Disney Cruise Line Updates Castaway Club Membership Requirements

[DisneyWitch]

Hey friends,

Although a little late to this discussion, I’d like to share my experience with Castaway Club status that just occurred to me today and I thought to share.

Background: I'm a cruise newbie. Had my first cruise via DCL in February 2019 – and due to pandemics, family passings, job changes and life in general, was finally able to book my second cruise for May 2025 just this past week. In spite of the 5 year gap, my Castaway Club status on the website was still Silver - not that it garners many perks, but it is nice to feel like I belong. I’ve never sailed with other cruise lines, so I don’t have much experience of how others do things.

After reading every single post in this thread, I decided to call DCL directly to find out if my status will be affected and spoke with an amazing Cast Member. I asked him about the policy and my status and he put me on hold for a few minutes to research the Castaway Club status policy. Not only did he verify my Silver status, but he said that due to a LOT of negative feedback, Disney recently modified their terms for Castaway Club status – instead of five years, they have extended that to ten years. According to this CM, your status will be revoked if you do not book/sail within TEN years, not five - so you have a little more of a buffer than before. Although it doesn't roll the policy back, if the CM is correct, it may help soften the blow a bit!

Personally, the Castaway Club is more of a feel-good thing to me. I’m older, and unless we win the lottery sometime soon, frequent DCL cruises aren’t really in my budget. But I can understand the consternation of folks who demonstrated loyalty to DCL over the years but may have a cruising gap due to health, family or life issues, only to be penalized for that. I think extending the purge window to 10 years is a smart move.

Happy that I'm still in the club and hope my experience was helpful for others here.

 

[Louise97]

Hey friends,

Although a little late to this discussion, I’d like to share my experience with Castaway Club status that just occurred to me today and I thought to share.

Background: I'm a cruise newbie. Had my first cruise via DCL in February 2019 – and due to pandemics, family passings, job changes and life in general, was finally able to book my second cruise for May 2025 just this past week. In spite of the 5 year gap, my Castaway Club status on the website was still Silver - not that it garners many perks, but it is nice to feel like I belong. I’ve never sailed with other cruise lines, so I don’t have much experience of how others do things.

After reading every single post in this thread, I decided to call DCL directly to find out if my status will be affected and spoke with an amazing Cast Member. I asked him about the policy and my status and he put me on hold for a few minutes to research the Castaway Club status policy. Not only did he verify my Silver status, but he said that due to a LOT of negative feedback, Disney recently modified their terms for Castaway Club status – instead of five years, they have extended that to ten years. According to this CM, your status will be revoked if you do not book/sail within TEN years, not five - so you have a little more of a buffer than before. Although it doesn't roll the policy back, if the CM is correct, it may help soften the blow a bit!

Personally, the Castaway Club is more of a feel-good thing to me. I’m older, and unless we win the lottery sometime soon, frequent DCL cruises aren’t really in my budget. But I can understand the consternation of folks who demonstrated loyalty to DCL over the years but may have a cruising gap due to health, family or life issues, only to be penalized for that. I think extending the purge window to 10 years is a smart move.

Happy that I'm still in the club and hope my experience was helpful for others here.

10 years feels more sensible, so hopefully the CM is right! The website says "book or sail on at least one eligible cruise within 5 years" so it sounds like your new booking should keep your status active

 

[jdb in AZ]

Thanks for the info. If there's an "intriguing" cruise released in the next month or so we'll book it to renew our status.

 

[mpetersen]

Yeah, I'm in that category....we cruised in 2014 and didn't get around to cruising again until 2024.

Same, we cruised in 2010 and 2012, booked but had to cancel in 2015 and are back this March.
Frankly I don’t like this policy. Loyalty to a brand is loyalty no matter when you last cruised, especially with this premium a product. Disney can well afford to handle a wide database.

 

[MommyCMickey]

Hey friends,

Although a little late to this discussion, I’d like to share my experience with Castaway Club status that just occurred to me today and I thought to share.

