Come On Celebrity--It Can't Be That Difficult

[Lois R]

I think they read these and the messages get through but for some unexplained reason they just don't seem to get very far in correcting their systems. Things actually worked pretty well 3 or 4 years ago, but they did some web updating and changes and since then it's been one problem after another. It seems like as soon as they fix one problem something else stops working.

 

In April last year (2013) they responded to all the complaints here on Cruise Critic by having the VP in charge of their web site do an Q&A section on their web site. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the responses didn't really address the issues and from most standpoints it didn't look like it did much good - either PR wise or for web site improvements. Here is a link to those threads: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=869

 

Hi Larry:)...omg....that was Apirl of last year?:eek:......and if you

recall (which I am sure you do), the issues were happening LONG BEFORE

that thread ever started.....like in 2011/2012......:rolleyes:

She answered a few questions but whatever was supposed to happen?

Never did.........

[Lois R]

I still don't understand why some people have problems and others (like myself) never do:confused:

 

Who knows?:eek:....sometimes I will try to do a mock booking and it won't

even let me change the passenger from 2 to 1 so I can get a correct

price for myself:rolleyes:

[patty1955]

It seems like as soon as they fix one problem something else stops working.

I'm helping to make an updated website at work and it is incredibly frustrating. Every time the web master changes/fixes/FUs something, something else breaks. He tells me that he can't always tell what 'touches' something else until someone reports the problem. I don't know if I believe him, but it's kept me from hurting him more than once.

[NLH Arizona]

I still don't understand why some people have problems and others (like myself) never do:confused:

I don't understand either, since I don't have any problems either. At first I thought it was only those outside the US, but that isn't the case, since many inside the US have issues.

 

I've worked with IT people in the past when I was working and always got frustrated when they didn't believe the issues were real, their first thought is always user error. Maybe Celebrity should have a couple of people (who have laptops) who have issues fly down to Florida and interface with the IT Department and show them what they are experiencing....sometimes they have to see it to believe it, because I'm sure that the system probably works on their computers (like it does on yours and mine), unlike the computes of others.

[Suzy Smith]

This is literally impossible. There is no way they got the address out of no where and associated it with your profile. You or someone with access to your account would have had to provide the address at some point for some reason.

 

I have just logged in to "My Celebrity" and they have my name, Captain's Club number and email address correct, but it gives an address in a town I have no connection with and have never been to. I checked it out online and it is a real address with the correct post code - but it is definitely not mine!

[tonyrocks922]

I have just logged in to "My Celebrity" and they have my name, Captain's Club number and email address correct, but it gives an address in a town I have no connection with and have never been to. I checked it out online and it is a real address with the correct post code - but it is definitely not mine!

 

Celebrity replacing an address with a random address by either human error or some kind of "glitch" is plausible. Commodore's alleged situation, where the random address happened to be a friend's, is not plausible to the point of being statistically impossible.

Edited October 6, 2014 by tonyrocks922

[hammo]

I had that same message for my last X cruise. That "on hold for 24 hours" lasted for at least 2 weeks. Finally got my TA involved; he got that taken care of. Right now everything is working ok for me but there is no doubt that X has a very "unfriendly" website.

 

 

Took your advice and had our TA in the USA call Celebrity and BINGO ! its fixed :D Hopefully it will stay that way.

[Eddie's Girl]

Good news Hammo. Glad it worked for you.

[ChucktownSteve]

I have two cruises booked in 2015 and BOTH are showing on hold for 24 hours. I can't register for M&M or Choice Air.

 

One of the basic problems with the site is that the geeks have designed it from THEIR perspective and the company's perspective but not the customer's perspective. Just proves Celebrity doesn't care about the customer online experience or they would have fixed the problem long ago!

 

They should begin looking at their bounce ratios. Those that hit the kill button aka back button. It's called lost revenue.

[AtlantaCruiser72]

I have never cruised Princess, but I do check their site on occasion.

 

I'm so impressed with their website, it's all there and very simple to navigate.

 

Even Royal Caribbean has a better site and they are under the same corporate umbrella.

 

Why can't Celebrity find a good web designer. These companies are both out of South Florida, so why not just hire who Princess hired (if they contract it out).

 

When I book my cruises I call the Loyalty number and book through them (I'm Elite and Diamond). I do all my research first, itin, cabin choices, etc. and just let them book it for me. I've had very professional, courteous reps.

 

If Celebrity wants to sell their products, they had better make it easy for all of us to understand. Good thing we have Cruise Critic and the wonderful posters. I was trying to find out what was in the Classic Beverage Package and someone on CC was nice enough to post it.

 

FYI, Princess' corporate headquarters is in Santa Clarita California, and has been for a LONG time (think prior to the merger of Carnival corp and P&O Princess. Unlike RCI, CCL brands each have their own IT, back office and reservation/inventory systems. The programs are compatible with GDS, but each has its own unique system architecture specifically tailored to the brand and seem to be more stable than what RCI uses.

