I am not a Disney defender, but I have a sad theory about the CC tier levels. It won't be popular. I guess Platinum used to have a bunch of perks that have gone away, like tours and receptions, etc. But those were to reward a relative small number of guests who had demonstrated loyalty in the early years of
DCL. I have sometimes felt that DCL was being cheap by taking away perks, but there are too many Platinums now for some things to be realistic. How do you give bridge tours (or Palo dinners) to every Platinum on a cruise that is half full of platinums? How do you let all Platinums board early at the same time if there are 2000 or even 1000 of them? Maybe they have to move some perks (like port arrival) from Platinum to Pearl just to be practical.
No, I don't like it.
I wonder how the number of Pearl's now compares to the number of Platinums, say, ten years ago.