The DCL "company line" = predictable

[lizabu]

I think the response you got is the only type of response you could expect. They aren't going to write back and say "you're right...we charge entirely too much." I think if you were to see the bookings go down and they get a number of these types of letters you might see something happen. The only thing is it doesn't look like the number of cruisers are going down. Actually it seems like it's the opposite. Last year at this time (and for at least 3 years that I'm aware of) they were offering Canadian resident rates. Not so this year. Someone on one of my other boards was looking for a military rate with no luck. They were advised that our cruise was more fully booked. When I watch tv at night I'm seeing a lot of DCL tv commercials. Maybe that why. I think we would all love to see the prices go down.

 

[Rogillio]

I read about a woman who had found a roach in her food on an airline. She wrote to the airline and told them about the roach. She got a very nice letter back from the airlines that said they were '....shocked to hear about this!' and said this has never happened before and they were having the plane fumigated, etc. The lady tuned the letter over and on the back was a yellow Post-it sticker that said, "Mr Brown, please send this lady our standard roach letter."
So, yeah, you got Disney's 'standard roach letter'.

 

[bumbershoot]

Empty threats will mean nothing to them.

There is no one checking each person and following up on their bookings or lack of bookings. The CS person who responds doesn't know and won't follow it.


But each letter that is sent in, IF they follow the general way call centers do things, will be coded with something. And those codes get tallied up and looked at if they hit a certain number. Doesn't mean anything will be done, but in normal companies with call centers and employees, those codings are how they know what's going on with their customers.

When I worked at amazon ('99 to '02), when i got a call from an irate grandma saying that her new Disney princess-story DVD, which she had put on for her granddaughter, actually had an x-rated movie on it, it was hard to believe. But I coded it for something like a possible problem (I cannot remember what the codes were at all, but I also notated the item). Then when I did go back and look at the item (b/c I was a rare CS agent who allowed herself to be slower, and be put on performance plans, to be thorough) and saw OTHER notations of this, it was clear that someone at the DVD factory was having one of those "and this is how I quit" moments, and it wasn't just b/c grandma put in the wrong DVD. If she hadn't written in we wouldn't have known and the buyers would haven't been able to hopefully take it to the factory. (yes, real story)

Those codes mean something. So the letters mean something.

 

[squirk]

Does Disney still care about the customer? I think they do, but not to the extent where they are going to charge less just to make us feel better about them.

I just think they would rather have new customers paying more than old customers paying less.

I also think that at some point it will catch up with them, but who knows how far in the future that will be?

Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't begrudge DCL taking advantage of a high-demand market, but it doesn't mean I have to like it either, y'know?

I think the response you got is the only type of response you could expect. They aren't going to write back and say "you're right...we charge entirely too much."

Oh, I didn't expect anything like that. Going back to the title of the thread, I guess I was hoping they'd say something that I didn't already anticipate. Something that we on the board hadn't thought of that might make the pricing seem not as bad. Perhaps some facts or a different perspective that we hadn't considered.

I read about a woman who had found a roach in her food on an airline. She wrote to the airline and told them about the roach. She got a very nice letter back from the airlines that said they were '....shocked to hear about this!' and said this has never happened before and they were having the plane fumigated, etc. The lady tuned the letter over and on the back was a yellow Post-it sticker that said, "Mr Brown, please send this lady our standard roach letter."
So, yeah, you got Disney's 'standard roach letter'.

If that's a true story, I'm not sure what's more disturbing - the roach, or the fact that it happened often enough that they needed a standard "roach" form letter.

 

[KYDad]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't begrudge DCL taking advantage of a high-demand market, but it doesn't mean I have to like it either, y'know?

I totally agree. I don't like it either. Makes you feel kind of powerless and unappreciated, especially after spending so much money with them. It's just the reality of the situation.

 

[squirk]

I totally agree. I don't like it either. Makes you feel kind of powerless and unappreciated, especially after spending so much money with them. It's just the reality of the situation.

Actually, we have the ultimate power. We can walk away at any time and spend our money elsewhere. Free-market capitalism cuts both ways.

 

[KYDad]

True enough, but I was speaking about the power to make them change. It takes a whole lot of people not spending to make an impact. It can be done, it just takes a while.

