Very close to booking cruise. . .

[Lisa D]

I'm probably hours away from booking a 3-day cruise through Dreams Unlimited - at first I was going to use points but now am close to paying cash - this is usually the best deal, correct? I just hate to blow almost three years worth of points on one vacation(I can't stand to be away from WDW that long!). Another question - will I really be unhappy doing three days instead of four? The way our school schedule works, the kids would actually miss two more days of school if we do the four day cruise - also the DVC points for a 3 day BWV stay over the weekend are actually more than for 4 days during the week. I'm sorry if I sound like a crazy person I just hope I'm doing the reasonable thing by paying cash. Thanks!

 

[prymsu]

although i am not a DVC member, lots of folks i have talked to have said, it is just not a good use of points to book a cruise. So if you can pay cash, i think it would be to your advantage.

Also, a three day goes by so quickly that you really need that fourth day to relax and have more time to enjoy the ship.

just my thoughts...

 

[westjones]

I am a new DVC member. We bought in last year and banked our points for 2002 to go towards 2003. So we decided to book our 4th cruise using points. I have been on the cruise three other times, booking first through AAA, then directly through Disney, and finally through DU.

After I called and booked our cruise with points I was SO SORRY I did! With DU they let you make changes up until 60 days before the cruise. When I booked with points the guy went through this list of penalties and things that made me very nervous. I don't even remember them all! I do know if I make any changes there will be a charge (in addition to the initial $75 charge I had to pay for booking the cruise in the first place). I also read somewhere that if you pay cash for part of your cruise you have to pay 'in full' right up front. With DU you pay a deposit and then you have to have it paid in full by the 60 day mark (I used their website to make monthly payments and I loved being able to do that--didn't hurt the pocket book so much to break it into monthly payments--but it was all my choice, as long as I paid by the 60 day mark).

I have a second cruise booked for Christmas next year through DU and will be booking with them for now on. When we bought into DVC, we thought we would be using our points for the cruise part of the time and for WDW part of the time. After I got off the phone with that CM after booking the cruise with points I told DH that for now on our points will be used for WDW or Hilton Head (or maybe Vero Beach sometime). We only have 150 points and now I am glad that is all we bought because that will be plenty for us if we pay cash for our annual Disney Cruise.

Just MHO!
Debra

 

[Hygiene99]

having done both three and 7 day cruises , we feel that the 3 is definetly to short, and would go with the 4 day at least...
the points we do not use points for cruising some people do one person on points and cash for the rest... some times that helps out a little ,, and another option is to rent your points on the DVC/rent trade board for around 10.00 each and use that money to pay for your cruise...... we have had nothing but great experiences renting and buying points.....
3 day too short just getting hang of it and it is over....
peter

 

[ncligs]

What westjones said in her post is very true, and I agree with everything she said about DU and DVC.We have been DVC members for 4 yrs ad decided to go on our 1st(ever) Disney Cruise in 2004(see signature below). We decided to do the 4 day first,to see if we like it. I checked using points first, for the time period we are going (Feb 22,2004) the 4 day was around 350 pts for 2 adults for catagory 6(with veranda).By going with DU using cash it was $1700. So you can see that DVC gives you no breaks or deal what so ever and charges you $75 for booking it.
We are not going to rent our points, we like using them , but a person can rent them (350 pts@ $10 each =$3500) and pay cash through DU and come out way ahead.
Plus you can make monthly payments on DU website(credit card=FF miles ) You also get the DU rebate, and on-board credit. So you can see it is a "no-brainer" that using DVC pts is not the smartest use of points.

 

[ZerasPride]

We are poised to book our first ever cruise or next fall and I was thinking about using points. I have a hard time parting with 202 points for a 4 night cruise though (for two people). I never thought about booking through Dreams, I was thinking about just booking directly with Disney. I was also going to post a question about the using points v. cash and it seems we come out better booking with cash and retaining some flexibility than booking with points (and then not having any points left for our Hilton Head trip next year).

Anyway, thanks so much to the original poster! Now off I go to check out Dreams' site.

 

[Lisa D]

Thanks to all of you for your quick responses! Cruise is booked (unfortunately DH is still very apprehensive - so I had to promise him no more than the 3-night - at least THIS time around) through DU and my room at BWV is booked through DVC - and I'll spend the next 10 months addicted to this board!

Thanks again,
Lisa D

 

[ncligs]

ZerasPride,
I sent you a PM(Private Message), check it out.

 

[ZerasPride]

Thanks so much Nick for the pm! I did retrieive it. I hope I responded correctly to it. I can't seem to get the hang of the pm system for some reason . I have sent a request to Dreams and look forward to using them. They seem to come highly recommended on the board and your recommendation is appreciated as well.

Happy cruising to all! I'll be lurking (and hopefully posting) around this board soaking up all the great info that's available.