Rainforest Room Passes: multiple single day vs length of cruise (Dream & Fantasy) About This Page:

[Starwind]

Alright fellow Passporters, I am reaching out to you because I reached out to DCL via email and the response I got back did not in any way, shape or form answer my questions. Yes, I am sending them another email, but I am hoping with your collective wisdom I may get an answer here faster and perhaps more accurate :-)

Last fall we (sister and I) sailed on the Fantasy and purchased the on-board length-of-cruise couples Rainforest Room Pass. We loved the Room, most especially the heated chairs. I spent a LOT of time on those heated chairs. To be honest, I think I only used the showers of the Room maybe twice (once to try them, the second time because I thought I should since we had the pass...). And the hot tubs two or three times. It was all about the chairs :-) Did I mention the chairs ?? I even fell asleep on one once. I found it great for cuddling down with my tablet and reading. The sunsets were pretty spectacular, too (and nicely sheltered from the wind). We used it at least once a day, every day.

Ok, enough about my love for the heated chairs.

My real reason for coming to you.

I got home and I did some math. And I realized that it LOOKS LIKE a person would do a lot better $-wise by just buying enough pre-purchase single day passes to cover off each day than to buy the on board length of cruise pass. And we are not talking a few dollars. I was a little miffed.

This December we are doing a B2B on the Disney Dream: 3 night followed by a 4 night. So I ran the math again. The Rainforest Room (RR) pass numbers come from a September 2015 Navigator (via the DisneyCruiseLineBlog site's Personal Navigator repository: Personal Navigators Thank You!!).

Here goes:

According to recent Navigators, the price of the "Rainforest Deluxe cruise Pass" for the 3 night Dream is: couples $102 and singles $69. For the 4 night the price is couples $144 singles $101.

To before-the-cruise-pre-purchase single day RR passes:

$16 x 3 days = $48 and * 2 people = $96
this is still less than the $102 couples price for the onboard pass, and quite a difference from the singles $69 price.
(savings of multiple single days:: $6 from couples; $21 from single)

$16 x 4 days = $64 and * 2 people = $128
this is an even bigger amount less than the couples $144 pass and even greater for the singles $101 price.
(savings of multiple single days: $16 from couples; $37 from single)

(notes:
- yes, there is something like 18% gratuity on both types of passes; I am ignoring it to make the math simpler; it actually makes the price difference even greater;

- 3 night cruise gets 3 day passes since the last day (leaving day) the RR is closed to departing guests as we eat breakfast and get politely kicked off the ship; likewise 4 night = 4 day passes )


It appears on the surface that just buying each person 3 and 4 RR single day passes is a cost savings over the "cruise pass".

You would save even more if you were a party of 2 where one person wanted every day and the other only some days and you purchased single day passses accordingly (if my math is correct and confirmed by you guys, we may do this as my sister grumbled something about not wanting the heater chairs... I mean the RR each day... I must have heard her wrong though!!).


Passporters:

What am I not understanding ?

What is the difference(s) between the pre-purchased single day passes and the onboard cruise pass, other than the considerable cost savings of buying single day passes ?

If we purchase multiple single day passes are we guaranteed to be able to use them on the days we want to (i.e. every day) ?? I know with the RR cruise pass you are guaranteed to be able to use the RR whenever you want that the RR is open (unless at a given specific moment they were to hit their legal safe occupancy capacity of course, then you can come back later).

Are there other options ?

The RR cruise pass is a "deluxe" pass. What does "Deluxe" mean ? Is there is anon-deluxe and presumably less expensive cruise pass ? If so, what is the difference ?


Thanks for your help in clarifying this mystery and hopefully helping us save some $.

SW

[chezp]

My understanding, and I may be wrong here, is that you can only pre-purchase a one-day pass for the Rainforest before you board. Then once you're on board, you can purchase more days, if there's any availability left. They only do a limited number of passes and as soon as they reach the quota of length of cruise passes, that's it, they don't sell anymore. I know on previous cruises, that quota has been reached on day one, so I assume at that point, they don't sell any further one-day passes.

[Starwind]

Yep that is my understanding as well -- the one day passes have to be pre-purchased before you board. I don't think you can buy one day passes on board ship, but am not 100% sure about that.

And they have a limit to the number of length of cruise passes they sell on board; we got ours on the Fantasy right away after boarding (it was the first thing we went and did) so were fine; I am not sure when they "ran out" of the alloted number they sell, nor how many they sell per cruise.

