Coronavirus and DCL Megathread - Suspension of Departures for the fleet until early November. Booking only available from early December.

[Starwind]

in short, IMO
She needs to stay at home until this beer virus calms down......

Opinions please -

Depending on the timeframes involved, they may not be able to board their second cruise if the current rules are still in effect then.

This is from the current DCL rules, bold added for emphasis:

As a reminder, any guest or crew member who has traveled from, to or through China, including Hong Kong and Macau, South Korea, Italy, Iran or Japan, within 14 days of departure will not be able to board our ships.

Additionally, any guest or crew member who has been in contact with someone from these areas, including guests with connecting flights in these locations, also will not be able to board, nor will anyone who has helped care for someone suspected of having or diagnosed with COVID-19, or who is currently subject to health monitoring for possible exposure. Guests who have air travel booked through Disney Cruise Line will automatically have their flights rebooked on an alternate route. Guests who booked their own air travel arrangements should contact their airlines directly to make the appropriate changes.

 

[smmco]

What are they doing about the cruises that depart from Rome?

 

[monkeydawn]

What are they doing about the cruises that depart from Rome?

Nothing, so far. I am on one May 20th.

 

[bbel]

What are they doing about the cruises that depart from Rome?

I know it's not Disney, but Royal have move their ship sailing out of Rome, to Athens/Barcelona.

So Disney will probably follow with something soon.

 

[Mithas]

Any luck postponing the cruise if you have booked through costco travel? Was on hold for 1 hr. Got disconnected just like that. Have been trying for several days. It is so frustrating. Why can they just make the process simple?

 

[Karin1984]

Any luck postponing the cruise if you have booked through costco travel? Was on hold for 1 hr. Got disconnected just like that. Have been trying for several days. It is so frustrating. Why can they just make the process simple?

It's not the process, it's that thousands of cruisers are doing the same thing as you and there are only a handful of agents.
Probably making these changes in the systems exists of many manual actions to work around the official rules. If each changed cruise takes half an hour, then in that's 16 bookings 1 agent can change in 1 working day.

It's frustrating, but there is no way around it.

It would be better if the phone system had an option to answer the calls first of those whose booking departs first, but that would probably need some investment, and how many times will they need it?

 

[Gentry2004]

Any luck postponing the cruise if you have booked through costco travel? Was on hold for 1 hr. Got disconnected just like that. Have been trying for several days. It is so frustrating. Why can they just make the process simple?

When is your cruise. Ours is April 6 and if we rebook (haven’t decided yet) we are waiting until closer to the cruise. Also w/Costco.

 

[cvjw]

The Costco agents can’t get a dcl rep on the phone. Disney needs more agents to help with all the rebooks. I gave up after 3.5 hours yesterday. The Costco agent couldn’t get anyone from Disney on the phone. She only helped me for 3.5 hours yesterday. That is why the waits are so long - no one on the Disney side to help.

 

[Mithas]

It's not the process, it's that thousands of cruisers are doing the same thing as you and there are only a handful of agents.
Probably making these changes in the systems exists of many manual actions to work around the official rules. If each changed cruise takes half an hour, then in that's 16 bookings 1 agent can change in 1 working day.

It's frustrating, but there is no way around it.

It would be better if the phone system had an option to answer the calls first of those whose booking departs first, but that would probably need some investment, and how many times will they need it?

I agree. However, I wish we had an option to email in with the details and the change dates.

 

[Mithas]

When is your cruise. Ours is April 6 and if we rebook (haven’t decided yet) we are waiting until closer to the cruise. Also w/Costco.

Our cruise is on 3/27. We have decided to go ahead and reschedule it.

 

[LovesBelle]

Similar frustrations with Costco. I joined the virtual queue yesterday, which was supposed to get me a callback in 2 hours, but they never called me. Joined again this morning, similar promise (estimated wait of 144 minutes till they call me back), but still waiting for that callback. It would be so smart for them to let us request what we want via e-mail or on their website, and for them to call Disney with big blocks of requests, rather than doing this one at a time. Or let us make our requests on the phone (assuming someone calls back one day), and then call us back again after they speak to Disney, rather than keeping us on hold for several more hours.