 

[moomy-san]

I emailed with similar concerns and got a phone call yesterday. The gentleman's answers were basically word for word what your email response contained. I think I got the phone call specifically because I mentioned that after pricing out a February 2017 cruise (which would have beeDn our 8th at that exact time in the last 7 years) we had to opt out due to pricing.... And booked with Royal Caribbean instead.
One of my other points that I touched on in my email was the fact that as a Canadian, our DCL cruise prices are listed in US dollars and fluctuate with the exchange. So our cruise that we booked last year has gone up several hundred dollars! But Royal Caribbean quotes in Canadian funds and our final payment price will not change due to exchange. So the cruise started out cheaper by several hundred dollars than DCL and wont fluctuate!! He was very very interested in that point.

 

[squirk]

I emailed with similar concerns and got a phone call yesterday. The gentleman's answers were basically word for word what your email response contained. I think I got the phone call specifically because I mentioned that after pricing out a February 2017 cruise (which would have beeDn our 8th at that exact time in the last 7 years) we had to opt out due to pricing.... And booked with Royal Caribbean instead.
One of my other points that I touched on in my email was the fact that as a Canadian, our DCL cruise prices are listed in US dollars and fluctuate with the exchange. So our cruise that we booked last year has gone up several hundred dollars! But Royal Caribbean quotes in Canadian funds and our final payment price will not change due to exchange. So the cruise started out cheaper by several hundred dollars than DCL and wont fluctuate!! He was very very interested in that point.

So how did the call wrap up? "Thank you for letting us know your thoughts. I will make sure your comments are forwarded to the appropriate people. We hope to see you sailing on DCL in the future"?

 

[Rogillio]

None of us are privy to the sales data that DCL looks that shows the demand. They know how many million hits their website gets and the percentage of people who visit and book and visit and don't book as well as the number of times the web paged is accessed from an individual IP. They know the call volume they get about cruises and the number of people who hear the prices and hang up and the number of people who hear the prices and book anyway. They know exactly how much money they made last year and the percent full each ship sailed.

Think of this. If they shoot for 95% full ship and routinely exceed that, then they can increase their prices across the board. Say they increase $100 per person. That's about $400,000 more money.....so even if that mean fewer people sail, say ship only goes to 90% now, they still come out better off sailing with fewer people amd making the same money.....without the expense of the extra food and such those passengers.

My point is, we have no idea what Disney looks at when setting prices. One thing we do know, it was not arbitrary and capricious. It was deliberate and based on extensive analysis of the data. They might lose some cruisers (like perhaps the OP) but they knew this when the increased the prices. They are neither shocked or suprised to get letters like the OP sent. Just like the alcohol policy change. They knew the would lose a few passengers becasue of it but they made a business decision.

My reccomendation to everyone is to sail at least once with your children even if you have to take out a second mortgage to do it. But after you've experienced Disney at least once, try RCCL. Or just go to WDW. Variety is the spice of life.

 

[Macmaro]

Supply. Demand.

Their goal is to achieve economic equilibrium with relation to their pricing and if the ships and parks are full, they are doing it. Plain and simple. I wouldn't have expected the response given. Every for-profit business should be expected to charge as much as the market will bear. The value I perceive from Disney's current offerings is much different than it used to be. I still cruise only on DCL but I now do it every 2 or 3 years instead of every year. I have owned DVC for 11 years but I now go to Disney Parks less frequently, despite now having a young child at home, because of the lack of value I perceive in the perks and additional pricing. It just never occurred to me that Disney was doing something wrong. I just realized that others were now on to the secret that I knew for years. Disney has a great product.

 

[Rogillio]

Supply. Demand.

Their goal is to achieve economic equilibrium with relation to their pricing and if the ships and parks are full, they are doing it. Plain and simple. I wouldn't have expected the response given. Every for-profit business should be expected to charge as much as the market will bear. The value I perceive from Disney's current offerings is much different than it used to be. I still cruise only on DCL but I now do it every 2 or 3 years instead of every year. I have owned DVC for 11 years but I now go to Disney Parks less frequently, despite now having a young child at home, because of the lack of value I perceive in the perks and additional pricing. It just never occurred to me that Disney was doing something wrong. I just realized that others were now on to the secret that I knew for years. Disney has a great product.

I like this!! Well said.

I also agree that my perceived value from Disney has changed.....primarily since my children are grown.

 

[tinkerone]

[QUOTE="Rogillio, post: 54578881, member: 112671"

My reccomendation to everyone is to sail at least once with your children even if you have to take out a second mortgage to do it. But after you've experienced Disney at least once, try RCCL. Or just go to WDW. Variety is the spice of life. [/QUOTE]


do….not….do….this!