I have no problem with pre-buying multiple one day passes, especially if it will save us money, since we know we will use the RR each day.

But I am concerned that I am not understanding something fundamental about how either the one day passes work or the difference between what one gets with them vs the cruise pass.

SW

[Amy L]

This is a great post, thank you! I have been wondering about this myself. On our last cruise (2/15) we pre-purchased day passes and then once onboard upgraded to the Cruise Pass for the length of our cruise. It seemed like the upgraded pass was more to me, but I didn't take the time to do the math. For this cruise, we spent a lot of time in the spa and had a couple of treatments each so my spa bill was already considerably more than in the past. I didn't want to delve too deeply into what I had spent there. I think the "deluxe" part is that you get the exfoliating scrubs for free, but not completely sure about that.

For the past couple of cruises, I have called DCL directly and have always been able to pre-purchase Rainforest passes for as many days as I wanted. For last February, I purchased 4 days for my husband and I each. I did this as I was worried that the daily passes would be sold out once onboard and wanted to at least secure 4 days worth.

[Amy L]

Ok I just re-read your initial post and see that my initial information did not do much to answer your question! Sorry, I was up most of last night with a sick child so my brain is a little foggy today. Let me try again.

The only time we upgraded to the length of cruise pass was this past Feb. For our other cruises, we pre-purchased the individual days, always more than one pass and more than one day. I did not notice any difference between the pre-purchased daily passes and the deluxe length of cruise pass. With the daily passes we were able to go whenever we wanted without question and we had full use of everything. Hope this helps a little better.

[Starwind]

Originally Posted by Amy L

This is a great post, thank you! I have been wondering about this myself. On our last cruise (2/15) we pre-purchased day passes and then once onboard upgraded to the Cruise Pass for the length of our cruise. It seemed like the upgraded pass was more to me, but I didn't take the time to do the math. For this cruise, we spent a lot of time in the spa and had a couple of treatments each so my spa bill was already considerably more than in the past. I didn't want to delve too deeply into what I had spent there. I think the "deluxe" part is that you get the exfoliating scrubs for free, but not completely sure about that.

For the past couple of cruises, I have called DCL directly and have always been able to pre-purchase Rainforest passes for as many days as I wanted. For last February, I purchased 4 days for my husband and I each. I did this as I was worried that the daily passes would be sold out once onboard and wanted to at least secure 4 days worth.

For us scrubs would be worthless as we are both very allergic to them so couldn't use them. And we have had one trip on a DCL cruise to the medical center for an allergic reaction -- they were great, but: NO MORE !! :-)

Good to know wthat we can actually pre-purchase for as many days as desired, a little part of me wondered if they limited you :-)

SW

[Starwind]

Originally Posted by Amy L

Ok I just re-read your initial post and see that my initial information did not do much to answer your question! Sorry, I was up most of last night with a sick child so my brain is a little foggy today. Let me try again.

The only time we upgraded to the length of cruise pass was this past Feb. For our other cruises, we pre-purchased the individual days, always more than one pass and more than one day. I did not notice any difference between the pre-purchased daily passes and the deluxe length of cruise pass. With the daily passes we were able to go whenever we wanted without question and we had full use of everything. Hope this helps a little better.

Foggy is allowed.

Glad to know you were able to use the one day passes when you wanted. I think that is one of my bigger concerns, that they would say "sorry, you only have a day pass and we have hit our day pass limit for the day today... if you had a cruise pass you could still use the RR" or something similar...

SW

[Starwind]

We sailed back to back cruises on the Dream Dec 11-14 and Dec 14-18 2015.

I took a picture of the Rainforest Room length of cruise passes sign in the spa on the first day of each cruise. Here is the info from the signs (first part on both signs is the same; only difference are the pricing lines):

Rainforest

Tropic Showers,
Warm Ceramic Loungers,
Steam Hamam, Warm Sauna,
& Traditional Steam Room

3 Day Singles Cruise Pass - $42
3 Day Singles Deluxe Pass - $69
3 Day Couples Cruise Pass - $75
3 Day Couples Deluxe Pass - $102

====

4 Day Singles Cruise Pass - $56
4 Day Singles Deluxe Pass - $101
4 Day Couples Cruise Pass - $99
4 Day Couples Deluxe Pass - $144

=====

The Deluxe passes include scrubs, the other passes do not. There is an additional 18% automatic gratuity added to the above costs.

After calling to order multiple day passes in advance, the CM we spoke to convinced me to buy a pass and day passes on board. I am glad we waited until we were on board -- my sister in the end decided she did not want any rainforest room, so we only bought the cruise pass for me; and it is cheaper than 3 and 4 day passes (see math in previous post).

