Yay, the end of the dreaded sling bag!

[ArielRae]

With the Pearl perks announcement they said the following.

This summer, all Castaway Club members can look forward to a refreshed assortment of welcome aboard gifts awaiting them in their staterooms.

I take this as finally the end of the sling bags being left in the room. We are getting something new finally.

https://disneycruiselineblog.com/2023/02/castaway-club-pearl-level-perks-announced/

 

[auntlynne]

 

[Flossbolna]

I do like the pearl tumblers! Wouldn’t mind golden tumblers either! But maybe it will just be a redesigned sling bag for us lowly non pearl members.

 

[soniam]

I do like the pearl tumblers! Wouldn’t mind golden tumblers either! But maybe it will just be a redesigned sling bag for us lowly non pearl members.

As long as it's not that stupid beach bag with the rough, grass-like fabric. That thing shed so bad. I actually found it when packing up my closet for remodeling. Went to the Goodwill pile immediately. I even thought of just throwing it out, but we had only used it once.

 

[disneygeek401]

I'm just glad that it appears to be new gifts are coming, lol. Pretty sick of the sling bags

 

[shananigans]

I’m so relieved! We have enough sling bags and giant luggage tags that don’t stay on already. We have four cruise’s between April and January 2024, we’ll hit Platinum after September’s cruise. I’m wondering if they are going to revamp lanyards too or take them away altogether.

 

[princesscinderella]

As long as it's not that stupid beach bag with the rough, grass-like fabric. That thing shed so bad. I actually found it when packing up my closet for remodeling. Went to the Goodwill pile immediately. I even thought of just throwing it out, but we had only used it once.

We got those bags twice and one of the years it smelled so bad of chemicals that we gave it back to the stateroom host because it was stinking up the room and I didn’t want to smell it the whole cruise let alone take it home.

 

[jrapps]

It's funny when we got those rough burlap canvas bags we hated them. I remember them having a weird odor. We got about four or five of them before they switched to something else, and every cruise I just threw it in the back of my closet and forgot about it.

Now being years later it is one of our favorite castaway bags! At some point the smell went away and turns out they are the perfect size for stuffing towels in and carrying onto castaway cay. They've become our primary cruise beach going bag. I even bring them with me on other cruise lines.

 

[Trera]

I think the early beach towels, back packs and fabric CC level beach bags were the best gifts they have had. It seems like the farther we get away from those...............the less I like the gift.

 

[Kwami]

I’m so relieved! We have enough sling bags and giant luggage tags that don’t stay on already. We have four cruise’s between April and January 2024, we’ll hit Platinum after September’s cruise. I’m wondering if they are going to revamp lanyards too or take them away altogether.

There is no indication that they're planning to change the lanyards at all, much less take them away. Nobody at Disney has hinted at it or suggested it, nobody in the media has hinted at it or suggested it, and there are no credible rumors hinting at or suggesting it. The only reason this has come up at all is because Disney sent out an email with cards that we could print to put into the lanyard pouches and for some reason, a few people misunderstood those to be replacements for the lanyards. Nonsense.

 

[Flossbolna]

There is no indication that they're planning to change the lanyards at all, much less take them away. Nobody at Disney has hinted at it or suggested it, nobody in the media has hinted at it or suggested it, and there are no credible rumors hinting at or suggesting it. The only reason this has come up at all is because Disney sent out an email with cards that we could print to put into the lanyard pouches and for some reason, a few people misunderstood those to be replacements for the lanyards. Nonsense.

I agree. I think the lanyards are more a marketing too than anything else. People sporting their loyalty every day visible fit all the newbies. Makes new cruisers think: oh this must be a fantastic line if people love cruising them so much.

 

[JWG]

We love and would take another sling bag, we use ours a ton, especially when visiting the Disney parks. We, on the other hand, hate the beach bags they've had, especially the burlap version before the sling. A bag without a shoulder strap is just not that useful.

Given the # of repeat cruisers I almost wish they'd just go to a selection process where you could select your gift ahead of time and choose from a few options. Not as fun as a surprise in the room, but those who don't like the gifts because they cruise that often aren't really surprised anyway.

We cruise in March 2024, will be interested to see what we get. We were fortunate to get on the Wish before they ran out of the inaugural cruise gifts, so we do like that because they're unique.

 

[ArielRae]

I have a feeling any leftover sling bags they do have will just end up in the Character Warehouse Outlet stores to be completely sold off. So for anyone take does like the sling bag can stock up when they end up there.

 

[cvjw]

We started sailing at the end of 2017. We will be platinum in a few weeks. Several cruises, we have booked 2 staterooms. How many sling backpacks can one family use? Wish they offered a variety of gifts - 9 cruises from silver to platinum - way too many sling backpacks.

 

[Flossbolna]

I think the main issue is keeping the gifts around for so long. Get something different every year and people will appreciate it much more. They could even put the year on it and it would make it a bit if a collector’s item.

 

[RedHead0186]

We love and would take another sling bag, we use ours a ton, especially when visiting the Disney parks. We, on the other hand, hate the beach bags they've had, especially the burlap version before the sling. A bag without a shoulder strap is just not that useful.

Given the # of repeat cruisers I almost wish they'd just go to a selection process where you could select your gift ahead of time and choose from a few options. Not as fun as a surprise in the room, but those who don't like the gifts because they cruise that often aren't really surprised anyway.

We cruise in March 2024, will be interested to see what we get. We were fortunate to get on the Wish before they ran out of the inaugural cruise gifts, so we do like that because they're unique.

I like this idea (plus, let's be honest, there really is no "surprise in the room" since we all know it's that darn sling bag, lol!). I can see the logistics of this being challenging (though they already have something like that in place for onboard gifts). Plus, I could see it being a way for people to opt out of a gift, which, if enough people did it would save DCL money over time.

I'm still bummed I missed out on the Wish inaugural gift. When I booked the cruise (for this April) I didn't even think about it. Then I saw others on here post about it and I got excited, until a couple weeks later when I saw people posting that DCL was out of them.

 

[FastPasser.]

I couldn’t care less about the gifts or the lanyards because I don’t use either one.

 

[AquaDame]

We just leave the gift if we do not want it. We enjoyed the sling bag and never fussed about getting one dirty with sunblock or what have you since we knew there would be another.... we may need to start being careful now!

 

[DisneyConvert]

We received a very functional cooler/backpack last November. Then again, we havent used it since

 

[NEGeekymama]

If it's any comfort, the "gift" you get on Carnival is....a bottle of water. Gold (25-74 nights) also gets a pin. You don't get anything Carnival branded until Platinum and higher (75 nights and up).

This was only our second Disney cruise, so I was really excited for the sling bag when I was really just expecting the lanyards (which, btw, Carnival doesn't do at all).