Disney Wonder $13k to Alaska vs $6k on RC

[mm824]

Have you considered Princess?

No! Should I? I don't think I've heard of Princess before!

 

[tidefan]

No! Should I? I don't think I've heard of Princess before!

Princess is a large cruiseline with something like 18 ships. It would be perhaps a slight bit more upscale than RCCL and definitely Carnival. They (and HAL, though HAL skews slightly older) are known for their Alaskan itineraries. Princess will definitely have ships that cruise into Glacier Bay.

 

[Intr3pid]

Hi. New here! I came across this thread via a google search for the same question. Did you end up making a decision?

We priced out an Alaskan cruise for 2019.
NCL Bliss @ $5108, floor 10 mid-ship balcony, plus free Wifi and $350 port excursions.
RCCL @ $4813, floor 9 mid-ship balcony, $200 on board credit
Disney topped in at over $9100 for an aft balcony, no incentives

We could afford either, but I'm having a hard time understanding the value ....

You have received some good advice, but let me play the other side for a change.

Let's look at July 2018 as an example, as 2019 is far out and July the month generally has peak pricing in Alaska. What we see is, despite these obvious pricing differences, pretty much all of Disney Wonder's July 2018 sailings are sold out (except in the cheaper inside rooms) while there is wide availability on the Bliss, Radiance, and pretty much all of Princess's ships (out of Vancouver).

What gives? Why are so many booked on Wonder? Yes, Wonder is small - but that cannot just be it, as are many of the other ships in Alaska.

You looked at the room types and some small incentives (relative to the cruise fare) for comparison. Let me start with these.

• Wonder's average room is typically larger than the same category room on other ships. Most of Wonder's rooms also have split-style bathrooms. For some families, both of these are important. For others, not so much.
  
• Disney throws in lots of freebies on board, which others may include only as incentives. Whether you will make use of the freebies is really up to you.

None of this, however, should be worth a fat premium. So what is it?

You see Wonder is a themed cruise. Disney's themed cruise. It wants to transport you to a different world (no pun) while on board. Just like in the parks. Think. Have you ever paid up for a WDW or DL vacation while you could have saved tons of money at another park?

How is the cruise themed?

• Start with themed dining. Google "Animator's Palate" and "Tiana's Place". See how you feel about those dining experiences.
• You have themed parties on the deck and in the atrium. Think getting to dance along the characters from Frozen, Toy Story, etc.
• Kids' clubs are also themed - such as after Marvel's characters. Your kids may actually forget you (lol) while on board.
  
• We all know of Disney's prowess at entertaining us, so expect that to happen on the ship. The live performances are original Disney shows. First-run movies are shown in the theaters.
  
• Sometimes unbelievable attention to detail -and the guest service accompanying it. They want you to believe you are in a magical place.
• Your kids will get to see Disney's characters everywhere, and you can even leave them behind on the ship while you do your excursions.
• Everything is geared towards family fun. They want to make everyone in the family feel equally special.

The big question is, are you willing to pay up for all this? A lot of people aren't - they just want to cruise. No themes, no dilly dallies. Or if specific itineraries are important to you. (Disney's sometimes suck.) For others still, what Disney tries and what actually transpires has a lot of disconnect. There are plenty of reasons not to fall for any of this.

But, if you want a themed cruise in Alaska - a combination of Disney, Alaska, glaciers, and a cruise - you really don't have much choice. That's why there is that premium.

 

[Garyjames220]

When I look at the title of this thread I think WOW and I think that’s what RC are thinking too

 

[Whositsgalore]

No! Should I? I don't think I've heard of Princess before!

Princess is beautiful and definitely upscale. BUT I’ve done two Princess cruises to Alaska both when I was in my 30’s and we were by far a handful of the youngest people on the ship. My boss and her husband went last year (she’s 58 he’s 63) they both said they felt like they were very young compared to other passengers. I would recommend RC or Norwegian if you’re not comfortable with Disney prices. Plus RC is sending a Quantum Class ship to Alaska to match Norwegians new ship so the fun onboard for you and yours kids will be endless (IMO).

