What deals or windfall have you ever gotten from DCL

[Snowwhyt]

I know that some have secured great deals with misprinted offers on DCL opening day rates. Others have gotten $200 or $300 from DVC raffle or $500+ from bingo.
I want to hear how you were lucky!
Pure windfall.
Because I CAN NOT handle one more... I think you get the picture.
I want to hear about your pixie dust. I definitely want to know how you made some strangers day better. I want good news that will carry us through the next two weeks.
I’ll start:
I won $300 at bingo and at another game a (Big white guy-Baymax?) and we walked out onto deck 4 after and found a child with their parents and asked if we could give the child our prize. I’d like to think they payed it forward but that’s not important if they did or not.

 

[TestingH2O]

This whole morning with Woody. My daughter had taken to signing her own name after the characters. Woody proceeded to draw pictures with her and put a Sheriff Star over the i in her name. You get the idea. Then he played with her a bit and pretended he was Rex. It was an amazing interaction.

 

[n2mm]

I won the dvc onboard $200 credit last year.

Not sure if this is a windfall, but got 25% off a future cruise because our September 2017 cruise was canceled last year.

 

[com_op_2000]

These are my most memorable moments from DCLs:

Went on the Magic the very first year of service back in '98. Everyone was checking in but no one was getting in-line, this was back before the boarding numbers. I told DW that at a certain time if no one was going to start the line I would. At that time I went to the head of the line, DW had the video running, and you should see the line form, people running from all over the terminal to get in-line. DW and I were the first people introduced on that cruise.
Anytime we want a good laugh, we bring up that video.

At CC-SB, DW is on a raft about 20 yards out, I take the camera and start walking out to take her picture. I see all the little fishes scatter, look around and see a 2-3 foot Black Tip Shark swimming around. DW is using her hands to move the raft creating small splashes. The shark turns toward her, I tell DW to stop cause I see a shark. What does DW do? She jumps off the raft causing a bigger splash! I have to run to get between her and the shark.

For our 25th anniversary someone put up decorations on our door announcing our celebration to everyone else onboard. We do not have any idea who did this. We came back from breakfast the second day of a seven day cruise and there they were. What a surprise and a welcome pixiedust moment.

On one cruise we were upgraded from an inside to OV room, no charge. This cruise was booked on DVC points. We did not find out about the upgrade until we got in the room. When our luggage arrived they still had the tags from our previous inside room on them.

DW & I, DD & DSonnL were all married the same week, years apart in February.
We booked a DCL to celebrate our anniversaries over a year in advanced; DD’s room on cash, DW & I’s on DVC points.
While we were at SW’s Sharks! Restaurant celebrating MiL’s 90th birthday in November with 4 other families; we got to talking about cruises and we mentioned ours was upcoming.
Low and behold someone starting looking at the DCL website and found a veranda room available and booked it, then stated we are crashing your cruise. Then what did two of the other families do, but booked the same thing. Another family had to go home and do some financial planning but booked another room within a week. Now we have 6 rooms with 14 people going that will be celebrating two anniversaries and two birthdays (two of those 4 families have birthday celebrations that same week).

 

[ludari]

I once won $300 shipboard credit at the DVC raffle and used the money to tip various cast members very generously.

 

[cgolf]

In our 12 cruises nothing out of the ordinary happened that was done by DCL. Just lots of great memories.

On our Hawaii cruise however one of our neighbors had extra FE stuff and they provided us with some goodies that we still have displayed in our shadow box we made from that trip. Also seeing random acts of kindness between passengers has provided memories I won't forget.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Years ago the Panama Canal bookings on board came with a 20% discount because it was a reposition Cruise! What a bargain!

Won the DVC $200 raffle.

 

[deide71]

On our first cruise we booked 2 category 12s (now 11Cs I think) for our family of 5 and were upgraded to connecting category 9 OV on deck 2.

We booked a 7 night Southern for January 2016 opening day that had a pricing glitch. $799 pp for OV staterooms on deck 2.

