I've been on the Disney Cruise. Both when it was associated with Carnival like 15 years back and when it was it's actual own cruise line. The Carnival one sucked. The Disney one was awesome (only time I found the Bahamas not so depressing). Is Disney Cruise that expensive? My parents took me with some other friends and their families. $6000 is NOT something either my parents nor their friends would pay. We did the cruise for like 4 days and another 3 days at the parks package.
I liked the Disney Cruise. But, you kinda have to be a fan of Disney stuff b/c EVERYTHING is in your face Disney. I happen to be a big Disney fan and a huge Mickey Mouse fan. So, for me, I loved it. During dinner one night, all the settings, napkins, wall decorations, etc were all black and white Mickey silhouettes. Then, during dinner, it gradually changed (like w/ each course) into a bright rainbow colored atmosphere. It was a great effect. Plus, there are cute touches everywhere like a giant Goofy statue thing that's hanging off the back of the boat near the anchor. Plus, they have their own island so the upkeep on it was incredible. For your sports junkies, at the top of the boat, there's an ESPN lounge. So, if you're not so into Disney, just hang out there and watch sports or do other activities on the ship.
Before and after the cruise, they had the best greeter service. The cruise greeter went deep inside teh airport to help collect and organize us. Then they showed us teh way to baggage claim and once we all collected our baggage from that turning thing, we placed it all in one section. We got led onto these new and pretty plush tour buses and someone else from Disney took our luggage and placed it in the bus. When we arrived at the port, we just walked through the Disneyfied terminal, took pics at the loading plank thing and went to our rooms. Our luggage was miraculously already at our cabins and all we had to do was unpack.
Departure was similar. We just stuck our packed luggage out the night before or so and it disappeared. The next we saw it, it was at our hotel rooms at the Disney resort.
I've been on Carnival (the Disneyish one to Bahamas), the Disney Cruise Line (to Bahamas), Princess to Mexico and Alaska. While I do like Princess the best (b/c Alaska was just so awesome), I have to admit the Disney trip was amazing. It's just that I'm not that big a beach person and the poverty on some of the Bahaman islands kinda depresses me.