Anyone who has priced a Disney cruise knows that they are expensive. Anyone who has compared the prices to other cruise lines may have almost fainted and then once recovered, wondered if there are any tricks to getting lower prices or saving money. One thing you need to know before we get started is that EVERYONE (DCL, travel agents, person sitting at home on their computer, etc) sees the same prices. No website or travel agent out there can give you a cheaper cruise fare than the DCL website is currently showing, although they can offer you an on board credit as an incentive (more on that later). So, don’t waste your time scouring the internet for a cheaper price on a certain sailing because you won’t find one. They are all the same, although some may vary slightly due to whether or not they are including all taxes & fees. Now, here are 8 things that I have discovered that seem to be the best way to get the lowest prices and money back in your wallet:
1. Re-book While On Board
This one obviously does not apply to first-time cruisers, but when you do finally get on board, I HIGHLY recommend making an on board booking to save money on your next cruise. I have a post dedicated to this subject, which you can read here, so I won’t go into all of the details, but you will save 10% off the regular cruise fare. There are some restrictions and requirements, so be sure to read all of the details here. You can cancel and get your money back if you get home and change your mind, but you can’t get the discount once you’ve left the ship so if in doubt, book it. The 10% off can really add up if you have a large family and/or are sailing on a more expensive itinerary like Alaska.
2. Use a Travel Agent That Gives an On Board Credit
We almost always use a travel agent to book our Disney cruises because there are some that give a large on board credit just for booking through them. Once again, I won’t go into detail because I have a post dedicated to this subject as well, which you can read here, but our family has received up to a $450 on board credit from using a travel agent. Unfortunately, DCL has recently decreased the commissions for travel agents and thus the agents have decreased their onboard credits, so the amounts aren’t quite as high as they used to be. Some people prefer not to use a travel agent because it means giving up control of certain aspects of their reservations, but for our family, the on board credit is just too much to turn down. Note that any on board credit from your travel agent is independent of any on board credit you receive from an on board booking, so you can receive both for the same cruise (although some travel agents give lesser amounts for on board booking vs, direct, new bookings). If you are counting, this means that more than once, our family has started a cruise with at least a $650 on board credit. You may wonder if you could possibly spend that much money while onboard, and there are 2 ways you can: tips and shore excursions. Shore excursions (if you book them through DCL) quickly add up if you have more than a couple of people in your party, and tips do as well. For example, for our family of 5, the standard tips for a 7 night cruise add up to $420, and that is without counting room service, concierge tip (if applicable), or adding more for exceptional service. You can read everything you need to know about Disney cruise tipping here and booking shore excursions here.
3. Cruise Off Season
One thing that surprises a lot of people are how much the prices change for the exact same itinerary depending on the time of year. Prices are much higher, sometimes even double, during times of the year when most schools are out like summer vacation and holidays. I know that a lot of people have to adhere to the school calendars so this is not an option for everyone, but if you can sail during the off season, you can save quite a bit of money. If you want to do a quick comparison and see for yourself, there is a website called Cruisefish which makes it easy and fast to compare the prices of different sailings (you can read my post about how to use Cruisefish here). For an example, I will price a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children) and check out 2 different itineraries and how the prices vary by date. If I look at the 7 night Alaska sailings for 2016, I can see that as of today, the cheapest sailing is May 23, with the cheapest verandah room available is $8,421. The most expensive sailing (that currently has a verandah room available) is July 11 and the price is $12,124. Quite a difference! Likewise, a verandah room for a 4 night cruise on the Dream currently ranges from $2,716 for the February 29, 2016 sailing to $6,321 for the December 26, 2016 sailing. That is more than double!!!
4. Use a Disney Visa Rewards Card
This will only apply to those people that use credit cards, but if you do, you may be able to save some money by using the Disney VISA rewards card. You earn “Disney dollars” every time you use the card which you can redeem at WDW, DCL, or the Disney Store. Depending on which type of card you get (premier or regular), you earn a certain amount of reward dollars every time you make a purchase and these can really add up. I’m too embarrassed to tell you how many reward dollars we earned last year, but it was a lot and really helped put a significant dent in our cruise fare. There are also some perks for using your Disney Visa as the card for onboard purchases, which you can read about here.
