The DCL "company line" = predictable

[Ofinn]

ROGILLIO

Well you need a place to live, most people need a car to get to work, people need college to get a good job, but nobody needs a DCL cruise or any cruise for than matter. I pay cash for all my vacations, and I travel a lot. I skimp in other areas because traveling is my passion. As much as I love traveling I would never go into debt for it. Cruises are luxury not a necessity. I would never advise someone to take out a loan for a vacation. How can you even enjoy your vacation doing that?

 

[Orukal]

I pay cash for all my vacations

We're the same way. No part of our upcoming Panama Canal cruise for 6 has to be paid back. Credit, mortgage or otherwise. It works for us. It may not work for others. No biggie. I find a way to get the big vacations and fun but I don't want to be paying for it down the road.

 

[Rogillio]

ROGILLIO

Well you need a place to live, most people need a car to get to work, people need college to get a good job, but nobody needs a DCL cruise or any cruise for than matter. I pay cash for all my vacations, and I travel a lot. I skimp in other areas because traveling is my passion. As much as I love traveling I would never go into debt for it. Cruises are luxury not a necessity. I would never advise someone to take out a loan for a vacation. How can you even enjoy your vacation doing that?

We all have different views about money, debt, vacations and what is 'required'. A house is required.....but a 3,000 sqft house with a $400k mortgage is not required. A car is required. But a brand new $59k F150 Raptor is not required. I actually think vacations are required to keep one's sanity in this crazy intense stressful world we live in. But granted a cruise is not required. I can go into debt and enjoy my vacation becuase I understand the time-value of money. A $6k cruise paid for with a HELOC will cost you about $200 in interest if it is paid off within a year.

Most people live in too much house and spend their whole life paying for the house and trying to keep up with the Jones. The average homeowner stays in a house 7 years....then sells it and usually 'upgrades' to a bigger, nicer house in a better school district or better neighborhood. So just when they had gotten a few raises at work maybe paid off a student loan or a credit card they find out they are 'qualified' for bigger mortgage. The result is they never pay off their mortgage. We built the most house we cold afford in 1990 and paid it off in 16 yrs and for the last 10 years have not had a mortgage payment.

Debt is debt. It doesn't matter if the debt is for your car, your education, you mortgage or your vacation. Debt is money you owe. Period. You can argue is ok to go into debt to buy a car but will tell you it you have an old jelopy that runs it is NEVER better cost wise to buy a new car. Ever. You can repair and maintain that peice of junk cheaper than a new car....even if you have to replace the entire engine, transmission and wheels it is still cheaper than buying a new car. A new car will depreciate $2k the minute you sign the paperwork to buy it. It is now a 'used' car. But people buy new cars all the time and go 20, 40 or $60k into debt for the joy of driving a new Expedition to the soccor game. I'd rather live in a smaller/cheaper house and drive a cheaper car and be able to take a $6k crusie with my family when my children are young.

Several years ago I decided it was time to trade in my old pick-up truck. I pulled into the dealership and like a moth to the fire, I was drawn to a brand new Corvette! OMG, that thing was beautiful and it fit like a glove and had the new car smell. It was listed for $52k. So we are a two income family and did not have much debt, no credit card bill or car note and we both made good money. In short, we could afford it. I came home to think about it for a while. A few days later DCL announced they were gonna be sailing the Meditterrean.

So I passed on the Vette and drove my old pick up several more years.....but have the most wonderful memories of Barcelona, Sicily, Rome, Napels, Pompei, etc with my family. Or kids were young teens and they go to see other countries and enjoy the 'accomodations' between ports of call. At the time, it was our most expensive vacation ever and yes, we went into debt to do it. But we paid off the debt....and did it again for the maiden Baltic cruise.

No regrets!

 

[NCConch]

Enough people have given the business school answer of supply and demand that I was going to give. So I will give the flame-worthy answer that comes to mind. We have only been cruising for a few years as a family. We waited until our income allowed it all of our dept was paid off. We have only cruised Disney and I do not see us cruising anyone else. We are extremely pleased with DCL's level of service and its ships. We are also pleased with the clientele of DCL. We do not want to sail with the partiers or the senior citizens. If some younger families cannot afford this luxury yet there are other lines they can afford. We will continue to sail DCL as they follow their business model - and so will plenty of other families.

