Extremely upset with DCL!

We were booked on the Fantasy for Sept 12-19. I recently found out through back channels that this is going to be a Halloween cruise. I called DCL directly and they confirmed that it was going to be a Halloween cruise.

We do NOT do Halloween. DCL has not officially announced what cruises are Halloween cruises. We booked this cruise in April.

I feel like Disney completely misrepresented our cruise and we should be able to switch our cruise without paying the difference between what we paid in April compared to what the cruise is now.

We want to switch our cruise to the sailing right before ours. We're not asking for an upgrade, we're not asking for OBC. We're just asking for the cruise that we were told we were buying. I didn't buy a Halloween cruise. Disney is refusing to budge.

This seems like a simple request to me. Why is Disney being so uncooperative? If I had bought a product from them on line and they shipped me a different product, then the mistake would have been corrected immediately with apologies.

What am I missing??

Have you asked to switch? And? From memory the Halloween cruises were publicised for some time now. Maybe April. So there will be the Halloween tree in the atrium and a themed night. Could you not avoid those if they are a problem to you? Have you PIF? I think if you feel really strongly about it you should be able to cancel for a full refund. As for booking the cruise before maybe try rational explanation and escalation? But just be careful about citing the awareness of that being a Halloween cruise as it been known for some time. I'm sure you could find out the date it was confirmed if you needed to.

We were booked on the Fantasy for Sept 12-19. I recently found out through back channels that this is going to be a Halloween cruise. I called DCL directly and they confirmed that it was going to be a Halloween cruise.

 

We do NOT do Halloween. DCL has not officially announced what cruises are Halloween cruises. We booked this cruise in April.

 

I feel like Disney completely misrepresented our cruise and we should be able to switch our cruise without paying the difference between what we paid in April compared to what the cruise is now.

 

We want to switch our cruise to the sailing right before ours. We're not asking for an upgrade, we're not asking for OBC. We're just asking for the cruise that we were told we were buying. I didn't buy a Halloween cruise. Disney is refusing to budge.

 

This seems like a simple request to me. Why is Disney being so uncooperative? If I had bought a product from them on line and they shipped me a different product, then the mistake would have been corrected immediately with apologies.

 

What am I missing??

Not justifying DCL, but I'll point out while your cruise may be one of the Halloween on the High Seas cruises, you're under no obligation to participate in any of the Halloween activities.

We did 3 cruises last year that all turned out to the HOTHS cruises. We were not totally taken with the idea, but it wasn't that "in your face". Yes, there were some Halloween-specific decorations around the ship, but the Halloween activities were all on one day. We spent most of that day in the adult only areas as many of the events were either in the atrium or the family oriented spots.

We went on a cruise with DCL last October, and it was a Halloween one. We don't celebrate Halloween either, and actually really dislike it. But we were able to simply ignore the Halloween activities and such, and had a wonderful cruise!

Just like anything else, it is what you make it. We decided not to let it negatively affect a very special trip for us, and we also kept our feelings about the holiday to ourselves, out of respect for the families around us who enjoyed the celebration. To each their own :)

So, maybe I'm missing something, but what's a Haloween cruise? And who cares.

Every Disney cruise has a pirate night, I'm not a pirate, I don't dress up, but I eat dinner, see the show, then go on deck and watch the fireworks. Some people spend a stupid amount of money and time to pack, and dress up like a pirate, it's just not my thing.

I've never had a cruise, that when over thought, gee, I wish I hadn't gone. Some were better than others, but any Disney cruise is better than a week at work.

Go on the cruise, you'll have a good time.

Cruise more, worry less.

This is one place that a TA who does tons of DCL might be able to intervene on your behalf...but since that wasn't part of your booking, it doesn't help.

Sept 19--you are not yet at the penalty date. If I'm reading the chart correctly, it is 89 days, so you have like 1 day left. According to what I'm finding on line, the Halloween dates were announced on May 5, so you do have a legit complaint. Have you talked with a supervisor about changing or just the person who answered the phone? Have you e-mailed DCL guest relations?

Currently the prices on the Sept 12 cruise are less than the Sept 19 cruise. Has there been a significant price increase since April?

It is probably too late for e-mail....I think you need to decide ASAP (like right now after getting a supervisor on the phone) and either cancel or not if they won't give you the "date change" you are requesting. After you cancel, you can take your time to decide whether to rebook the week before, hang in there and hope for a *GT booking, or just forget it.

We contacted our TA and were on the line with a DCL supervisor for almost 2 hrs. We have switched cruises but we had to pay the difference between the two sailings which was pretty significant.

It has not been officially announced which cruises are going to be Holiday cruises. If you call DCL they will tell you what dates but the DCL rep I talked to said they won't officially announce it until probably the end of July.

