Disney Cruise Line will reveal their next batch of sail dates on Thursday, September 27, 2018 via a #DisneyParksLIVE stream hosted by Mark Daniels. In today’s live stream announcement, Disney teases a new new homeport. The event will begin at 11 AM EST on Thursday.
Below is the link to the live stream.
If recent Miami-Dade County documents are remain accurate, Disney Cruise Line plans to continue the Disney Magic sailings from PortMiami in early 2020 with the Eastbound Transatlantic scheduled for May 11, 2020. I doubt DCL would move the Dream or Fantasy before the new ships arrive, leading me to believe the Disney Wonder will be venturing out to a new homeport in early 2020. As of the last itinerary release, the Wonder is scheduled in Galveston into mid-January. The next new sail date for the Wonder would be January 13, 2020 which could be a repositioning cruise to the new homeport. Although, she could remain in Galveston into March depending on how one interprets the Grand Cayman calendar.
There are a lot of place the Disney Wonder could go and it is everyone’s guess at this point. However, I’d be remiss if I did not bring up an old rumor of New Orleans. Back in 2013, officials from the Port of New Orleans met with executives from Disney Cruise Line in an attempt to sell New Orleans as a new homeport. For further reading while we all speculate on the new homeport, Port of New Orleans’ CEO, Brandy Christian, was instrumental in bringing DCL to San Diego while serving as the as the Vice President of strategy and business development for the Port of San Diego.
What new port of call do you think Disney Cruise Line will be sailing from in 2020?
Hmmmm possible foreshadowing with the addition of Tiana’s Place??
Guess I should cruise her out of PC in Feb if I am going to. I seem to be the only person on earth who does not get the big deal about New Orleans.
Agree…It does not make sense!
It’s anyone’s guess at this point, but with the Wonder sails at capacity every sailing from Galveston it does not make since moving her. My guess would be the announcement of year-round sailing from Galveston starting 2020. I say that based on an article I recently read about the Port Of Galveston wanting to increase the amount of DCL sailings. POG and RCCL are in negotiations to build a new terminal (hinted… but not yet announced) which will free up terminal 2 for Fridays and Sundays departures. The Port of Galveston is the 4th busiest cruise port the US, which is another reson why it does not make sense to leave for New Orleans, but only my opinion.
This is my hope, as we are in Texas. 🙂
There’s no way they’ll sail year-round from Galveston, at least not as early as 2020. The new ships won’t begin arriving until the following year, which would mean DCL would have no west coast/Alaska presence in 2020. The Dream and Fantasy won’t venture out of PC until the new ships arrive, and both are too tall to sail under the Bridge of the Americas to reach the west coast, and the Magic will be heading off to Europe again. There’s no slack in the fleet to do it.
What I meant to say was extending sailing from Galveston and eventually going year-round once more ships come on line. I do not think Disney wants to repeat their mistake from 2012 allowing RCCL to come in behind them and losing the ability to depart from Galveston on the weekend.
I Believe the Magic will head to pc and the Dream to Miami. I think Disney wants to see how bigger ships do in Miami. as far as the new homeport, Tampa bay or Baltimore are possible. the reason I do not believe Disney will sail out of New Orleans is because that city is not as family friendly as other Disney homeport city.
I would love to see DCL at Baltimore. They could sponsor “The Wire” excursion.
West coast… San Diego
I wish this would happen…although.. I’d be in trouble if it did happen! Lol!!
Yes, more west coast sailings would be amazing!
So I’ve heard that pricing is cheapest when sailings are first opened for booking. Is that true, and if so, roughly how much more expensive do they get six months or six weeks out?
It depends on the popularity of the sailing, but opening day is typically the best price. You can take a look at the pricing trends with the TouringPlans.com DCL Fare Tracker.
I hope we are not losing the Wonder permanently in San Diego!! I have sailed on her 4 times out of San Diego because it is so convenient to not have to fly to Florida or anywhere else. I would be excited to book a cruise that departed from New Orleans but would probably only ever do it once. I don’t see New Orleans as a place I would want to visit more than once, especially with kids. I hope we will still have a ship in San Diego and would love for them to cruise to Hawaii. I can only go to Mexico so many times!
My guess would be that Los Angeles becomes the new homeport. Why L.A. ? Because since yesterday it seems you can choose In-room gifts and amenities for cruises leaving Los Angeles here: https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/gifts-and-amenities/
Los Angeles is not yet listed as a departure port but there are also no other cruises scheduled from L.A. – so why would you want to choose gifts for such cruises if there are none ? L.A. has to become a homeport for some cruises because of that….
Disney used “first-ever cruises from the port of …” this rules out LA as the mystery homeport for this release.
Hope West Coast wont be left out.
I see this going several possible ways. Wonder could go to Tampa. It’s close to the western Caribbean, such as Grand Cayman, while also close enough to offer Bahamas sailings and obviously Key West included, which would be very similar itineraries to what the Magic is doing from Miami in winter 2019. But if Wonder skips San Juan and the southern Caribbean cruises, then a ship would have to fill that spot. They always sell out and are coveted. It’s logical that the Magic would cover for the Wonder there since they are very similar in size, etc. However, I’ve always thought Fantasy from San Juan to the southern Caribbean is a bucket list cruise, so that’s a possibility. With that being said, it is unlikely that the Magic would go from Miami to San Juan then back to Miami for the transatlantic. This supports the Fantasy going to San Juan theory. Finally, DCL’s agreement with New York at 200,000 passengers per year through 2022 shows that Dream or Fantasy will have to be sent there sometime soon, and they can use Brooklyn or Manhattan. If I am not mistaken, Brooklyn would be a new homeport. So there are many theories but we’ll just wait and see which one is correct!