Background: I'm a cruise newbie. Had my first cruise via DCL in February 2019 – and due to pandemics, family passings, job changes and life in general, was finally able to book my second cruise for May 2025 just this past week. In spite of the 5 year gap, my Castaway Club status on the website was still Silver - not that it garners many perks, but it is nice to feel like I belong. I’ve never sailed with other cruise lines, so I don’t have much experience of how others do things.

After reading every single post in this thread, I decided to call DCL directly to find out if my status will be affected and spoke with an amazing Cast Member. I asked him about the policy and my status and he put me on hold for a few minutes to research the Castaway Club status policy. Not only did he verify my Silver status, but he said that due to a LOT of negative feedback, Disney recently modified their terms for Castaway Club status – instead of five years, they have extended that to ten years. According to this CM, your status will be revoked if you do not book/sail within TEN years, not five - so you have a little more of a buffer than before. Although it doesn't roll the policy back, if the CM is correct, it may help soften the blow a bit!

Personally, the Castaway Club is more of a feel-good thing to me. I’m older, and unless we win the lottery sometime soon, frequent DCL cruises aren’t really in my budget. But I can understand the consternation of folks who demonstrated loyalty to DCL over the years but may have a cruising gap due to health, family or life issues, only to be penalized for that. I think extending the purge window to 10 years is a smart move.

Happy that I'm still in the club and hope my experience was helpful for others here.

It would be nice if this is true and updated... fingers crossed

 

[Mommb]

It would be nice if this is true and updated... fingers crossed

Given that no one in this thread has reported actually losing their Castaway Club status, it is likely that either the policy changed to 10 years or it has not been implemented at all. I can see motivation for DCL to keep the wording to encourage people to rebook, but not actually remove anyone for at least a few months. Then they can see if the policy appears to be affecting bookings.

 

[DisneyWitch]

It would be nice if this is true and updated... fingers crossed

Agreed - and that's why I wanted to be clear that this was just one interaction with a Cast Member over the phone who said that this was a recent change. I haven't seen the change to 10 years announced as policy (yet), and as nice as this CM was, it's not the same as an official announcement.

I don't know what problem this policy was trying to solve. I'm not sure; it seems to me that by purging levels after a particular time limit ended up being more of a problem than a solution, and causing more ill-will among Disney's most loyal customers. I'm glad Disney heard some of the feedback and are willing to course-correct a contentious policy.

 

[lanejudy]

I don't know what problem this policy was trying to solve.

My personal take -- the policy isn't trying to "solve" anything, but rather it's a CYA policy. We all know Disney IT is horrendous, add in any possible glitch that could potentially occur resulting in a loss of records -- and DCL will only retrieve the more "current" info. If someone's last cruise was say 10 years earlier and that info is lost in the whatever data glitch occurs, this policy covers DCL that they don't have to try and "find" that passenger in the lost records to restore CC status.

 

[sponica]

My personal take -- the policy isn't trying to "solve" anything, but rather it's a CYA policy. We all know Disney IT is horrendous, add in any possible glitch that could potentially occur resulting in a loss of records -- and DCL will only retrieve the more "current" info. If someone's last cruise was say 10 years earlier and that info is lost in the whatever data glitch occurs, this policy covers DCL that they don't have to try and "find" that passenger in the lost records to restore CC status.

Also we've seen the problems on the MDE side when you've gone too many times and have too many MBs and the MDE "breaks". I imagine having a database of everyone who has taken at least one cruise and then never returned, or died, or cruised as a child but didn't know/remember and now has a new name or what have you gets pretty large after 25 years.

 

[lanejudy]

I imagine having a database of everyone who has taken at least one cruise and then never returned, or died, or cruised as a child but didn't know/remember and now has a new name or what have you gets pretty large after 25 years.

It could also be related to electronic privacy laws. Europe has much stricter rules about that than the US, and the 5-year piece may align with some guideline about how long info can be maintained.

