After our first
DCL back in 2007, four days on the wonder, we booked two cabins a 7 day western caribbean on the Magic while on board. The plan was to bring my parents back with our immediate family of five for our second go around. Well, after sharing our experience and photos with extended family my sister and her family of six booked. Within a few days all 5 of my siblings, their spouses and children were booked to go with us. So that cruise alone had 8 cabins and a total of 26 people from our first DCL experience booked.
Since then my household has done 6 more DCL so a total of 8 DCL cruises.
My parents have done a total of 4.
Siblings have in total done 17.
We have also mentioned our DCL experience to countless friends and cousins. I know of six families who did actually sail DCL because of our recommendations. Who knows how many others have cruised DCL based on our suggestions. I use to be one of DCL biggest cheerleaders. We live close to WDW and are pass holders. We use to wear our AP'S and keep fastpasses in our DCL lanyards worn around our neck in the parks before magicbands were a thing. I can't even begin to imagine the number of people who would see these and ask about our opinion of DCL while at WDW. One question we were often asked was if we thought it was worth the extra money over other lines to cruise Disney? (We have cruised with Royal, Carnival, and Princess.) We use to always say yes. Sadly, I have stopped recommending DCL because I feel DCL has become crazy with their pricing and I no longer feel it is worth the extra cost.
Last spring break my family and two of my siblings families, along with my parents cruised Royal Carribbean's Allure of the Seas. It had been a few years since I had cruised Royal and most of our travel party had only done DCL cruises. Well yes, it was a different experience and we did miss a few things about DCL. Mostly the family friendly shows, Disney Characters, and the longer kids club hours with no breaks. Yet, the cost for my family of five (we need two cabins regardless of which line to make us happy as two of my kids are teens now), was about $2800 less then DCL the same week. Both lines were for veranda cabins. Yes, Royals cabins are slightly smaller, but honestly we didn't find this to be that big of a difference to us. This was Spring Break and peek season. I have no idea what my other family members paid for their cruises, but do know that everyone commented that it was less then what we typically pay for Disney during Spring Break. Even with paying for soda cards that was a huge savings over Disney for my household. We booked early as in about 18 months out. I have no idea what the coast was later but I do know that Disney switched the Fantasy to a Star Wars sailing which inflated the price again over what I was comparing originally. While I completely agree this is not an apples to apples comparison. I can say after it was all said and done my family was happy with taking the risk we did and trying out the other line. Looks like, at least in peak season, Royal is a better fit for us. If Disney prices had not inflated so much, at least when school is out, over the past few years we would have never even consider looking elsewhere because we were genuinely happy with the service and amazing vacation experiences we previously had with them.
Will we cruise Disney again? Maybe, if the price is right or we score a fabulous Florida resident rate. Yet, two of my three children are in High School now which limits us to school breaks, when in my opinion, DCL prices are just plain nuts! I also don't recommend DCL to anyone anymore, because the few I have as of late find out the prices and give me a hard time. It's just not worth the hassle or easy to justify the extra cost anymore.
