September 4th (2004) Disney Magic Cruise List

[gottaluvdisney]

I used to work for a credit card company and it is normal that credits take longer than debits. A credit to your credit card should take no longer than 10 days.

They say two billing cycles, because it depends on when your credit card statements are cut and sent to you.

So, for example, if they issue the credit and it is posted to your credit card on say Sept. 12, but your credit card statement was cut and sent on Sept. 11 when you get it in the mail, it will not show on that statement. Hence the term "two billing cycles"

I would give them 10 days and call you credit card company and verify that it is there. If not then call DCL back.

 

[alexandrew]

I appreciate your info....I used my debit card, a visa check card, linked directly to my checking account ,vs a bank issued credit card...

Nevertheless, in light of this whole mess, I think DCL should, as they say, "find a way,make a way"to expedite my refund...I think they are really adding fuel to an already inflammatory situation...

 

[LuvTravelToo]

Has anyone heard where the Magic is planning to return on Saturday? From what I can find out on the web Disney thinks they are going to return to Port Canaveral. Most other sources think Port Canaveral will be closed through the weekend. Thanks for any information you could provide as I'm sailing on Saturday and still trying to figure out where to go...

Thanks,
Greg

 

[rae519]

Ready for a good laugh.


I got charged DOUBLE $147 for Disney transfers this week. For the cruise I didn't take.....

Rae

 

[Doctor P]

I'm in a calculating, not mad, mood at this point. I really want to figure out what the whole bottom line is going to be for us with driving to Florida through Frances for an ultimately aborted cruise. I have a lot of patience with DCL and am being sure to consider that hindsight is 20/20, but I will be writing a carefully worded but strong and objective letter to DCL about the whole process we went through. The more I think about it, I think Dreams may also get a friendly letter thanking them for their help, but also encouraging them to help us plan a future cruise.

 

[Cinjewel]

Heck, I never got a single phone call from DCL! I waited as long as I could, then called them.
I, too, was told it would take 2 months to get our $$$ back. So, we rebooked....got a lower catagory and still had to pay more $$$! It wasnt' alot of $$$, but that's not really the point.
I'm just disappointed with the lack of information and communication. Everytime I called DCL to tell them of cancelled flights, they'd encourage me to continue with the cruise. All they'd say is "The cruise is still going. You can get another flight! Delta has to get you down here!" After dealing with all this junk and getting no sleep because of the worrying, I cancelled. I just couldn't take it anymore.
This was to be my family's first cruise with DCL...it may be the last.
Cindy

 

[paulmc80]

We're on the 9/7/04 cruise.

As of Noon today the captain said they have been cleared to dock at Port Canaveral and we should be getting in there at 0600 hours.

He said we are far from Ivan. There may be some changes in ports for the 9/11/04 cruise, so anyone on that may want to check it out.

Rae - Charged double for the port transfers? Oh man, I guess I shouldn't have told them we were you guys. Sorry! Nah, I'm only kidding. I wonder what I was charged myself. Never seen lines like these at Guest Services at all hours its so long! Makes me shiver. lol

 

[rae519]

Paul - My Big Kahuna! So good to get your email and I am glad you and Kaye got your time together - sounds like this was a horrific time for so many and you both did commendable well to survive it!!!

Also, I started a thread notifying people that Disney wouldn't let cruisers on the Magic rebook. Guess you will be waiting for your 25% off voucher for as long as we will be waiting for our refund!

Don't hold your breath!!!

Rae

 

[rae519]

Originally posted by Doctor P
I'm in a calculating, not mad, mood at this point. I really want to figure out what the whole bottom line is going to be for us with driving to Florida through Frances for an ultimately aborted cruise. I have a lot of patience with DCL and am being sure to consider that hindsight is 20/20, but I will be writing a carefully worded but strong and objective letter to DCL about the whole process we went through. The more I think about it, I think Dreams may also get a friendly letter thanking them for their help, but also encouraging them to help us plan a future cruise.

Glad you posted this, Doctor P. We are doing the same thing. I still can't get over how they were to many of us. And it's almost laughable now to think they were enticing us to travel during a major Hurricane!

Rae

 

[WILDCATMICKEY]

I called DCL and my TA on Tuesday just to make sure everything done and said on Monday night was the same. DCL did tell me that I should see a refund in 20 to 30 days. I check my VISA company daily, so when it hits I will post here so everyone can start looking. I plan to write my letter to the Presidant of DCL, copying customer service. He needs to know the severity of the problems we all encountered.

Rea, DCL keep saying they did not want to put anyone in Harms Way, but they were not going to cancel this cruise and kept telling everyone they would be able to get to the Port. They just failed to tell which Port.

 

[rae519]

I'm just glad that no one was killed trying to get there. We may be disappointed in many things, but thank God we are alive to complain about it!!!

Rae

 

[WILDCATMICKEY]

I agree.

 

[ganurse]

we are back. just wanted to say hello. actually the days before we left, disney called us 3-4 times a day and then dreams unlimited called. I still think there should have been better communication

 

[TexasGirl]

Welcome back GaNurse. I agree with the majority. Even though in the end my particular family was treated fairly rebooking wise. I am VERY thankful for that...but most others were not. The communication was also poor. Finally, It was reckless of them to urge folks to enter an area to be evacuated, etc etc.

But you're right. Thank God no one was injured trying to make the boat.

I'm glad you had fun GaNurse and will for sure read your trip report.