SW

[Amy L]

Originally Posted by Starwind

We sailed back to back cruises on the Dream Dec 11-14 and Dec 14-18 2015.

I took a picture of the Rainforest Room length of cruise passes sign in the spa on the first day of each cruise. Here is the info from the signs (first part on both signs is the same; only difference are the pricing lines):

Rainforest

Tropic Showers,
Warm Ceramic Loungers,
Steam Hamam, Warm Sauna,
& Traditional Steam Room

3 Day Singles Cruise Pass - $42
3 Day Singles Deluxe Pass - $69
3 Day Couples Cruise Pass - $75
3 Day Couples Deluxe Pass - $102

====

4 Day Singles Cruise Pass - $56
4 Day Singles Deluxe Pass - $101
4 Day Couples Cruise Pass - $99
4 Day Couples Deluxe Pass - $144

=====

The Deluxe passes include scrubs, the other passes do not. There is an additional 18% automatic gratuity added to the above costs.

After calling to order multiple day passes in advance, the CM we spoke to convinced me to buy a pass and day passes on board. I am glad we waited until we were on board -- my sister in the end decided she did not want any rainforest room, so we only bought the cruise pass for me; and it is cheaper than 3 and 4 day passes (see math in previous post).

SW

I hope you had a wonderful cruise! I'm so happy you came back and posted this information. We are headed out in just a few weeks to sail on the Dream. I had decided not to "pre-order" the passes this time and just see what I felt like doing once on board. I am definitely not getting the deluxe pass. Yowser - $45 extra just for that little plastic baggy of scrubs??

How is the Dream after being in dry dock?

[Starwind]

Originally Posted by Amy L

I hope you had a wonderful cruise! I'm so happy you came back and posted this information. We are headed out in just a few weeks to sail on the Dream. I had decided not to "pre-order" the passes this time and just see what I felt like doing once on board. I am definitely not getting the deluxe pass. Yowser - $45 extra just for that little plastic baggy of scrubs??

How is the Dream after being in dry dock?

We had a great cruise (cruises, b2b) -- 7 days is definitely the minimum we like for a cruise :-)

One note for buying a day pass on board -- I asked in case my sister wanted to get one; they said we would need to know when we bought it on board which day she was going to use it (not something we would know the first day...). The length of cruise pass of course doesn't matter since you can use it every day.

Scarily, by the third day they knew my last name and greeted me by it when I walked up to the counter to check in.

We enjoyed the changes to the Dream -- we went to one of the open house times for the kids clubs and walked through them and took a good look at the Star Wars/Millenium Falcon area and thought it was pretty cool and too bad we weren't kids anymore; the new Satellite Falls was neat, but the water was cold - not sure if that is intentional or not. We walked through the sweet shop by Cabanas but didn't buy anything, but it looked neat and there is a good selection of ice creams and toppings.

While were on the second cruise there was a film crew on board filming different areas with actors. They filmed the sweet shop one morning during breakfast (so it looked open with CMs there and all, but was actually closed to everyone but the film crew and their actors; they shot the same scene a number of different times and did multiple scenes with different groups of actors). One night at 0'dark something I found them in the spa filming (we were on deck 9 fwd so i walked up the 2 flights of stairs to deck 11 to go to the beverage dispenser thing on deck 11, which means walking past the spa entrance at the top of the stairs... they were not too far inside and you could see their lights and equipment and some humans).

Bottom line: we really liked the cruise, wish it could have been longer, and have decided we like 7+ day cruises, that 3 and 4 nights are too short on their own. :-)


SW

[apk]

We are taking our 10th Disney cruise in Feb on the Fantasy and I'm sorry to say I did not learn of the pre purchase day pass trick until my 9th cruise. In the past I had purchased the length of cruise pass. It's my favorite place on the ship. That said, I do not like the Fantasy's nearly as much as the classic ships. The ocean view was nice, but the winds on sea days (when you want to relax the most!) caused the sliding glass doors to whistle which was incredibly annoying. The hot tubs were out of service for most of the cruise and the stone floors were incredibly painful on bare feet. The class rainforest rooms are smaller but darker, thus more relaxing to me. P,is, let's face it, most people do not use the pass on the first day nor the last night when you are packing, so I buy less days and save tons of money. I don't like the scented scrubs and can bring my own if I want, which is like a $40 savings right there! Best kept secret for sure.