 

[alliecat523]

Princess is The Love Boat!!

Agree that Princess tends to have an older clientele than some other lines.

Most ships do themed events and restaurants too. Not to the Disney extreme but you won’t miss out on that either.

Downfall of bigger ships in Alaska is some ports/routes are limited due to the size of the ship. We’ve done the Alaska route and we’re so much more focused on the scenery than anything the ship had to offer. So bigger ships on that route seem like a waste to me.

 

[richmo]

You have received some good advice, but let me play the other side for a change...But, if you want a themed cruise in Alaska - a combination of Disney, Alaska, glaciers, and a cruise - you really don't have much choice. That's why there is that premium.

You made some really good points, and you had me until the very end. (And I'll preface this with saying the only cruise we've taken to Alaska was on the Disney Wonder several years ago, and it was great!).

But...to me the theme of an Alaskan cruise, more so than other locations, is Alaska itself. While Disney theming is great, on this cruise it seems to take more of a back seat to Alaska itself. When we look back in the rear view mirror of that cruise now 7 years ago, the highlight wasn't dinner at Animator's Palate, the pre-dinner shows or character meets, it was the stunning beauty and uniqueness of Alaska.

That isn't quite as true as with, for instance, a Bahamas cruise where a clear highlight of the trip is a day at Disney's Castaway Cay.

As I've said before, I'm certainly willing to pay some premium for a Disney cruise, when I see something like what @mm824 quoted ($5000ish for RCL/NCL vs. $9000 Disney), I can't see justifying Disney.

 

[KashasMom]

You made some really good points, and you had me until the very end. (And I'll preface this with saying the only cruise we've taken to Alaska was on the Disney Wonder several years ago, and it was great!).

But...to me the theme of an Alaskan cruise, more so than other locations, is Alaska itself. While Disney theming is great, on this cruise it seems to take more of a back seat to Alaska itself. When we look back in the rear view mirror of that cruise now 7 years ago, the highlight wasn't dinner at Animator's Palate, the pre-dinner shows or character meets, it was the stunning beauty and uniqueness of Alaska.

That isn't quite as true as with, for instance, a Bahamas cruise where a clear highlight of the trip is a day at Disney's Castaway Cay.

As I've said before, I'm certainly willing to pay some premium for a Disney cruise, when I see something like what @mm824 quoted ($5000ish for RCL/NCL vs. $9000 Disney), I can't see justifying Disney.

I completely agree. I've always said that about Alaska AND Europe. For us those cruises are about the itinerary, not the ship.

 

[KashasMom]

• Disney throws in lots of freebies on board, which others may include only as incentives. Whether you will make use of the freebies is really up to you.

I've asked a couple of times recently when I've seen a similar comment but no one has yet to reply. What are the freebies?

 

[tidefan]

Princess is beautiful and definitely upscale. BUT I’ve done two Princess cruises to Alaska both when I was in my 30’s and we were by far a handful of the youngest people on the ship. My boss and her husband went last year (she’s 58 he’s 63) they both said they felt like they were very young compared to other passengers. I would recommend RC or Norwegian if you’re not comfortable with Disney prices. Plus RC is sending a Quantum Class ship to Alaska to match Norwegians new ship so the fun onboard for you and yours kids will be endless (IMO).

I think that is a bit of an overgeneralization. Princess probably does skew a bit older, but I don't think it's near what HAL may be. We've done 4 Princess cruises and felt that there was a very good mix of ages on board. The food is definitely better than RCCL or Carnival though (although, I will say that I LOVE Carnival's included comfort food options such as Guy's Burger, Blue Iguana, and the Mongolian Wok. I think that RCCL really lags behind in terms of comfort food - at least it does to me on the Radiance class ships...). We will be on Emerald Princess out of Seattle later on this summer and I will let you know what we find out... Getting back to the original post, we paid about $3,300 for 3 people in an inside cabin for a 7-night RT out of Seattle, which I think is downright reasonable...

 

[aggiedog]

Freebies like soda, soft serve ice cream, room service...
I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t think of them off hand.

For us, we don’t use $1,000’s worth of these (who could??) to justify the price difference.