Ex-Techie- I'm not a complainer just for the sake of complaining. if you buy a coffee mug online and the company sends you a sippy cup do you just say "oh well, I'll put my coffee in the sippy cup" or do you contact the company and let them know they sent you the wrong cup?

We've cruised lots of times and there's always something that doesn't go perfect. Due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances we've had totally different itineraries, we've spent half the cruise in port, etc. That's what happens when you cruise. You deal with it and move on.

This is different. They didn't change the cruise because of unforeseen circumstances. When I paid for the cruise it was advertised as a normal Disney cruise with certain activities offered to our kids. They changed the cruise without informing anybody.

Again, I'm not asking for compensation. I'm just asking them to give me what I paid for. They give upgrades and OBC and whatever else to people that complain that their room smells. There's room on the sailing we're asking to switch to. We have good cabins on our original sailing that they will have no problem selling. Plus they get to sell them at a huge increase compared to what we paid. This is not a loss for Disney. We are still over two months away from sailing so it's not like there's a problem with moving our documents or anything overly complicated.

We contacted our TA and were on the line with a DCL supervisor for almost 2 hrs. We have switched cruises but we had to pay the difference between the two sailings which was pretty significant.

 

It has not been officially announced which cruises are going to be Holiday cruises. If you call DCL they will tell you what dates but the DCL rep I talked to said they won't officially announce it until probably the end of July.

 

Ex-Techie- I'm not a complainer just for the sake of complaining. if you buy a coffee mug online and the company sends you a sippy cup do you just say "oh well, I'll put my coffee in the sippy cup" or do you contact the company and let them know they sent you the wrong cup?

 

We've cruised lots of times and there's always something that doesn't go perfect. Due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances we've had totally different itineraries, we've spent half the cruise in port, etc. That's what happens when you cruise. You deal with it and move on.

 

This is different. They didn't change the cruise because of unforeseen circumstances. When I paid for the cruise it was advertised as a normal Disney cruise with certain activities offered to our kids. They changed the cruise without informing anybody.

 

Again, I'm not asking for compensation. I'm just asking them to give me what I paid for. They give upgrades and OBC and whatever else to people that complain that their room smells. There's room on the sailing we're asking to switch to. We have good cabins on our original sailing that they will have no problem selling. Plus they get to sell them at a huge increase compared to what we paid. This is not a loss for Disney. We are still over two months away from sailing so it's not like there's a problem with moving our documents or anything overly complicated.

They didn't "change" the cruise. The cruise is still the same cruise, they just added more/different activities on one day. It's not really like ordering one thing and getting another.

And, in reality, cruiselines contracts spell out that they can change/alter/cancel any cruise for any reason. That's something you agreed to when you booked the cruise.

fyi.... there was a promo vid...

[YOUTUBE]k8ZXVShFo7A[/YOUTUBE]

Just FYI Schmoo. It's not just one day that's different. The entire ship is decorated in Halloween theme the ENTIRE trip. The kids activities are Halloween themed every day of the trip. Yes, there is only one day that is a costume party and one day that they have a masque-parade.

Thank you MokiesMom and SouthernGirl! Kind words are always nice. 😀

I'm not sure why not wanting to go on a Halloween cruise is so offensive but to those that I have offended. I'm sorry I stepped on your toes. Please, pardon me.

Do better research next time. DCL shouldn't be responsible for your ignorance. Last year's Halloween cruises were from Sept through Oct.

While last year may provide a good guess, things DO change on DCL. 2 years ago, the Halloween stuff was only on the Dream. That doesn't help people to guess that it was going to expand to all ships. Knowing when they started in September last year would only provide a guess for this year...not a "for sure."

A first timer on DCL wouldn't even know that this is something they wanted/ needed to research. On the other hand, their travel agent should have known about last year's schedule.

While last year may provide a good guess' date=' things DO change on DCL. 2 years ago, the Halloween stuff was only on the Dream. That doesn't help people to guess that it was going to expand to all ships. Knowing when they started in September last year would only provide a guess for this year...not a "for sure."

 

A first timer on DCL wouldn't even know that this is something they wanted/ needed to research. On the other hand, their travel agent should have known about last year's schedule.[/quote']

 

We put a deposit on our Oct 2015 Wonder cruise last May 2014, HOTHS wasn't confirmed until April of this year. Almost a full year after we booked our trip. I even asked DCL directly late last year and they said nothing could be confirmed. So for this family to be able to determine at the time of booking was probably impossible. All judging aside, it would make sense that DCL could accomodate you. BTW, my daughter is our TA and even she didn't know.