 

[Doctor P]

Now I AM starting to get angry. Dreams did not call us a SINGLE time (got two or three emails, though) and Disney only called us once, on Thursday September 3, despite having updated contact information. In fact, we stayed up late on September 5 waiting for a call or an email (3 hours at least after their announcement on the website) that never came (Dreams emailed one-half hour after we went to bed).

 

[Ga_friend]

For those of you that cancelled - you probably made the right choice. All in all I don't think it was worth all the aggravation. I don't know if it was the stress of the whole situation or what - but this cruise did not live up to the past 3 Disney cruises we had taken. I was very disappointed and feel that I still need a vacation.

The characters were not as prevalant as in past and the one day we were in port - which I could do without and had no plans of leaving ship - the pools were closed. I was nice and sunny - compared to the rain we experienced the day before - and we couldn't swim. Not being able to go to Castaway Cay (not their fault) was also a big part I missed.

I don't know what to say - I am probably just finally letting myself collapse after all the stress - but we probably won't do another Disney Cruise. To top it off - the Wonder 4-day cruisers got a 40% discount and all that we got - and they still got a 4-day cruise. Go figure! I think we should be receiving more off. We paid about what a 4 day cruise costs.

To end on a positive note - the comedians were GREAT!!

 

[paulmc80]

What I was expecting - our most disappointing DCL cruise thus far. More because of the administrative problems than anything else, like not receiving our $200 onboard re-booking credit credit. Ship didn't have it, but DCL reservations did. They are "researching" it and will credit back my cc. Many other little admin things. Probably spent about 3 hours in Guest Services lines troubleshooting this stuff. Not fun .. but oh well, what I figured would happen with all their changes. lol

We're here at WDW now staying at the Pop Century. Been fun so far and crowds are light.

Seriously looking at writing two letters to DCL One commending the employees in FL showing up on Monday morning to assist us, and another letter asking them how their administratives systems on the ship and on land can have contradicting information - or lack of information.

 

[CRSNDSNY]

First I want to say that I'm sorry to those of you who decided to cruise that it wasn't as magical as you had hoped. Some of your complaints are many of the reasons we decided to cancel afterall. I will let you all know when our account is credited with the refund. I will check at home later tonight to see if I was doubly-charged for transfers, as well.

We ended up visiting Disney anyway with INCREDIBLY light crowds. We checked into the Wilderness Lodge standard room last Wednesday and checked out yesterday. We originally didn't have a view but after a few major problems with our room on the first night, we were switched to a room with a fabulous view overlooking the lake, pool and geyser. It was beautiful. Some things we enjoyed during this trip were dinner at the Crystal Palace, Wishes, Fantasmic TWICE, Wolfgang Puck's for lunch, the best and most active Kilamanjaro Safari we've ever had, and a great dinner at Beaches n' Cream. We actually caught a flight much earlier than planned home yesterday, we missed our dogs and (I can't believe I'm going to say this) are TOTALLY DISNEY-D OUT! We really didn't anticipate a trip to Disney and really incredibly totally missed being on the cruise. This was my 4th trip to Disney in less than a year. I was looking for a change of pace.

I think next time we'll stick to December and January...perhaps in the future we'd book a September cruise again. But I was really looking forward to Palo, Castaway Cay, a massage, the Rainforest.... It just wasn't what we had hoped for.

 

[pogopossum]

howdy all!

i won't bore you with all the details, but we got home sat eve, and now i've finished all the washing and still emptying suitcases and hanging up unused clothes,

the cruise was fun after we got on and got admin problems worked out. paul, that may have been my family crying that you saw.

we perservered and had a good time with fam and friends, although we lost one family on tues, due to changes and a fallout with other friends during storm. a very trying five days prior to sailing. after this if it comes up again, i am booking a resort under one roof, we were at coro spr, as the restaurants were closed and we were sort of restricted to our rooms.

one nice thing about shortened cruise and $200 credi was that we didn't overspend on the ship and that income tax refund will be able to pay some other cred card debt.

as to experience with dcl, i'll be joining in the letter parade, although mine may be as long as a tom clancy novel when i'm done. why did they ask for contact info and never use it? why were the stories never the same twice? i imagined a roomful of pinocchio's answering phones at dcl at one point.

we love the cruise and the ship and will use our rebook credit next year, but i feel that due to a lot of factors involved, the least of which is frances itself, credit needs to be at least 50%, other lines are doing that for the same reason.

i'll give thre details of the whole exp in a trip report, but i did enjoy meeting the ones of you that i met, i looked over tues night at lumiere's and there were jason and travis two tables away, eating with windermere, and thurs night at herc we were seated behind ganurse and dh, and next night at dreams sat next to mostyn17, everyone had their war stories, but were in better spirits on board. i' sorry that i didn't get to meet up with the others of you, although i probably walked by paulm on the internet once or twice and didn't know it.

i'm glad everyone got there and back in one piece and that the storm didn't do more damage to life than it did.

maybe we'll meet up on the rebook!

 

[Ga_friend]

I am with you on the administrative nightmare, Paul. Imagine looking for 10 rooms that should have had the booking credits on them.

I think I stood at Guest Services for 3 hour intervals, daily..... I did manage to ask for the same girl every time, since she understood what was going on. That was $2000 we were missing that we had to spend. I wanted to make sure we had it, before we spent it. We got our Castaway Gifts the last night (totally forgot about that) - they had forgotten about us, too.

Well, I'll stop complaining, it was more relaxing than life is now - now that we are home. So much to do, so little time - my mantra!

Glad everyone is home safe - maybe we can meet on another cruise - when it is not hurricane season.

Have a great week!!!!

Jonl