 

[M<3'sMickey]

We couldn't justify it as much as we wanted to go with DCL for the Alaska cruise in 2019. Instead, I've been investigating other lines and have found they have cruise tours (basically land and sea) and we can spend a week on a different cruise ship paired with a week touring Alaska for less than just the 9 day cruise would have cost us. I love Disney, but their price for a navigator's veranda for two people was over $11,000 and that price made me queasy.

 

[jenf22]

Freebies like soda, soft serve ice cream, room service...
I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t think of them off hand.

For us, we don’t use $1,000’s worth of these (who could??) to justify the price difference.

Same with us. We've bought the soda package before but didn't use it enough to justify the price. That's also the second or third time I've read that DCL has free soft serve ice cream and the other lines don't. I've been on Royal, NCL, and Princess and have been able to find free soft serve ice cream on all of them. I end up eating an ice cream cone a day when we cruise

I think we'd either do NCL Bliss or Princess to Alaska next time. If I had the money for a cruise tour, I'd go with Princess. Their lodges look amazing! it would be so awesome to get off the ship and then spend some time in Denali at one of their lodges. I think you can go to the Princess website and order an Alaskan brochure. I'm pretty sure I've got one at home somewhere. We sailed Regal Princess last October in a mini-suite and the room was HUGE. It was also really cool to hear the ship's horn do "The Love Boat" as we sailed out of ports

 

[Intr3pid]

You made some really good points, and you had me until the very end. (And I'll preface this with saying the only cruise we've taken to Alaska was on the Disney Wonder several years ago, and it was great!).

But...to me the theme of an Alaskan cruise, more so than other locations, is Alaska itself. While Disney theming is great, on this cruise it seems to take more of a back seat to Alaska itself. When we look back in the rear view mirror of that cruise now 7 years ago, the highlight wasn't dinner at Animator's Palate, the pre-dinner shows or character meets, it was the stunning beauty and uniqueness of Alaska.

That isn't quite as true as with, for instance, a Bahamas cruise where a clear highlight of the trip is a day at Disney's Castaway Cay.

As I've said before, I'm certainly willing to pay some premium for a Disney cruise, when I see something like what @mm824 quoted ($5000ish for RCL/NCL vs. $9000 Disney), I can't see justifying Disney.

My simple question is, what made you sail on the Wonder back then? If you feel prices were better, well - then we agree that there is a real market for Disney themed Alaskan cruising - the only question being whether you can justify the premium. Back to my previous post.

Now, it's great if I can find neat boxes to put my vacation experiences in. This is Alaska. That is Disney. Before the Caribbeans got filled to the brim with cruises, folks would say: if I wanted Disney, I would do WDW - but I want a Caribbeans cruise and not Disney. And look where that got us. If a private island is what made a cruise themed, every other cruise line in the Caribbeans is running a themed cruise:
https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1418

The truth is, Disney's Alaska sailings are sold out, and you just need to look at those European prices to get a measure of the insane demand. There is a sizable part of the cruising market that wants both Disney AND Alaska, both Disney AND Europe, and they are willing to pay the premium. And the part of the market that really wants to experience the uniqueness, wilderness, and beauty of Alaska wouldn't do it from a cruise deck anyways.

I've asked a couple of times recently when I've seen a similar comment but no one has yet to reply. What are the freebies?

To answer the question, NCL, RCL, and Princess charge you for room service.
RCL has some for-fee items on its MDR menus.
The Cirque Dream and Dinner show on NCL has a fee. As does Deal or No Deal.
Princess and HAL charge for some of their adults-only sun areas and cabanas.
None of them has free drinks (non-alcoholic).
And some more.

That wasn't the point though.

 

[tidefan]

To answer the question, NCL, RCL, and Princess charge you for room service.

Room service (with the exception of pizza delivery) is complimentary on Princess.

 

[KashasMom]

To answer the question, NCL, RCL, and Princess charge you for room service.
RCL has some for-fee items on its MDR menus.
The Cirque Dream and Dinner show on NCL has a fee. As does Deal or No Deal.
Princess and HAL charge for some of their adults-only sun areas and cabanas.
None of them has free drinks (non-alcoholic).
And some more.