 

[tinkerone]

[QUOTE="Rogillio, post: 54584841, member: 112671"


Debt is debt. It doesn't matter if the debt is for your car, your education, you mortgage or your vacation. Debt is money you owe. Period. You can argue is ok to go into debt to buy a car but will tell you it you have an old jelopy that runs it is NEVER better cost wise to buy a new car. Ever. You can repair and maintain that peice of junk cheaper than a new car....even if you have to replace the entire engine, transmission and wheels it is still cheaper than buying a new car. A new car will depreciate $2k the minute you sign the paperwork to buy it. It is now a 'used' car. But people buy new cars all the time and go 20, 40 or $60k into debt for the joy of driving a new Expedition to the soccor game. I'd rather live in a smaller/cheaper house and drive a cheaper car and be able to take a $6k crusie with my family when my children are young.

[/QUOTE]


your debt does matter. there is good debt and there is bad debt. i'm not going to go into detail but all you have to do is goolge. if its not understood here is one article, and there are thousands http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/debt1.htm
reading how you have done it sounds like you have it under control. you know what your doing and have your priorities straight. thats what its all about, congratulations. i mean that sincerely.

the problem is, a very large majority of people don't. they go to the bank every few years and re-mortgage to pay off all the bad debt they have acquired since the last re-mortgage. while mortgage is a 'good' debt, its only good if you are paying it down and the value of your house is going up. if you take the value out by way of more loan on your home then you are taking good debt and making it not so good.
no one should ever use their mortgage to go on vacation. there are a lot of folks out there that aren't disciplined enough to pay a home owners line of credit off in a year as you do.
all in all, no family is going to have children that are going to be delinquents because they didn't get to go on a disney cruise. to go into debt, bad debt, to pay for it could damage a family. i have seen it.

 

[Rogillio]

Enough people have given the business school answer of supply and demand that I was going to give. So I will give the flame-worthy answer that comes to mind. We have only been cruising for a few years as a family. We waited until our income allowed it all of our dept was paid off. We have only cruised Disney and I do not see us cruising anyone else. We are extremely pleased with DCL's level of service and its ships. We are also pleased with the clientele of DCL. We do not want to sail with the partiers or the senior citizens. If some younger families cannot afford this luxury yet there are other lines they can afford. We will continue to sail DCL as they follow their business model - and so will plenty of other families.

Well said. I don't think demographics have been mentioned much in all the thread about cruise prices. We sailed HAL and the first thing I notive (while still in the cruise terminal!) was the number of old people (senior citizens) and the few number of kids and families. People tend to like to around people that are close to their own social-economic class. This is why some people will only stay in the Grand Floridan or Poly and avoid the Pop. The same can be said of cruise lines. There is a very disctint demographic on CCL and HAL and DCL and RCCL. I think RCCL is probably the closed to DCL in my opinion.

 

[Mark D.]

Enough people have given the business school answer of supply and demand that I was going to give. So I will give the flame-worthy answer that comes to mind. We have only been cruising for a few years as a family. We waited until our income allowed it all of our dept was paid off. We have only cruised Disney and I do not see us cruising anyone else. We are extremely pleased with DCL's level of service and its ships. We are also pleased with the clientele of DCL. We do not want to sail with the partiers or the senior citizens. If some younger families cannot afford this luxury yet there are other lines they can afford. We will continue to sail DCL as they follow their business model - and so will plenty of other families.

I was going to give a different spin on things and go with cost of acquisition vs. cost of retention. With the OBB discount and OBC that comes with it, it is probably quite a bit more expensive for DCL to retain a customer than it is for them to acquire a new one. So as long as they are able to fill the ships, they aren't too worried about past cruisers switching to other lines -- there will be newcomers willing to pay.

Having said that, aside from a few Carnival cruises in our 20's before kids, we've only sailed DCL (3 times with a 4th booked). I agree with NCConch, we like DCL, can afford it without extra debt, and are willing to pay for it. Perhaps a time will come where we feel differently and want to try something else (probably RCCL), but I don't see that happening anytime soon. We've still got 3 more ships and a lot of itineraries to try.

The important thing is to find what makes you happy and have a good time doing that. Maybe it's DCL, maybe it's not. For us, It's DCL.

