As someone who was on the Fantasy when they cut the cruise short, I want to throw down what I think went wrong and what possible fixes are.
Cancelling the cruise was not the wrong decision, how Disney handles it is.
The captain announced during our dinner the cruise being canceled, the refund and the discount. That's it. The only way to make that more announcement more accurate would be to add "We will push you all of the boats through port doors and not the normal embarkation ramp, with no organization or control after we dock. Once off the boat, buses will take you to WDW or Orlando Airport after that you are all on your own."
This is a boat with limited satellite lines out, and Disney Runs the cruise line separate from Disney Travel. My group and many others spent the next entire day waiting in different hour-long lines to talk to guest services, then wait for an hour or two for a line to become available and guest services to then call your wave phone and connect you to the number you needed to talk to. For people calling agents, they generally got an answering machine asking for a callback number this is beyond frustrating because no one on the boat has a callback number. People dealing with airlines had it worse. Every airline but SouthWest treated passengers as if Orlando was going to be open the day the hurricane hit and the flights would go as normal,. Guests making changes where paying fees as if this was a voluntary change. The section of my family not going to WDW rented a car and drove to Atlanta to fly out. Other passengers learned that rental car companies will answer the phone and rent you a car even when they are out of cars then inform you at the counter when you goto pick up keys.
My wife and I were going to check into Port Orleans for a few days after this cruise, our goal was to get two days added. Because
Disney Cruise charges a lot more for WDW rooms we had the cruise with them and the WDW stay with WDW travel. It took 2 hours or 137 minutes according to the phone and 2 supervisors at WDW travel to get those days added at full cost $500 plus. Disneyworld was selling all the rooms residents evacuating, and told many cruisers nothing was available. Towards the end of my call right before they said it was done, our call was disconnected (an issue with that technology not a problem with the boat), It took me 9 hours to get a successful call out, and I finally called Port Orleans directly and the wonderful person at the desk verified everything.
In the end, after checking in we found out there was offered a 40% hurricane discount (from other guests) and we went back to the front desk to get that sorted out.
At no point did any Disney Employee on the boat, or on the front line have a clear idea of what was going on, what or if any discounts were available, or even what passengers should do. Disney has canceled cruises in the past, apparently, they have never planned out a process for how to handle the passengers when they do so. This is their fault, not the hurricane, not the passengers. The only way to possibly treat customers worse would be to cancel the cruise, hand everyone innertubes from the AquaDuck and tell them to jump, Cuba is off the starboard side.
Later we learned WDW travel due to hurricane had two many calls causing a busy signal for many people on the ship (and ashore). According to an employee at WDW I talked to the "entire state of Florida" called wdw resort at the same time for 2 days.
How Disney Should Handle This.
Go to the computer and print a sheet for each cabin with the following question "When my cabin reaches port we need the following
1. Our luggage as our car is at port or someone will pick us up
2. Transportation to Orlando Airport
3. Transportation to WDW and a room for the members of my cabin for 2 nights
4. Transportation to WDW and room for the members of my cabin for 1 night
5. Transportation to WDW and my reservation #______ to be extended by two nights.
Then have everyone drop it off at Guest Services have them fax it over to WDW travel and take care of it. Almost every passenger on that ship would have gladly handed over a credit card and said, fix this I deal with the costs later. It was Disney that was refusing to take our money. They should have a plan for how to communicate back with passengers once reservations are made. We as passengers have no normal means of communications of those ships, the staff however does.
I am not upset that the cruise was canceled. I am steaming mad they think pushing everyone off the boat in an evacuation zone is an allowable process. They also proved that they have no Guest Recovery Skills. I am just glad the 2-day refund will completely pay form my wife and I to repeat a Caribbean cruise next Thanksgiving on the Symphony of the seas, a company that so far has shown much better customer service than the now overpriced
Disney Cruise Line.