That wasn't the point though.

Got it, thanks. Of course you can cruise without those things and still have a great cruise. They ALL have free ice tea and lemonade (at least).

 

[richmo]

My simple question is, what made you sail on the Wonder back then? If you feel prices were better, well - then we agree that there is a real market for Disney themed Alaskan cruising - the only question being whether you can justify the premium. Back to my previous post....

If I remember correctly, that may have been the first year Disney went to Alaska and while they were more expensive than the others then, I don't think the cost was nearly double, as it seems to be now. (I'm going by the earlier post of $9000 vs. $5000). It also helped that we were coming off a shorter DCL cruise, so we were able to get a small discount from a promotion...they sent out a PIN or something shortly after the cruise that was the same as the onboard booking promo...don't know if they still do that.

I do agree that there is a market for Disney Alaskan cruising and it is worth some premium, but my opinion (and that's all it is) is that for me the premium is a bit too much now. If we go back to Alaska, and I'd love to do that someday, I'll certainly look at Disney as an option, but I'll also be open to checking out whatever the other lines have to offer.

It also helps that Disney entering the market has forced many of the other lines to raise their game. For example, I *think* Disney may have been the first to have a private island. Now that is commonplace and expected on a Bahamas itinerary. We don't need them anymore, but the other lines have stepped up the kids clubs, I'm sure to compete with Disney. Finally, I've found the level of service on other cruises (at least Royal) to be at least close to what we've experienced on Disney.

 

[pangyal]

We just returned from our first trip to Alaska and our first cruise on Princess. For slightly more (maybe $600pp) than DCL, we were able to get a full aft suite on Princess with a huge wraparound balcony and all of the attendant perks that come with their suite. DS (9) was one of 14 kids on the entire sailing, yet they continued with all of the scheduled kids’ club activities and he enjoyed it so much that we barely saw him except when in port. To note, he found the DCL kids clubs to be too jumbled in age and chaotic. I would recommend sailing Princess to Alaska in a heartbeat. We found the service to be as good as Disney’s, though it had a different feel to it. The age definitely skewed older and the activities were planned accordingly, but we spent most of our time on the amazing balcony anyway. For those in this thread who were wondering about whether this is a good line to cruise Alaska with- I would say absolutely yes! Glacier Bay was incredible and I would say that it would be a dealbreaker for me if I ever went back as it was really that spectacular, and DCL does not sail there.

 

[mm824]

We just returned from our first trip to Alaska and our first cruise on Princess. For slightly more (maybe $600pp) than DCL, we were able to get a full aft suite on Princess with a huge wraparound balcony and all of the attendant perks that come with their suite. DS (9) was one of 14 kids on the entire sailing, yet they continued with all of the scheduled kids’ club activities and he enjoyed it so much that we barely saw him except when in port. To note, he found the DCL kids clubs to be too jumbled in age and chaotic. I would recommend sailing Princess to Alaska in a heartbeat. We found the service to be as good as Disney’s, though it had a different feel to it. The age definitely skewed older and the activities were planned accordingly, but we spent most of our time on the amazing balcony anyway. For those in this thread who were wondering about whether this is a good line to cruise Alaska with- I would say absolutely yes! Glacier Bay was incredible and I would say that it would be a dealbreaker for me if I ever went back as it was really that spectacular, and DCL does not sail there.

Pangyal - Which ship did you sail? How did you feel about the food?

 

[laceltris3]

I think that the pricing has definitely increased significantly on Alaska over the last couple of years. We sailed in 2015, which was the year before the Wonder's big dry dock. We had our family of 5 in a 4B for less than 10K, although we did have an OBB. The next year, prices were higher because of the short Alaska season, due to the dry dock that fall and then prices were even higher after the update. It was around then that they also made starting prices for in demand cruises much higher than in the past. I remember that when summer 2016 came out some of the cruises were starting at the same price as the unsold remaining cruises for similar dates 2015, after the prices had escalated (even on ships that had not been refreshed).