Sorry for your issue. I wish I had some words of wisdom or another way to help out but I don't.

Disney seems to expand the timeframes for the special events longer and longer each year. And while they may let TAs and other media sites know, they are not very good at updating their main website with the dates for us regular folks to be able to confirm.

We're booked on the November 15th Magic cruise and I understand from some unofficial sites that it will be the second Very Merry Christmas cruise on the Magic this year. The Disney cruise official site, still lists the dates as TBD.

I'm taking a bunch of first timers and it would have been nice for them to just experience a regular Disney cruise. For my mom, dad and I, it's different because we've sailed many time but we've never sailed at Christmas.

What am I missing??

I am one of the first to get on DCL's case, but I think you are not in the right side of the argument here. They have been doing seasonal stuff on-board as far as I can remember. This includes Halloween and Christmas. They are under no obligation to offer you a change, refund or anything else. This is not a case of bait-and-switch, as you are making it seem.

In addition, having been on couple Halloween cruises, much like Christmas, it's pretty tame and limited to certain areas and activities. It's not a ship-wide thing and easy to avoid altogether.

The entire ship is decorated in Halloween theme the ENTIRE trip. The kids activities are Halloween themed every day of the trip.

This is patently false. Having been on two Halloween DCL cruises, the only areas that are Halloween festive are the lobby and the portside windows in deck 3. You will not see Halloween decor anywhere else in the ship.

As for kids activities, you know that all the characters are people dressed up, right? What difference does it make with Minnie sporting orange and black dress and a witch's hat instead of her usual one? That's pretty much to the extent DCL does halloween for kids.

I don't think any of us knows what the Halloween on the High Seas cruises will be like THIS year. It has expanded from a few cruises on one ship to about 6 weeks of cruises on all or most ships (not sure if the Magic WBTA will have it). Each year it seems to get bigger and more involved.

That said, OP has moved her vacation to a regular cruise which meets her needs.

The Christmas cruise decorations are very involved. They are timed to be fully up and ready before the Thanksgiving cruise, but to do that the decorating starts a couple weeks before that. What is advertised as "Very Merrytime" means that they will also have the holiday activities. My experience (and yes, I've done a few of these) is that the activities are easy to avoid if you wish, but the decorations and character outfits are not. We've also cruised at Chanukah and were most impressed that there was a nightly service and it was made very clear that ALL guests were welcome to attend. There was also an informal session with the Rabbi where children and adults were invited to ask any questions. I thought this was a most respectful and inclusive event.

To be accurate, there was an article in the Orlando Sentinel on May 7th of this year, releasing sail dates for both the Halloween and Christmas sailings: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/attractions/the-daily-disney/os-disney-cruise-line-halloween-christmas-20150507-story.html

So the information has been out there for a few weeks. We did the Halloween sailing last year on the Fantasy. There was the pumpkin tree in the atrium all week, but it didn't 'sprout pumpkins' until the day of the celebration. There are decorations the day of, and lots of people in costume. We did not feel overwhelmed by the holiday celebrations, but we enjoy Halloween in general.

The best source for info is to go to Disney Cruise Blog and search for Halloween or Christmas - you'll get scans of Navigators from sailings showing what was done last year.

The info was on line on May 5.

We don't know how big it will be this year. The Halloween celebration/decorations/etc. have been increasing each year so far.

The DCL site still lists the dates as TBD:

http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/holiday-cruises/halloween/

I think that's an issue on DCL's part. why are they announcing the cruises without posting it on their website. And to be honest, they could make the decision when they first post the cruise availability to state which are Halloween and which are Christmas cruises. They choose not to, and that leads to issues for people like the OP.

Even if you switched to the cruise before that, Sept 5-12, it would be a Halloween cruise too. I am on it-I think its the first one of the season.

I have been on a Halloween cruise as well, I did not feel like it was in your face Halloween the whole time.

We were on the Halloween cruise last year and it was very casual. The decorations and activities are minimal. My kids are 12 and 13 and not at all interested in the activities. I did like the cool tree in the atrium though!. I hope it works out for you and that you have a great time anyway.

I hate that this board doesn't allow you to upload screen shots, but I hope you didn't spend all that time and effort to move to the first HotHS cruise since this seems important to you.

Halloween Cruises:

Ship Sail Dates

Disney Magic 10/4/2015 –10/28/2015

Disney Wonder 10/1/2015 –10/23/2015

Disney Dream 9/7/2015 –10/30/2015

Disney Fantasy 9/5/2015 –10/31/2015

They must have updated the dates today on the official site; yesterday, they were showing as TBD.

Makes you wonder if someone at DCL isn't reading this board? ;)

Apparently I'm inept at posting from my phone.