Recently, Nancy booked our own Disney cruise when she found a wonderful cruise fair. That got me to thinking; what are the ways that anyone can find a low (for Disney) cruise fare to save money? This would be whether directly on the Disney Cruise Line (DCL) website or through a travel agency that specializes in Disney such as our own.
This short article provide you with our best tips how we save our own money by being flexible when booking our own Disney cruises as well as for our clients.
These DCL cruise booking hacks are flexible ways to save on Disney cruise.
TIP 1: Disney Cruise Fares DO Go On Sale
Disney and DCL will RARELY use the word ‘sale’; but that is what it is.
Contrary to popular believe, recently, certain Disney cruise sailings go on sale a couple of months out from departure date. In the past few months DCL has had a practice of offering certain cruises in certain cabin categories anywhere from 20 to up to 35% off. These are for GTY (Guaranty) type cabins, meaning that Disney will assign you the cabin 24 to 72 hours prior to departure. This means the cabin will not be in a prime area of the Disney ship.
And, frequently, these special selected Disney cruise sailings that go on sale are primarily out of Disney Cruise Line’s Port Canaveral, FLA., Fort Lauderdale, FLA, and Galveston, TX ports.
So, if you are willing to wait to commit to a DCL cruise until a few months before sailing date, you could save a bundle.
Tip 2: Fort Lauderdale Departures
Instead of taking a DCL cruise from Port Canaveral, Disney cruises from Fort Lauderdale are typicaly less costly. Sure, depending where you live, it may take you a couple more hours to get to Fort Lauderdale via the car, train, or plane, but the savings as we show below can be worth it.
Tip 3: Go On An Older Disney Cruise Ship
Cruise fares on the newer cruise ships from any cruise line cost more money. And in our past Disney for Seniors Facebook Group survey, members from the Group preferred the Disney Magic and then the Disney Fantasy followed by the Disney Dream….all older Disney Cruise Line ships.
If you missed it, here is a link to the video where we show not only the results of our survey ranking the prefered DCL ships, but more importantly the reasons for the ranking:
Tip 4: Go On A Disney Cruise That is NOT A Speciality Cruise
What are ‘specialty cruises’? These are cruises where one or more days & evenings have special pre-announced theming, characters and activities. For DCL, this includes Pixar or Marvel Days at Sea, Halloween or Christmas themed cruises which are more expensive Disney Cruises.
Tip 5: Placeholder Reservations
This is something which can only be done when on a Disney cruise; not before and not after.
And, this is similar to many other cruise lines, just so you know.
DCL offers guests when on board what is called a Placeholder Reservation. It is not an actual cruise reservation. For $250 (which can later be applied to the cruise fare when you are ready to book your Disney cruise), you purchase the right to book a Disney cruise any time, except for certain blackout dates, over the next 24 months.
How is this saving money? Two ways:
First, when you apply your Placeholder Reservation to a future Disney cruise within the 24 month window, you receive a 10% discount on the cruise fare.
Second, if you do not use your Placeholder Reservation on a future Disney cruise in the next 24 months, DCL will give you your money back; that is, you receive back the $250 you paid for the Placeholder Reservation during your sailing. Not all cruise lines who offer a similar promotion will give you your money back.
Real World Example
Nancy just booked us on a Disney 4 night cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the 1st week of February.
We decided to do an Inside guarantee cabin on the Disney Dream which cost us ONLY $1,622 plus gratuities. The ‘sale’ by DCL for this particular cruise was also available for Veranda / Balcony Cabins.
Above is a screen capture for the cruise we will be on that Nancy just booked for us out of Fort Lauderdale. How can you tell this was a sale? If you look at the Ocean View cabin category you will see that it is listed for more than a Veranda cabin category! That is a sale.
As well, you will see this when you or your travel agent (like us 🙂 ) is on the DCL website. That View Special Offer link will provide for you a list of the different sailings, grouped by itinerary, the cabin categories that are on sale for each particular cabin category, etc.
The second is on the newer Disney WISH ship … one week later …. same itenerary (Nassau and Castaway Cay and a day at sea) … same number of nights (4) …. but departing out of Port Canaveral.
An Inside guarantee cabin on this Disney WISH sailing is per the pictures above $2,252 plus gratuities…. or about $630 more on the WISH!
The Veranda GTY (Guaranteed) cabins difference in cruise fairs are even more ….. $1,878 plus gratuities on the cruise Nancy booked for us on the Disney Dream out of Fort Lauderdale vs $2,716 plus gratuities on the same cruise but on the Disney WISH out of Port Canaveral ….. about $838 more on the WISH.
Hopefully we made some of you who want to save money on a Disney cruise start to think about this. If your future plans do or may include a Disney cruise for the first or 5th or 10th or … time, consider saving yourself some money by being flexible.
What other ideas or suggestions do you have to save money on a Disney cruise that relate to being FLEXIBLE? Please share in the Comments below.
If we can help you research and book your future Disney or non-Disney cruises, just contact me via Messenger or at my email Dan@NanDanTravel.com .
If you want some DCL fun, here is another article showing numerous Disney Cruise Line Towel Animal pictures!
If you would like to learn more about Disney cruises, here is another article on the 50 Ways to Best Enjoy Your Disney Cruise.