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

It could also be related to electronic privacy laws. Europe has much stricter rules about that than the US, and the 5-year piece may align with some guideline about how long info can be maintained.

Yes this is what Im thinking too. GDPR has a right to be forgotten law. In Europe we can also request the same law from Google, as in get things removed from Google search results.

 

[mcd2745]

Hopefully this is true WRT the change to 10 years. At 5 years, the concern was our college-aged children losing their status. My wife and I would probably not be at risk. Would like to see it in black & white, however.

 

[dad of 3 addicted to DCL]

Maybe I'm being cynical, but it sure seems like DCL is artificially creating an urgency to cruise for the casual cruiser. For people like my wife and I, it's not a problem. For those who cruise every decade or so (for example), DCL may be trying to light a fire under them to cruise more often to keep their purely symbolic (mostly) Castaway Club status. Perhaps. But what do I know...

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Hopefully this is true WRT the change to 10 years. At 5 years, the concern was our college-aged children losing their status. My wife and I would probably not be at risk. Would like to see it in black & white, however.

Our oldest child is at risk here. I mentioned it to him when he was home in Dec/Jan and he was like %#*^ Disney, I’ll just cruise Carnival. So maybe your kids won’t care. Obviously I care more about it than mine does.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

Maybe I'm being cynical, but it sure seems like DCL is artificially creating an urgency to cruise for the casual cruiser. For people like my wife and I, it's not a problem. For those who cruise every decade or so (for example), DCL may be trying to light a fire under them to cruise more often to keep their purely symbolic (mostly) Castaway Club status. Perhaps. But what do I know...

Yes, for sure.

And probably to avoid people who cruised as children and then don't sail during college and their twenties getting CC "benefits."

 

[BamaGuy44]

I really think it’s true logistical overload. My kiddo (aged 6) Castaway # is 3XXXXXXX

Which means there has been 39 MILLION names who hypothetically have sailed/booked on DCL (since even booking generates your castaway number) before 12/17 (when we booked her first cruise)

That’s a LOT of names who probably only like 10% are even active cruisers.

So if you add a span of say 5 years (at 4 million unique cruisers a year) that’s still 20 million names in a data base.

And statistically how many names in that database will never cruise again as they are deceased…

If you can’t sail just book a cruise and cancel it- that’ll reactivate your number for another 5 years

I really think it’s true logistical overload. My kiddo (aged 6) Castaway # is 3XXXXXXX

Which means there has been 39 MILLION names who hypothetically have sailed/booked on DCL (since even booking generates your castaway number) before 12/17 (when we booked her first cruise)

That’s a LOT of names who probably only like 10% are even active cruisers.

So if you add a span of say 5 years (at 4 million unique cruisers a year) that’s still 20 million names in a data base.

And statistically how many names in that database will never cruise again as they are deceased…

If you can’t sail just book a cruise and cancel it- that’ll reactivate your number for another 5 years.

I highly doubt that's a factor in this decision. 39 million or even 100 million sounds like a lot but that's not a big database for an entity like Disney. That's not even approaching what would be called "big data". They track so much data the role of DCL cruisers is a blip. They have analytics that track every magic band swipe, every purchase, every park entry, every genie+ reservation, etc. Now those are some beefy databases.

 

[GatorMomInNC]

Myself and my two sons (16 and now 20) are all platinum; I fell in love with DCL on our first cruise (a transatlantic) in 2011. But, between my kids getting older and the pandemic, I went from 2-3 DCL cruises a year, to 1 DCL cruise every 2-3 years. My last DCL cruise was Dec. 2022, and my kids was Dec. 2021. I still cruise 2-3 times per year, but now I cruise solo a lot so go for my solo-friendly cruise lines.

Unfortunately, I saw this news on a different cruising board I am frequenting in preparation for my cruise next month on a different line and I was shocked! I was so happy when I reached platinum in 2019, I never thought they would take it away from me!!

