL is not the only place to see the characters. Their water-downed free soda is not a reason to cruise.

Maybe because I've cruised a long time before Disney ever came on the scene, but it's not the perfect be-all, end-all cruise line. It's nice, it's just not the only ship in the sea and I do think it's overpriced and I do think it gets more so everyday.

I just wish some of our fellow DISers would empathize instead of criticize.

 

[CaterFamily]

...
But I will tell you that you can cruise on another cruise line and still have fun, still have a great vacation. The important thing is do some research and see what cruise line is right for you. www.cruise critic.com has cruise profiles you can read.
...
I just wish some of our fellow DISers would empathize instead of criticize.

This!

Knowledge is power! Research until your eyes bleed, ok maybe not that much. But its always critical to research at least 2-3 options aside from the one you're really interested in. You never know, maybe a different cruise line is a much better fit for not only budget but personal preference!

 

[Ofinn]

But my point is, Ofinn, is that it isn't really a discounted price, just a perceived one.

I really have to disagree that their private discounts puts their prices at full price of other cruise lines. I don't even know what full price means. Virtually all cruise lines discount their fares. No one pays brochure rates and you can get discounts at any number of TAs.

I know other cruise lines offer discounts, but I don't usually see where they are only offered to a select clientele. I've also never met anyone that had a connection with an employee on the 5 other cruise lines I've sailed with. Not that it doesn't happen, just not to the extent that I believe Disney does.

Rest assure their discounts are not perceived they are real. If you are military, travel agent, employee or airline employee those are a select clientele and are offered by all cruiselines. Some even have discounts for first responders. If you dont believe these are offered call DCL and ask. Im not sure what your trying to prove here. If dcl gives 50 % off a cruise it is generally still cost more than other cruiselines. Other cruise lines dont offer the huge private discounts dcl does its a much smaller percentage off.

I wasnt trying to start a debate. My post was directed at a poster saying she thought she should wait fot the florida rate. If you are eligible for certain discounts why would you book ahead. That was my whole point.

 

[wombat_5606]

Rest assure their discounts are not perceived they are real. If you are military, travel agent, employee or airline employee those are a select clientele and are offered by all cruiselines. Some even have discounts for first responders. If you dont believe these are offered call DCL and ask. Im not sure what your trying to prove here. If dcl gives 50 % off a cruise it is generally still cost more than other cruiselines. Other cruise lines dont offer the huge private discounts dcl does its a much smaller percentage off.

I wasnt trying to start a debate. My post was directed at a poster saying she thought she should wait fot the florida rate. If you are eligible for certain discounts why would you book ahead. That was my whole point.

I just didn't read your post that way and was pointing out, for the general public, DCL doesn't really offer any discounts for them. The *GT and GTY rates are just perceived discounts and that Disney, after offering the discount rates to Florida residents, Military and Canadians, then offers discounts to CM's and finally fills the ship.

The fellow DISers and general public then think (and use it to argue all the time on here) that Disney is making all of this money from these high prices that people pay. I've heard a zillion times that Disney can charge whatever they want because people are paying their prices. When in reality, there are a lot of people sailing on these discounted rates, rates that Disney won't offer to the general public, just so DCL can keep the illusion alive.

I didn't mean to get into a debate either, but we just didn't seem to be on the same page.