Carnival Rolls Out New On-Line Shore Excursion Booking System

[Flip2cruise]

Monday January 3, 1:40 pm ET More Than 1,000 Different Choices Available On Comprehensive carnival.com Web Site

 

MIAMI, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Cruise Lines, the world's largest cruise operator, has introduced a new on-line shore excursion booking system that provides guests the opportunity to purchase shore excursions prior to their cruise utilizing the line's user-friendly Web site, carnival.com.

 

With the new system, guests are able to book shore excursions in conjunction with all Carnival "Fun Ships" sailing to 65 different ports throughout the Caribbean, Bahamas, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, the Panama Canal, Canada, New England and Europe.

 

More than 1,000 different shore excursion choices are available. Snorkeling and scuba expeditions, horseback riding, helicopter flightseeing, shopping and city tours are among the excursions that can be booked via this new dynamic shore excursion booking engine. In-depth information such as excursion description, activity level, duration, and pricing are included in each listing.

 

"More consumers than ever are using the Internet for travel research and purchases and our new on-line shore excursion booking system provides Carnival guests with an easy and convenient means for purchasing the wide variety of fun and interesting shore excursions available aboard the 'Fun Ships,'" said Bob Dickinson, Carnival president and CEO.

 

To access the new on-line shore excursion booking engine, guests must be registered on carnival.com and have a fully deposited cruise booking. After accessing their cruise booking through the "View Cruise Details" link, guests are prompted with the "Add Shore Excursions" option, which lists all shore excursion choices associated with the ports of call featured on their particular cruise.

 

To purchase a shore excursion, guests simply click on the shore excursion of their choice and enter credit card payment information via a secure encrypted reservations portal. Guests are provided with a printable shore excursion confirmation and shore excursion tickets are delivered to guests' staterooms on embarkation day.

 

On-line shore excursion orders can be made from 180 days up to five days prior to departure date. Guests are also welcome to visit the shore excursion desk once on board to book shore excursions and obtain additional information. The new on-line shore excursion system is just the latest enhancement to Carnival's popular carnival.com Internet site, which encompasses more than 2,000 Web pages and offers a host of new and expanded features, including enhanced site navigation, streaming video, personalized content tailored to each visitor, and more 360-degree "virtual tours" of the "Fun Ship" fleet.

[beaming90]

I guess that is only available for some ships or passengers? I cannot do it yet for my Fantasy trip in Feb. When I click on the button it takes me back to my reservation. Too bad, I would really like to do it in advance.

[serene56]

I am booked on the Miracle for February and I was able to access the excursions. Might I add I can not believe how expensive they are compared to private vendors. WOW. I knew they were high but some are almost 50% of the cost of doing it yourself.

[herb]

I am able to see what excursions are available. I did make a deposit on the cruise but I have not paid in full, so I can in some respect understand why I can't book the excursion, but I don't quite understand why I need to have "paid in full" in order to at least SEE how much these excursions cost. What's up with the $,$$,$$$ and $$$$.

What's the big secret...they should post the price!

[SouthernCaribbean]

I am able to see what excursions are available. I did make a deposit on the cruise but I have not paid in full, so I can in some respect understand why I can't book the excursion, but I don't quite understand why I need to have "paid in full" in order to at least SEE how much these excursions cost. What's up with the $,$$,$$$ and $$$$.

What's the big secret...they should post the price!

You have to be under 180 days to book or see the prices of excursions.

[herb]

Aha! That answers the question. Thanks :)

[lrizit]

I was able to book 2 of the 3 ports on my Legend cruise. St. Thomas and Tortola. They were really expensive! But, it's my friends first cruise, and she HAD to swim with the dolphins. :p

[serene56]

Each $ represents 50.00 or under so 2 $$ will be under 100pp (figure 99.99- lol)

 

Laura: Being nosey what are you doing in St Thomas?

[guttermandave]

i am booked on the Jan. 16 valor cruise, and obviously paid in full....when i go to "my reservation" ...all it says is.."Book your shore excursions in advance by simply providing the required deposit on your reservation"....and thats it...no link....by the port names on the itinerary, it says view excursions....but it just takes me to that $..$$..$$$ page.....any ideas?

[Jasonsterling]

I think Carnival needs to stop promoting the online booking until it has been rolled out to all the ships in the fleet. As you can see from this thread and others there are some ships and routes you can book excursions on and some you can't. In the end it just leads to a lot of confusion and undoubtedly will lead to some sore feelings toward Carnival sooner or later. I know my reservation page on Carnival has had the little book to book excursions up for a month now and I still have been unable to book anything. If you look around this board you'll see numerous differing opinions as to when the full roll out will happen and of course calling Carnival will get you just about as many different responses as you'll find here.

[Jodiesme]

I got as far as entering my credit number and waiting for a confirmation before the carnival site "went down". Now I am not sure if I am booked or not for an excursion. ( Excursions were available for booking for Jamaica, and GC, but not Cozumel )

[OfcSupport]

F.Y.I. I called Carnival and spoke with someone regarding booking on their website. The gentlemen told me that anyone traveling prior to February 12, 2005 will not be able to book online. He said we will have to wait until we board the ship to book our excursions.