 

[Rogillio]

your debt does matter. there is good debt and there is bad debt. i'm not going to go into detail but all you have to do is goolge. if its not understood here is one article, and there are thousands http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/debt1.htm
reading how you have done it sounds like you have it under control. you know what your doing and have your priorities straight. thats what its all about, congratulations. i mean that sincerely.

the problem is, a very large majority of people don't. they go to the bank every few years and re-mortgage to pay off all the bad debt they have acquired since the last re-mortgage. while mortgage is a 'good' debt, its only good if you are paying it down and the value of your house is going up. if you take the value out by way of more loan on your home then you are taking good debt and making it not so good.
no one should ever use their mortgage to go on vacation. there are a lot of folks out there that aren't disciplined enough to pay a home owners line of credit off in a year as you do.
all in all, no family is going to have children that are going to be delinquents because they didn't get to go on a disney cruise. to go into debt, bad debt, to pay for it could damage a family. i have seen it.

Totally agree. I guess it all comes down to living within our means. There is nothing inherently wrong with debt. Debt allow us to enjoy things in life on your own terms. It allows you to enjoy a new car now instead of trying to save for 5 years to be able to pay cash.....which most people don't the discipline to do anyway. The same is true for $6k cruise. There are exceptions but I doubt many people have the discipline to save $6k cash for a cruise. I know we never did. But we know our income and we know our debt and our bills and we took on a little more debt so we could take our vacations.

I encourage young people to try to live in less house than they can afford. Set a goal of paying it off in 15 years and pay extra on it when you can.

 

[tinkerone]

the number of dcl commercials i see on tv now is astonishing. last night i had the tv on for 2 hours and saw dcl three times. they really want to get their name out there and they are doing a good job. very well done commercials as well. it does make people feel like they need to sail dcl. they kind of say look what your family is missing!

 

[eskimoinparadise]

Here's the big thing.... Are you still going to cruise on DCL? If the answer is yes then your email will accomplish nothing. Now if everyone who felt that Disney is no longer worth the extra cost actually cancelled bookings and sent emails similar to the original one you posted then Disney might wake up. Empty threats will mean nothing to them.

I think the only thing that will get their attention is if you send them a copy of your DCL cancelation confirmation stapled to the reservation confirmation of the competitor's cruise you replaced it with.

 

[wilkeliza]

I think the only thing that will get their attention is if you send them a copy of your DCL cancelation confirmation stapled to the reservation confirmation of the competitor's cruise you replaced it with.

Now that is an idea.

We aren't at the cancelling point but I think we are taking 2017 off but we will see. Mostly due to the wedding and our fabulous Hawaii Honeymoon that is a no holds expensive trip.

 

[bceagle76]

Companies that put out a good product can charge more for that product.
We all love DCL and we must pay for it.
I would love to go more often.
But I do what I can afford.
There are many things in life I would love to do but can't afford.
So I don't do them.

8/99 4day Magic
4/02 7 day Magic
8/03 7 day Magic
11/05 4 day wonder pin cruise
8/06 7 day Magic
8/08 15 night Panama Canal
8/09 7 day Magic double dip on CC
8/11 Alaska
12/12 Christmas on the Fantasy
2/14 5 day out of Miami on Wonder
12/14 New Years on the 7 day Magic
2/16 7 day Fantasy

 

[Rogillio]

I think the only thing that will get their attention is if you send them a copy of your DCL cancelation confirmation stapled to the reservation confirmation of the competitor's cruise you replaced it with.

I seriously think that is a waster of time and paper. DCL knows that some people will cancel and sail with someone else. They also know it doesn't matter because there still hundreds of thousands of families out there that just can't wait to sail with Disney no matter what the cost.

 

[Rogillio]

Companies that put out a good product can charge more for that product.
We all love DCL and we must pay for it.
I would love to go more often.
But I do what I can afford.
There are many things in life I would love to do but can't afford.
So I don't do them.

8/99 4day Magic
4/02 7 day Magic
8/03 7 day Magic
11/05 4 day wonder pin cruise
8/06 7 day Magic
8/08 15 night Panama Canal
8/09 7 day Magic double dip on CC
8/11 Alaska
12/12 Christmas on the Fantasy
2/14 5 day out of Miami on Wonder
12/14 New Years on the 7 day Magic
2/16 7 day Fantasy

Sounds like you know what you want and do what you need to do to so you can afford it. I have friends who spend thousands of dollars on their hobby of chasing a little white ball around on the grass. And I have friends who drop $50k on a bass boat! How many cruises would that pay for?

Value = desirability / cost

As long as the desire is sufficiently high, cost and rise and the value is still there.

I think the desirability goes down a little it after each cruise....as we start to think, BTDT. So maybe the price increases will have a bigger effect on repeat cruiesers than on first time cruisers.

 

[eskimoinparadise]

I seriously think that is a waster of time and paper. DCL knows that some people will cancel and sail with someone else. They also know it doesn't matter because there still hundreds of thousands of families out there that just can't wait to sail with Disney no matter what the cost.

