We were on the 06 cruise as well as the 05 cruise.
The planning team changed between the two events. The person who headed up the 05 cruise left DVC shortly after the cruise. To say he put more effort into the little touches would be an understatement. The little things were way over the top along with the gifts we received in 2005. I am not a collector, I am not someone who keeps a lot of that type of stuff, most of it has been either sold or given away. I didn't go on the cruise for the gifts, they were just extras to me.
The biggest thing for me was the "feel" of the DVC people on board between the 05 & the 06 cruise. In 05, they were one of us, members enjoying the cruise. Jim Lewis gave an awesome presentation one day about how DVC had personally impacted his family and he spoke about the vacations that he took as a part of DVC with his family. He spoke about how he was at Hilton Head, again with his family, and how the weather was cold and he was going out on the dolphin cruise and he didn't prepare for the weather and how one of the members sitting in the audience that day borrowed him a jacket to wear on the tour. I still remember that story two years later.
Last year when Jim did his presentation, he talked about all of the people who were a different part of DVC and how they had gotten to the 15th year anniversary. It was more of a presentation than a talk about DVC.
There was a game show held on board last year that we ended up leaving early from because our youngest was with us and bored. I heard from several friends that the purpose of the game show was to hard sell the exisiting members into either adding on or bringing their friends into the program.
I'm not sure if I can describe the feel of the DVC planning team. On the 05 cruise, it seemed like they were more than willing to offer a smile or a gesture or even a hello in passing to the members. On the 06 cruise, it felt as if they were avoiding us and kept to themselves.
My biggest personal slap in the face type feeling was prior to the cruise, I had heard from a friend at home the dates and point spread for the 07 cruise. It had not been announced as of yet and after Jim Lewis gave his presentation, I took a moment to hang back and ask him if in fact that information was true. He looked at me and responded with "we haven't released that information, I'm not sure where that person would have gotten it". When I told him Member Services, I could see the surprise on his face, I could see the glance he gave above my head to whomever was standing behind me. I knew he was not giving me a straight answer -- I would have so much more appreciated a political answer than to be avoided as I felt I was. I felt like he lied to me and no one likes to be lied to -- ever.
My overall feeling was that they lowered the bar on the cruise so that those of us who sailed more than one year would not be interested in sailing again. In fact, on the survey I answered for DVC, that's exactly what I put on it, if their intention was to discourage us from sailing on another member event, they accomplished it by the way they treated us on the cruise.
The
DCL staff was awesome and we will sail DCL again. However, we will be hard pressed to do another member event. We've done two member cruises and member homecoming. We've never minded paying the premium price tags for any of them. But, we won't again.
I know there are others who feel that the member cruises are all that and then some. I feel it's a case of to each his own.
If you'd like some reading on other opinoins, here are a couple of threads:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1254492
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1271993
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1266669
