Will the Dream be staying in Europe for the summers?

[CapnCrunch]

The big thing that someone said above is pricing. When the ship moved to Miami, I was looking at pricing and they wanted the same premium they were getting out of Canaveral for the ship. Miami has a really high saturation of Royal/Carnival/Norwegian ships. Disney's sticker price is so much higher to get on the ship than any of the other options.

When I looked at some of the first 5 night cruises out of Miami, they wanted 4500 for two in a verandah. For the same price, I could book 10-14 days in a verandah on Carnival, Royal, MSC easily. They were running about 2200 for two in a verandah for a 7 night

To sum it up: They significantly overpriced it for the market. That's why they were doing the "up to 40% off sailings from Miami" for a while. That brought it down to be a little bit more reasonable. I repriced around 2700 for a Verandah with the savings for the same cruise which is a much more reasonable amount.

Agree 100%. I've taken advantage of GT rates for 3 different itineraries and saved thousands vs the standard rates (Dec '22 on the Dream, March '23 on the Fantasy, and June '23 on the Magic). I'm holding on to a placeholder for an Alaskan sailing in '24, but if '23 is any indication, I'll just book another GT rate.

 

[Flossbolna]

This. The pricing was high, and then on top of that the terrible GBP-USD exchange rate made it even more expensive for us in the UK. Transatlantic flights have been really pricey too - going by the discussion on the Facebook group for our cruise, some people have been paying as much for flights as for the cruise.

There's also a fair amount of competition. We're on the May 20 out of Barcelona on a 7 night sailing. On our same departure day, Celebrity and MSC have 7 night sailings going to very similar ports. Both are cheaper than DCL's original pricing, the *GTs have brought them more in line with each other. Unless people specifically want Disney, they're likely to book one of the other lines.

There was once - a long time ago - a European discount for the cruises when they weren’t selling as well as hoped. Like the Florida resident rates. I wonder if DCL will consider something like that again.

But it makes me really wonder how they are planning on filling up the ships once two (three, but one might go to Asia and open up a totally new market) more ships come online. They will still make money if they sell cruises for a bit cheaper. I remember when the Dream started, it only took that ship a little over a year to totally earn back its purchase price in profit!