... and 10's of millions of families who could care less if Disney ever sailed again. The bottom line is that Disney has wrapped itself in a cloak of arrogance, superiority, and invincibility, doesn't recognize the existence of competition, and relies on a "cud" strategy of constantly consuming the same fanatic fan base over and over. Customers who walk away generally never tell Disney why they left, and from our experience, Disney never bothers to ask. Face it, the emperor has no clothes

 

[kiford]

The thing is that not everyone feels that DCL's value has decreased. We still sail with DCL and intend to continue. We still perceive value and so do many others or they would sail empty. As long as they continue to fill the ships to a level that they consider acceptable, you shouldn't expect any different response from Disney.

I think the only thing that will get their attention is if you send them a copy of your DCL cancelation confirmation stapled to the reservation confirmation of the competitor's cruise you replaced it with.

That won't get any more attention than a nicely worded letter if they are still continuing to fill their ships. They know that some people are unwilling to pay their prices and that they are going to other cruise lines. Until they see wide-spread, long-term declines in bookings, they'd be stupid to leave money on the table by lowering prices because there are people who are unhappy. And if they do see declining sales, they won't necessarily respond by lowering prices. They may add different itineraries or add different types of perks or services that appeal to their target market.

 

[Rogillio]

... and 10's of millions of families who could care less if Disney ever sailed again. The bottom line is that Disney has wrapped itself in a cloak of arrogance, superiority, and invincibility, doesn't recognize the existence of competition, and relies on a "cud" strategy of constantly consuming the same fanatic fan base over and over. Customers who walk away generally never tell Disney why they left, and from our experience, Disney never bothers to ask. Face it, the emperor has no clothes

Wow, that's pretty harsh.

Disney is a multi billion dollar company and continues to grow and expand its market base around the globe. They own ABC and ESPN and own the number one tourist destination in the world. Disney knew that people were gonna leave because of the price increase so there is no reason to solicit feedback from the 2 people leaving when there are 200 people waiting to get in the door.

 

[squirk]

Disney knew that people were gonna leave because of the price increase so there is no reason to solicit feedback from the 2 people leaving when there are 200 people waiting to get in the door.

Quite so, but to be fair, there have been plenty of companies - companies filled with smart people and with extensive marketing data and research - who nonetheless got "too big for their britches" and priced themselves out of their target market.

As I type this, I am watching my son play our Xbox One, and I think about how Microsoft - one of the largest tech companies in the world - totally screwed up the launch of that console with what many considered arrogant marketing and greedy pricing. Now, almost two years later, they've sold only about half as many units as the PS4, and have admitted that they will likely never catch up to Sony. Maybe not a perfect example, but still.

So, yeah, Disney has the strength and leverage right now to price however they feel like it without fear of bookings going down. I just wonder if and when their reach will exceed their grasp.

 

[Rogillio]

Quite so, but to be fair, there have been plenty of companies - companies filled with smart people and with extensive marketing data and research - who nonetheless got "too big for their britches" and priced themselves out of their target market.

As I type this, I am watching my son play our Xbox One, and I think about how Microsoft - one of the largest tech companies in the world - totally screwed up the launch of that console with what many considered arrogant marketing and greedy pricing. Now, almost two years later, they've sold only about half as many units as the PS4, and have admitted that they will likely never catch up to Sony. Maybe not a perfect example, but still.

So, yeah, Disney has the strength and leverage right now to price however they feel like it without fear of bookings going down. I just wonder if and when their reach will exceed their grasp.

A company's reach should exceed its grasp or what's a business plan for?

 

[squirk]

A company's reach should exceed its grasp or what's a business plan for?

Well, a business plan is not necessarily always a "reach exceeds grasp" thing per se, but fair enough. Perhaps "overreaching" is the term I should use instead. And I admit that's a wholly subjective term.

Supply and demand, free-market capitalism, maximize profit, deliver value to shareholders, etc. I don't think anyone here disputes where Disney is coming from, or its right to price however it wants. No one is entitled to an affordable Disney cruise, and when demand far outpaces supply, DCL should get while the gettin's good. We all understand.

But again, there is plenty of precedent for pricing strategies like this going kablooey in a company's face. I'm not saying it will happen with DCL, but if it does, I guess only then will they know if they made enough money in the meantime to offset the crash. Granted, that's DCL's prerogative, and maybe it will work out to be a net positive in the long run.