 

[andrencau]

My wife won the final jackpot of BINGO. Around $5000

 

[n2mm]

My wife won the final jackpot of BINGO. Around $5000

Ding, ding, ding, We have a winner!


Though when I posted earlier, I forgot to mention I got a free 3 night cruise when I added on a dvc contract for bay lake tower!

 

[Steve Dexter]

My wife won final jackpot bingo too in December on the Dream. Only $2,500, but we were sooooo happy. We insisted on giving $100 to the bingo team, it was hard, we went back and forth and they finally agreed to take it and use it for the whole group for a party. So weird how they give you cash, it felt just like Las Vegas, W-2G and all.

 

[dcassetta]

I once won $300 shipboard credit at the DVC raffle and used the money to tip various cast members very generously.

The one time I played Bingo, I won $122 and it all went out in tips.

 

[dznyacct]

On two out of our five DCL cruises, we booked a cat 12 and received a free upgrade to cat 9. One on cruise we were lucky enough to score a beloved secret porthole cabin .

 

[jrabbit]

Won an original drawing (saw him draw it in front of us) from Donald "Ducky" Williams.

One man's rough sketch is another families AWESOME Souvenir!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Won an original drawing (saw him draw it in front of us) from Donald "Ducky" Williams.

One man's rough sketch is another families AWESOME Souvenir!

That reminds me, won Thumper drawn by Stacia Martin on a TA!

Won Pooh drawn by Alex Maher on DVC Member Cruise.

 

[cgolf]

Just remembered, on the inaugural Hawaii cruise, during Ducky Williams talk where he draws the sketches, my wife remarked that wouldn't it be cool if we one eeyore because that is my daughters favorite character. Well we now have a framed sketch of eeyore because our number was drawn at the right time

 

[bobbiwoz]

I actually won Mickey, but a fellow cruiser won Pooh, and she was unhappy. She was so happy when I offered to trade!

 

[LeslieG]

On our first cruise we booked 2 category 12s (now 11Cs I think) for our family of 5 and were upgraded to connecting category 9 OV on deck 2.

We booked a 7 night Southern for January 2016 opening day that had a pricing glitch. $799 pp for OV staterooms on deck 2.

We got in on that glitch also. That was awesome.

 

[arlopop]

I won $342 at Bingo. Not much, but we were walking by and on a whim said, “what the heck?” It essentially went towards an OBB deposit.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

I won our first cruise in 2003 by winning the top prize in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game when it was at Disney Hollywood Studios. This was a 3-night Bahamas cruise on the Wonder. We had to take it within one year, and I had to figure out how to make the timing work because most of the available dates were all low season when I could not cruise because of my teaching schedule. We also wanted to take along DS and DD, so there was the additional factor of working with their schedules. Finally, we found a date that would work in October 2004, just one week prior to the one-year deadline. DS had scheduling flexibility but DD (also a teacher) and I wanted to do this over the Columbus day holiday so as not to cause a problem with our school commitments. We also paid the difference in cost to upgrade from the game prize stateroom, a cat. 9, to a cat. 4. We figured it was still a good deal, since we were getting round-trip air, port transfers, and gratuities for up to four family members included as part of the prize package. Well, about six weeks prior to the cruise, DCL canceled our booking. I think there was a whole-ship charter or some such. They did allow us to rebook on the cruise two weeks later, actually one week past the one-year deadline. Alas, DW could not join us, since the cruise no longer coincided with a holiday weekend for her teaching and coaching schedule. I taught at a university, so I was able to arrange for colleagues to cover proctoring of some tests that I scheduled so I could leave town, and DS was able to join us. The surprise was that DCL refunded our prepaid upgrade charges about a month after we returned home, crediting the credit card account I had used to pay it. When I received the 1099 tax form for the value of the cruise, it was for just the amount we would have paid if we sailed in a cat. 9 rather than the cat. 4 we occupied, so that was another nice surprise.