[fourcruisin]

F.Y.I. I called Carnival and spoke with someone regarding booking on their website. The gentlemen told me that anyone traveling prior to February 12, 2005 will not be able to book online. He said we will have to wait until we board the ship to book our excursions.

 

Thanks for the info. I have been trying to book an excurision for 1/23/05 cruise for 2 days and have not been able to. I had planned on calling CCL later today to see what the problem was. You saved me the trouble.

I love this board!

Nancy

[workroombee]

Jodiesme, I booked my excursions (for Elation 2/13) and now they are shown on the Carnival website on my itinerary page--under each port is listed the excursion that I've chosen. Since you didn't get a confirmation, one way for you to see if they booked your choices is for you to look at your reservation itinerary page. If they are listed, you're all set! If not, I'd advise you to try again.

Good luck!

[disneylynn]

I could'nt book it at first, But after 1 hour on the phone with Carnival

I got my excursion booked. If you can't get it done on the Carnival web site

You still have a chance to book it on board. They will only sell 50% of the excursion on line. Good Luck!!!

[dustyroad]

i am fully paid and did so through a ta for my may 11 alaska cruise and still cant book online. i will keep trying each day and see if the new system kicks in for me. there are always bugs when something as big as this is added to their system. if i cant book the tour i want in skagway on line i will do the normal thing of booking on the ship. but i hope it will work for me so i can have one more thing taken care of out of the way before i board. i am just glad that carnival is actually getting up to speed with the other cruise lines and putting this option in place for our convenience.

[karenh1127]

I am booked on the Ecstasy March 7th and on my cruise details it has "book excursions" next to Cozumel and Playa del Carmen but when I click on it I get an error message. Also for some reason the Carnival website is very slow loading each page and I have highspeed dsl so dont know the problem.

[Nitra22]

The Carnival site is also very slow for me....

 

Maybe all the additional traffic is slowing the site? Working out bugs?

 

I'm way too impatient to wait! ;)

[finally928]

The reason the Carnival site is so slow is that they sent out an email letting everyone know they can book online now -- so the site is full of EVERYONE trying to book excursions at the same time!

 

This is so frustrating because I was looking things up when the emails started going out and now i've been kicked out of the system.

[lrizit]

Each $ represents 50.00 or under so 2 $$ will be under 100pp (figure 99.99- lol)

 

Laura: Being nosey what are you doing in St Thomas?

We haven't planned anything for St. Thomas yet. We're thinking actually of Godfrey, based on the opinions of everyone here. The dolphin swim in in Tortola, on my 30th birthday actually so it's kinda worth the money. Kinda ;). Don't know about St. Thomas for sure yet, or San Juan. I wasn't able to book San Juan at all.

[dbarry]

Can anyone tell me when you have to pay for the excursions? I've sailed with several lines and it seems like they all have different policies. I'm hoping that I can pay for these in advance of my cruise.

 

Thanks!

Darlene

[MyImagination]

Can anyone tell me when you have to pay for the excursions? I've sailed with several lines and it seems like they all have different policies. I'm hoping that I can pay for these in advance of my cruise.

 

Thanks!

Darlene

You pay in advance

From the above press release

To purchase a shore excursion, guests simply click on the shore excursion of their choice and enter credit card payment information via a secure encrypted reservations portal. Guests are provided with a printable shore excursion confirmation and shore excursion tickets are delivered to guests' staterooms on embarkation day.

 

 

[Guest Time2gocruzn]

CALLED 3 TIMES (in 15 minutes), GOT 3 DIFFERENT ANSWERS!

 

 

I am booked and paid in full for 03/06/05 on the Miracle. Shore excursions and prices are shown, tried to go ahead and book one, said that that departure time (the only one there is to chose) is not available...tried to redo it, got an error message. Tried several times wouldn't work. Their website says it is for sailings after 2/14, so it should work....

 

Call #1, I was told that they are slowly gettting it up and running, not doing it all at one time. Said that it would be beginning of February until it works...ummm okay...BUT was told that I do pay at the time I book on the site, could pay for my excursion booking as well as my parents. Also told her that the excursion I wanted said infants are free, but if I check my infants name, there is a charge listed..said she ddnt know.

 

Call#2, I was told that it should work, as it was just unveiled and added to their website today. Guy told me that they are still working the kinks out and that traffic is high so to try back in a couple of days, said I could NOT book with him, had to do it on the site.

 

Call#3, man said I needed to talk to a different dept, carnival link desk(?), said he was reservations and to call back at 8am.

 

whatever....not suprising...imho if ya don't have your s**t together, ya better get it together b4 you put it out there in a mass e-mail..

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[MyImagination]

djklove

Did you have better luck today??

[avid]

I was able to book 2 out of 4 excursions on-line for our 2/20/05 VALOR cruise the other day. But the site is really still pretty unreliable. It would not respond to request to email the itinerary, got link error each time I requested. For one port, Roatan, the excursion name and descritions were all mixed up with each other and the excursion names were not matching the actual derscription as shown elsewhere on CCL site. So it was not clear which excursion you would actually get when selecting to add an excursion for that port. I reported the problems to CCL via their web contact facility but have not heard back, which is par for the course since I never heard back on other CCL site registration problems (adding past guest #) which I also recently notified them about. CCL appears to be a long way from making their site a reliable e-commerce facility.