5. Book as Soon as You Can
Generally speaking, the prices for a specific sailing are the lowest on the day the sailing opens for booking and only rise from there. How fast they rise depends on how quickly the sailing is filling up – the faster it is selling, the faster and more the price will rise. This is not always the case – sometimes prices either don’t rise, or barely rise, for those sailings that fill up more slowly than others (i.e. less popular itineraries and dates), but it is generally the case. Some of the most popular itineraries will have huge price increases over time for the exact same room. A quick way to see how much and when the prices increase is to use the Cruisefish website (see my post about how to use Cruisefish here). So, to get the lowest price, I recommend booking as soon as you can and as soon as possible after the sailing is released.
6. IGT, OGT, and VGT Sale Rates
These are the only cruise sales that DCL has used in recent history and here’s how they work. Shortly before the sailing (usually around 60 days or so, but maybe sooner or later) they will release sales in given room categories (IGT for interior, OGT for Oceanview, and VGT for verandah) which will be much cheaper than the most recent prices, but probably about the same as the prices were the day they were first released. There are restrictions, however, such as needing to pay in full upon booking and being non-refundable. These also really only work well for a maximum of 4 people, unless you are willing to have 2 rooms that might be no where near each other on the ship. Before you consider this, I recommend becoming familiar with all of the rules & restrictions that come with these fares. Also, these obviously only work well for people who can plan vacations on short notice.
7. Book 2 Rooms
For families of 5, there may be a cheaper option than reserving one room that sleeps 5 people. There are only a limited number of rooms that sleep 5, and they are either ocean view or verandah rooms which are more expensive than interior rooms. Many times it is cheaper to book 2 interior rooms, and if you are lucky you can even get connecting rooms with a door to easily go back and forth. This also gives you the added benefit of more space, 2 bathrooms, and 2 TVs. My family has done this several times, and you can see the room reviews here:
Whether or not this is actually cheaper varies by ship and sail date, so you would have to price out both options to know for sure.
8. Buy Discounted Disney Gift Cards
I have a whole blog post about this here so I’m not going to go into too much detail, but there are several ways that you can buy Disney gift cards at 5% off. I know that may not seem like a big deal, but when you are spending thousands of dollars on a Disney vacation or cruise, it can really add up. It can take a little bit of time and effort, but I know that a ton of people use this method to save money.
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If you want to read more posts about saving money, you can do so here:
Disney Cruise Guide to Freebies, Discounts and Upgrades
How I Maximize My Onboard Credit
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments below! And as always, be sure to like me on Facebook (click here) and follow me on Pinterest (click here) for all of the latest Disney Cruise Mom Blog updates!
Hello is it better to book a cruise through Disney or a travel agent. This is my first time planning a Disney cruise. Thank you for any help you can offer.
You can read all about the pros and cons of using a travel agent here: http://www.disneycruisemomblog.com/using-a-travel-agent-yes-or-no/
What travel agent do you use? For our 1st cruise I tried a few times to contact small world vacations for the board credit offer they had but was never contacted back so I booked straight through Disney. We did not rebook while on the ship – I contacted a local travel agent near me but they did not give on board credit so I’ve booked through Disney again. I will absolutely book another while on the ship this go round but this article interests Neto do that & still use travel agent for more on board credit so that is why I ask who u use. Thanks slot & thanks for your blog to share your experiences.
Every little bit counts so if you are a BJs club member you can buy Disney Gift Cards at a discount and use those to pay off your balance. If you are a Target Visa cardholder you can also buy Disney gift cards with your 5% off.
Thanks for the awesome site! One strategy that we use every time we do anything Disney is to buy discounted Disney gift cards to pay for the trip. You can go to BJ’s online and purchase a $100 gift card for $94.95 per card saving 5% on the cost. You do not have to have a membership to BJ’s in order to purchase online. This is the simplest strategy I have found. There are people who invest time to discover deals like this. Some use a Target Red Card to purchase Disney Gift Cards at Target. This is too difficult for me. LOL it is enough of a challenge to present my travel agent with 50 $100 gift card numbers so that she can call the cruise line to make our payment. Depending on the credit card you use, you also can add additional cash back percentages when you purchase the gift cards. We have the Disney Visa and get 1% back on the gift cards. It works very well.
Hi Jack! Thanks for the tip! I agree that the Target thing has always sounded like too much work for me. Plus, I have heard that they are cracking down lately on how many gift cards you can buy online and some people have been banned from further purchases. But, this BJ’s things sounds so easy! I also use the Disney VISA so would get those perks as well. I think I am going to write a blog post about this. Thanks for the idea!
Hey! The link in the third point doesnt link to the cruisefish post, just so you know!
This post is amazing though!!!!! I thought I already knew it all, but you showed me new stuff!
Eric, thanks for letting me know about the link! It’s fixed now.