Would love a long sailing on the Dream class. Fantasy has only been doing short cruises since the Treasure came on, so one of the Dream/Fantasy needs to do 7 nighters. To me, it's the best class. Bigger than the classics and not an IP in your face at every corner.
Disney is still getting a lot of first and second time cruisers on the shorter Port Canaveral and Ft. Lauderdale cruises. They might eventually run out of new customers, but they seem to be doing strong.
I think Disney is unique in that they aren't particularly worried about the middle of the road users. They know Pearls will come year after year with the same itineraries (they already have), and they'll continue to get new sailors year after year as people have kids. They've staked their money on people who don't know any better or care, and those who are mildly annoyed but keep coming anyway. It's not worth the logistic or financial cost to chase every person, especially when there are still major new markets to unlock in Asia and the Middle East.
for those with kids the DCL experience cannot be beat.
It's impossible to say how many potential platinum or pearl cruisers they have lost due to stale itineraries. I'm pearl and we became pearl by sailing every itinerary they have offered. I would not have become pearl doing the same thing over and over. If I started sailing now on DCL I doubt we would even reach platinum. One is cost and two I would want more options.
I'm Pearl but I'm not looking for different itineraries. I just want to leave out of FL (or have them come back north to NY...or even better Boston), and be on the Dream or Fantasy. I have no interest in Europe or Alaska. I just want to be in a warm climate and to be on the ships I love. What is pushing me away is not the same old itineraries but the new ships doing the old itineraries I want. If I had the option to do a 7 night or B2B 3/4 on the Dream this summer I would. Instead I'm doing 5 nights on the Magic and then a 3 night on RCCL.
I’m always curious- what time do you think would be best for this? For many reasons 6 AM or 7 AM is actually worse for many people, especially people on the West Coast. As a parent, I always hated that early morning time start for WDW dining reservations, and fast passes because it was always when I was juggling kids and getting them ready for school. I don’t think there really is a perfect time. And no matter what time you set it as people are going to still want those early port arrival times and the competition is still going to be tough.
I’ve also very rarely seen open boarding happen more than 90 mins after boarding starts and I kind of wonder if the stress is worth the potential extra 90 minutes on the ship for a large group, but that’s just me. I like getting more time on the ship too, but at a certain point that cost benefit analysis has to be weighed.
I may go back to DCL next year if they offer the 10 night New Zealand cruise again. I wish I could do it this year. I would love to see them have at least one cruise to South America over the Christmas break. I really think that would be a big seller. I'm not sure the logistics of positioning in South America, but I would be shocked if it didn't sell out. They have enough ships now they don't need to have them all in the same place. Two ships in Alaska doing the same thing is also a head scratcher.This is a good point I never thought of, as I am actually the opposite.
What's nice about DCL's cruise is that it starts in New Zealand and ends in Sydney. More port days and less sea days then the round trips from Sydney. I looked at Celebrity, but the one-ways did not fall over the college Winter break.
Europe, especially in the summer is a warm climate.
It's also hard I think because there was a decent amount of people who used the pandemic to move on up in status. Because DCL uses cruises itself (rather than sailed days) and then focuses on short cruises there were deals to be had that made it easy (especially those within driving distance to port) to move on up and then you go Pearl added as a new category. I mean you have status so now you want to actually use it so you may continue to look at DCL but at the same time I don't think it can be taken out of the equation how the pandemic allowed people who may have been quite a bit far off from next status to reach status and now will those people continue to keep sailing DCL or look for something else to try out especially now that the pricing is gone quite high in the last several years.
I do not know a single cruise line who handles any of it like that. And I would not trust Disney IT to get that right. Look at the suggestions Genie was making for people in the parks. The amount of infrastructure you’re talking about on the back end of their IT would be pretty large (They still haven’t fixed the Palo glitch that’s been well known since November) and I can’t see that happening without increasing the cost to cruise.
Compared to other cruise line perks I really can't see how status is a motivating factor.
Well, YMMV, but pre-pandemic we went to Cabanas for dinner many times. Most of the time it was a served sit down meal, but on several occasions it was a buffet. Not sure why, but it definitely used to happen.
It depends on the particular cruise itinerary. If it's a port that the ship will not be departing until late, or there are excursions that return late to the ship Cabanas was a buffet on our Med cruise.
I don't see the perks of any of these lines to be honest...
I wish they would bring it back... if only for those of us with babies... we are debating doing a fall cruise... but the long MDR times are a big obstacle to committing to that cruise...
It's more than just 4 free drinks a day. I'm not sure where you got that it was only that, but 4 free drinks is worth about 50-60 dollars a day so not bad. It also includes room upgrades, specialty restaurant discounts and wifi a bunch of other stuff. I'm sure some Royal cruises can chime in about that.