Not sure why DCL couldn't email me - I get emails from them all the time....Anyway, I was so upset- I know the perks are not great, but I love DCL and it just feels wrong to strip me of my status if I am unable to cruise them as frequently as I used to do and would like to do. If they really have changed it to 10 years, that would be great, but the whole concept still bothers me.

I will say though, I was going to use this as a way to convince my sons to go on another DCL cruise with me...I am at 96 nights on DCL and would like to make it 100 this year

 

[DonaldEsquire]

Agreed - and that's why I wanted to be clear that this was just one interaction with a Cast Member over the phone who said that this was a recent change. I haven't seen the change to 10 years announced as policy (yet), and as nice as this CM was, it's not the same as an official announcement.

I don't know what problem this policy was trying to solve. I'm not sure; it seems to me that by purging levels after a particular time limit ended up being more of a problem than a solution, and causing more ill-will among Disney's most loyal customers. I'm glad Disney heard some of the feedback and are willing to course-correct a contentious policy.

The problem it is trying to solve is lots of people having status from cruising as children. The problem with that is if everyone’s platinum, then nobody is from the perspective of things like early port arrival, the free Palo (people would be mad if they have free Palo but can’t even get a reservation), etc. Too many platinums from people who earned status as kids and now rarely but occasionally cruise has caused the perks to get crowded and lose exclusivity. I say this as someone who has only recently completed my first cruise, but it makes sense to me. Only so much someone should be rewarded for what their parents did as vacation.

 

[71 Truck]

The problem it is trying to solve is lots of people having status from cruising as children. The problem with that is if everyone’s platinum, then nobody is from the perspective of things like early port arrival, the free Palo (people would be mad if they have free Palo but can’t even get a reservation), etc. Too many platinums from people who earned status as kids and now rarely but occasionally cruise has caused the perks to get crowded and lose exclusivity. I say this as someone who has only recently completed my first cruise, but it makes sense to me. Only so much someone should be rewarded for what their parents did as vacation.

First, my wife and I do not have children. With that said I think it would be difficult to deny status to the children of adult passengers. Someone paid for their passage so they are considered paying passengers.

If from some point going forward Disney were to stipulate that Cast Away Club membership starts at 18 that could be an Idea, but once again the children are still considered paying passengers.

My wife and I are Platinum and do enjoy the perks being Platinum affords us.

Disney saw the need to do something to give the more loyal guest a better benefit and that's why Disney created Pearl.
With that said I wish they had come up with something in the middle. Their is a big number of cruises (15) between Platinum and pearl. My wife and I are currently at 14 cruises and we have got a long way to go to get to Pearl(25).

Another thing, as Disney adds new ships some of the complaints that Platinum are booking everything up so there is not much left for Gold, Silver and new cruisers will subside.

My biggest thing I would have liked to have seen was Disney made their way to earn status like other cruise lines, by days at sea.

My wife and I only do seven day cruises. For us that took 70 days at sea to get to Platinum .
For someone who earned their status doing three day cruises it only took then 30 days at sea to get to Platinum.
I think this is the main reason there are so may people who are Platinum. I have nothing against the way they have done it because Disney made the rules and people just followed them.

Moving forward Disney could have solved part of the issue by requiring days at sea to earn your status.

From a certain date forward, everyone would keeps their current status, however to earn the next status level you must meet the required number of days at sea to advance.

I see this a a fair way to do it because people would not loose their current status level but it would require everyone to meet the days at sea to advance.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

The problem it is trying to solve is lots of people having status from cruising as children. The problem with that is if everyone’s platinum, then nobody is from the perspective of things like early port arrival, the free Palo (people would be mad if they have free Palo but can’t even get a reservation), etc. Too many platinums from people who earned status as kids and now rarely but occasionally cruise has caused the perks to get crowded and lose exclusivity. I say this as someone who has only recently completed my first cruise, but it makes sense to me. Only so much someone should be rewarded for what their parents did as vacation.

The is an insane argument and the perks are meh. It is not the perks that people generally care about.