 

[Rogillio]

[QUOTE="Rogillio, post: 54578881, member: 112671"

My reccomendation to everyone is to sail at least once with your children even if you have to take out a second mortgage to do it. But after you've experienced Disney at least once, try RCCL. Or just go to WDW. Variety is the spice of life.

do….not….do….this![/QUOTE]


I doubt you will ever hear an old person say, "I wish I not taken expensive family vacations when my kids were young so I could have paid my house off a couple of years earlier." Seems like most would say, "I wish I'd of lived larger! I wish we'd of taken awesome trips with my family when my kids were young!"
Swing for the fence!!

 

[tinkerone]

do….not….do….this!

I doubt you will ever hear an old person say, "I wish I not taken expensive family vacations when my kids were young so I could have paid my house off a couple of years earlier." Seems like most would say, "I wish I'd of lived larger! I wish we'd of taken awesome trips with my family when my kids were young!"
Swing for the fence!![/QUOTE]


I worked in banking for 33 years. to take out $6000 for a cruise (already expensive) on your mortgage will cost 4 times that by the time the mortgage is done. they will have paid close to $24,000 for that cruise. suggesting that is the worst idea ever. maybe, maybe, take out a personal loan but never tell someone to add the cost of a vacation to their mortgage. dumb dumb dumb.

eta-I don't know why our posts keep doing this. its hard to distinguish who is saying what. lol.

 

[Rogillio]

I worked in banking for 33 years. to take out $6000 for a cruise (already expensive) on your mortgage will cost 4 times that by the time the mortgage is done. they will have paid close to $24,000 for that cruise. suggesting that is the worst idea ever. maybe, maybe, take out a personal loan but never tell someone to add the cost of a vacation to their mortgage. dumb dumb dumb.

eta-I don't know why our posts keep doing this. its hard to distinguish who is saying what. lol.

We took out a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) against our house years ago. The interest rate is like 4% and the interest we pay is deductible. We don't carry any credit card debt or any other debt. It makes more sense to pay off the high interest credit cards with the low interest, deductible interest HELOC. We pay on the HELOC as much as we can every month and have had it paid off a couple of time but then life happens. We bought a new Ford Expedition and paid for it with cash via the HELOC sine it is lower interest than Ford Motor Credit. Obvious I don't recommend this for people who can't control their spending as you will just get deeper into debt.

Any BTW, that $6k that you spend on your vacation could have been used to pay towards your mortgage. So as long as you carry a mortgage, any non-essentials that you spend will end up costing your XX times as much in the long run anyway. IOW, that $6k is essentially tacked on to the end of your mortgage. As a banker you know the time value of money and know this is true. But for some reason people don't think of their mortgage as debt. Trust me, when you pay it off you will realize it was indeed debt!

 

[Ofinn]

do….not….do….this!

I doubt you will ever hear an old person say, "I wish I not taken expensive family vacations when my kids were young so I could have paid my house off a couple of years earlier." Seems like most would say, "I wish I'd of lived larger! I wish we'd of taken awesome trips with my family when my kids were young!"
Swing for the fence!![/QUOTE]

 

[Ofinn]

I doubt you will ever hear an old person say, "I wish I not taken expensive family vacations when my kids were young so I could have paid my house off a couple of years earlier." Seems like most would say, "I wish I'd of lived larger! I wish we'd of taken awesome trips with my family when my kids were young!"
Swing for the fence!!

[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE="Rogillio, post: 54578881, member: 112671"

My reccomendation to everyone is to sail at least once with your children even if you have to take out a second mortgage to do it. But after you've experienced Disney at least once, try RCCL. Or just go to WDW. Variety is the spice of life.

do….not….do….this![/QUOTE]
My dad always taught me to live large, but pay in cash.

 

[tinkerone]

do….not….do….this![/QUOTE]
My dad always taught me to live large, but pay in cash.[/QUOTE]


these quotes some how got mixed up. i just want to make it clear, the comment about the second mortgage was not mine. the comment do….not….do….this was. i would never encourage anyone to pay for a vacation using a mortgage. i know it can't always happen however i like your way best.
now i'm off the subject……

eta-what is going on? even this did not come out correctly.

 

[Rogillio]

do….not….do….this![/QUOTE]
My dad always taught me to live large, but pay in cash.[/QUOTE]

Most people have a mortgage and don't pay cash when they buy a house. And few people pay cash for a new car. And many people end up with student loans after college.

If you understand the time-value of money and interest and debt you can do things in life when you want to. Save to pay cash for everything and you will miss out on a lot of good things in life.

We were gonna save to buy a house......the a baby came along.....didn't want to live in an apartment with a baby.....

Anyway, live you life as you see fit.