The Orlando Sentinel takes a deep dive into the numbers behind Disney’s latest ships, the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy. Although Disney doesn’t provide occupancy numbers, some rough figures can be estimated based on the passenger figures provided by the port. Both ships have approximately 1,250 rooms with many rooms capable of sleeping more than 2 guests. However, Port Canaveral reports occupancy rates as if 2 guests per room was 100%. Since Disney is primarily a family cruise line, both ships are above 100% occupancy when using that figure.
The Disney Fantasy averaged 132.7 percent occupancy during its first three months of operation, while the Disney Dream averaged 152.1 percent during its first three months. There are plenty of good reasons for this difference. First off, the Dream was the first of its class ship, which historically attracts more bookings. Then there is the different in length of cruises making the Fantasy cruises more expensive and, therefore, more likely to be booked by couples and not families who would have to take their children out of school for a longer period of time.
Disney, for its part, says it is very happy with the Disney Fantasy’s performance and particularly happy with the guest satisfaction ratings. While I have heard that some good cast member rates are being offered for the Disney Fantasy, so far no other major discounts are available.
Having been on both the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy, I have to saw that the Fantasy is clearly the better ship. There’s more to do, more days on ship, and lots of little details have been improved since the Dream was launched. I don’t think Disney has anything to worry about with either ship.
(via Orlando Sentinel)
They sell all of the staterooms for each and every cruise – the Sentinel talks about how Disney will not offer discounts, even if that means leaving staterooms empty – and then they say that ther are no empty staterooms… The latter statement is true – there are simply more couples on the Fantasy, less families with 4 or even 5 persons. So this is clearly a non-issue (as you have pointed out). Too bad, no Pulitzer for the Sentinel…
I was happy for the analysis from the Sentinel. I just think there is too little data to draw conclusions
A better indicator is the availability of discounts – which DO exist. There have been very few promotions offered, including a DVC member promotion for the Disney Fantasy in June. Cast Member space-available discounts are the biggest way DCL fills the last rooms in the ships, and they have been virtually nonexistent for the Disney Fantasy.
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