Itinerary Switch? Fantasy and the Dream on Bahamas vs. Caribbean?

[Keone2002]

I plan to book an Eastern Caribbean cruise when the next round of itineraries come out. I notice that the Fantasy the past few years has been doing the longer cruises, and the Dream the shorter Bahama cruise. I just finished the Fantasy Western, and if this holds true I would be back on Fantasy for the Eastern.....no issues with the ship, it's great. Just that it makes sense to me to swap out the two boats so that folks that want to do the longer cruise could get different shows.......and the same for those who like doing the shorter cruise. Could this happen? Does it ever happen?

 

[WishUponAStarryNight]

Could it happen? Sure. Has it happened? No, not that I'm aware of, except that the Fantasy will do an occasional 3 night Bahamas trip to get it back into its regular Sat - Sat schedule after the longer 10/11 night sailings. The Dream does 3 and 4 night sailings to the Bahamas with some 5 night sailings seasonally.

 

[DietCokeMommy]

I don’t think that’s a thing they do. You could always do a B2B to get a 7 day on the Dream. Personally I’d go for the Eastern Caribbean every time over the Bahamas/Nassau though.

 

[clten]

It would be highly unlikely that it would be done - too many negatives for DCL with no real upside. They have purposely put different shows on different ships so that you have "incentive" to sail the different itineraries. There would be logistics issues in having to have a few "funky" length cruises during the "swap" so the 7 day sailings continue to leave on Saturdays but don't have both ships in PC at the same time. Also it would be a big change for the crew. The 4 ships have settled into their routines. The crew on the Dream are most likely there because they enjoy the routine of the 3/4 day cruises; those on the Fantasy are there because they enjoy the routine of a 7 day cruise. To change the length of sailing would really throw the crew off. DCL would probably end up with dissatisfied crew and many requests to swap ships after contracts are over.

 

[n2mm]

You could also do a b2b on the Wonder to try different shows. Last feb I did a 3 night and 7 night on the Wonder. It was nice doing 2 different itineraries. Often it does transitional cruises to get on track. This feb (2019) I’m doing another 3/4 cruise, but the 3 night does not go to Nassau. It’s a day at sea and castaway, then the 4 is the sea day, castaway, and Nassau. Not as great as this past feb, but still a little different. I’m always watching for the transitional cruises for b2b purposes.

 

[Quellman]

I'm not aware of a time when the Dream and Fantasy swapped itineraries. I do seem to recall a time when the Magic and Fantasy were opposite of each other. One was during western while the other eastern, but the Magic rarely makes berth in Port Canaveral any more.

 

[Keone2002]

Thanks to everyone for the input. To me it seems like a simple thing to do in order to give more variety and options for cruising. You all make good points in why it's not so simple. I guess another option would be to switch the shows, but the logistics of that would be horrific for the props and equipment and cast. I suppose I will wait for the new ships to bring in more variety. Thanks again to you all.