 

[cwis]

Similar frustrations with Costco. I joined the virtual queue yesterday, which was supposed to get me a callback in 2 hours, but they never called me. Joined again this morning, similar promise (estimated wait of 144 minutes till they call me back), but still waiting for that callback. It would be so smart for them to let us request what we want via e-mail or on their website, and for them to call Disney with big blocks of requests, rather than doing this one at a time. Or let us make our requests on the phone (assuming someone calls back one day), and then call us back again after they speak to Disney, rather than keeping us on hold for several more hours.

It would be smart if DCL would also implement such policies.

So frustrating that Disney doesn't care about us being able rebook online.

 

[Gentry2004]

What will they do if someone literally can’t get though after several tries?

 

[cwis]

What will they do if someone literally can’t get though after several tries?

I hope a supervisor will have some flexibility even after your cruise departs. Better contact them by using the web form and/or chat as a proof that you indeed intended to cancel while you still could.

 

[cvjw]

DCL needs to bring on more agents stat to help with all the rebooking/cancelling. I don’t want to be penalized for not cancelling before the 57 day mark due to not being able to get thru to DCL. I waited on hold for 3.5 hours yesterday to no avail. Who has time to wait on hold all day? DCL needs to step up and get a better handle on the rebooking hold times.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Sorry, new to DCL what is OBB and GT? Thanks.

OBB= onboard booking. DCL currently offers 10% off the pretax cruise fare if you book a future cruise while onboard. Up until recently, they also would give us onboard credits for our onboard charging account for that future cruise but that was discontinued in late 2019.

_GT is a special booking offer which there are 3 types:
IGT -guarantees any inside cabin
OGT- guarantees any oceanview cabin (window)
VGT -guarantees any veranda cabin

These offers have a lot of restrictions that would not apply to a regular reservation:
1. Must pay in full at time of booking
2. No changing cabins
3. No name changes
4. No cancellations
5. No refunds
Probably some others as well but this is what I could remember off the top of my head. It's pretty much, "you get what you get & don't get upset".
If you're not picky about cabin location it's a great way to save $.

This is very different from a GTY reservation which is a regular reservation but the category you want is almost sold out so they might list it as something like Cat. 4D GTY which means you're still booking a specific category but you don't know which cabin you'll get exactly. You might get a cabin in a better category but you definitely won't get one in a lower category.
With GTY cabins, you still retain the option to cancel, change categories, change names, etc.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

It's not the process, it's that thousands of cruisers are doing the same thing as you and there are only a handful of agents.
Probably making these changes in the systems exists of many manual actions to work around the official rules. If each changed cruise takes half an hour, then in that's 16 bookings 1 agent can change in 1 working day.

It's frustrating, but there is no way around it.

It would be better if the phone system had an option to answer the calls first of those whose booking departs first, but that would probably need some investment, and how many times will they need it?

Perhaps sending an email to the TA would be better then. This way the TA can prioritize the May reservations and deal with the July ones later.

ETA: never mind. I see that others were hoping for this option.

DCL needs to create a TA page so agents can go into each reservation that they control and do what their clients are asking. That would clear up the phone lines for the guests who booked directly with DCL. Chances are, DCL is swamped with extra work right now that they're probably not reading these boards lately. It wouldn't surprise me if the release of new dates is delayed from all of this unplanned chaos.

 

[DIS_MIKE]

OBB= onboard booking. DCL currently offers 10% off the pretax cruise fare if you book a future cruise while onboard. Up until recently, they also would give us onboard credits for our onboard charging account for that future cruise but that was discontinued in late 2019.

_GT is a special booking offer which there are 3 types:
IGT -guarantees any inside cabin
OGT- guarantees any oceanview cabin (window)
VGT -guarantees any veranda cabin

This is very different from a GTY reservation which is a regular reservation but the category you want is almost sold out so they might list it as something like Cat. 4D GTY which means you're still booking a specific category but you don't know which cabin you'll get exactly. You might get a cabin in a better category but you definitely won't get one in a lower category.
With GTY cabins, you still retain the option to cancel, change categories, change names, etc.

Came across PIF recently. What does that mean?

 

[Brandon Lagarde]

Has there been a drop in cruise pricing due to coronavirus concerns?

 

[VictoriaAndMatt]

Came across PIF recently. What does that mean?

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