 

RCI brands (RCCL, Celebrity, and Azamara) all share the same basic system architecture which is centered on their Cruismatch system, which is very similar to old school SABRE (I think it was written by the same people). Cruisematch had been around for YEARS when I started my brief career as a travel agent back in 1999. It was primarily designed to work with and like the old airline GDS systems (SARBE, APOLLO, Galileo, Worldspan). For whatever reason RCI refuses to abandon this core bit of very antiquated system architecture which I personally believe is at the root of all the website problems across all their brands.

 

Each cruiselinerooms website has its pros and cons and I think they all still have a ways to go, but RCI really need to get their act together :mad:

[GUT2407]

I nearly cancelled my Celebrity cruise over issues with the site and that when I rang them I was on hold forever, got someone who I could hardly understand because of the accent, and then their staff couldn't answer my questions because their own system had the same issues.

 

It was only that everyone keeps telling me that on board it is all different that persuaded me to keep the booking.

 

I find it hard to believe that they aren't missing sales. But maybe they are so close to fully booked that they don't care.

[cruising maniac]

It makes me a little nervous that I keep getting e-mails to enhance my cruise with a drink package when I already have a drink package.

[Commodore]

This is literally impossible. There is no way they got the address out of no where and associated it with your profile. You or someone with access to your account would have had to provide the address at some point for some reason.

 

You think they just sent your documents to a random address and it just happened to be that of someone you know?

 

My TA made the booboo

[K.T.B.]

I still don't understand why some people have problems and others (like myself) never do:confused:

 

I've come to realize that it's an intermittent problem for them. There are times that whatever you're doing, it's perfectly. However, those are quite rare. The problems do seem to increase during the daytime hours of the US, especially during the weekend daytime hours.

 

And they do know the problems exist. When I had them (rarely), I called them directly to inquire what the situation was, and they already knew it was website issues. Mind you, my last cruise with them was early this year, so I was probably calling around this time in 2013.

 

So customer service is very aware of the problems. So odds are good that somewhere in the upper echelons of Celebrity, they know about it as well. IMO, they don't feel it's costing them money in lost passengers, whereas it would cost them money to fix it.

 

But complaining about on here does nothing. We need to call, email, heck even use snail mail, to complain about it. Maybe then they'll do something. I just won't hold my breath over it..... :rolleyes:

[Hotel CA]

"Fixing" a problematic customer -facing website isn't always as simple as it seems. The front-end we use has to interact with various back-end databases and systems, which likely (assuming X is like most hospitality companies) have not had a major overhaul in 5-10 years.

 

The web admins might be incompetent, as some suggest, but it's much more likely that there is a major overhaul scheduled for sometime in the future that will fix a lot of both customer-facing and internal flaws in the system.

 

Writing software fixes, quality assurance, code review, UAT, etc can take years for a complex environment.

 

Wonder why folks like major retailers in Seattle don't know that????

There are plenty of websites of equal or greater complexities that actually work--perhaps they were tested as developed to uncover both functional (behavior) flaws and Performance flaws before being promoted to production.

 

Or maybe it was just plain magic????

[catugirl]

We have cruised with Princess and Royal Caribbean, and their websites are great to navigate. We've never had a problem. On the other had, every time I try to access Celebrity's website, there's a problem. Seriously considering moving back to the other two lines. :(

[tonyrocks922]

[quote name='Hotel CA']Wonder why folks like major retailers in Seattle don't know that????
There are plenty of websites of equal or greater complexities that actually work--perhaps they were tested as developed to uncover both functional (behavior) flaws and Performance flaws [I]before [/I] being promoted to production.

Or maybe it was just plain magic????[/QUOTE]

I'm not 100% sure what your getting at but a shopping website is totally different than a hospitality booking website, even if it's a shopping website the size of Amazon.

Again, I'm not here to defend Celebrity, I have no interest in that, I just get frustrated seeing end-users talking about how "easy" it is to fix a website linked to several legacy systems.

[hammo]

ITS HAPPENED AGAIN , this time with log in details not recognized . There is another thread again concerning this issue on CC and I tried to log in just now only to receive this message .


[COLOR="Red"]Username or Password you entered is incorrect.Please revise your entry and try again[/COLOR

Really Celebrity , after all the previous issues , ........
My details are correct , its the website again :mad:

You should check now.

[Lois R]

[quote name='catugirl']We have cruised with Princess and Royal Caribbean, and their websites are great to navigate. We've never had a problem. On the other had, every time I try to access Celebrity's website, there's a problem. Seriously considering moving back to the other two lines. :([/quote]

Hi Beth:) just wait till we sail though.....the on board experience is
really great:D......and look at all the nice folks on our roll call too;)

[hammo]

Tried Logging in Lois ?

[Lois R]

[quote name='hammo']Tried Logging in Lois ?[/quote]

Actually I did and it worked for me............(today anyway).

[ECCruise]

[quote name='tonyrocks922']I'm not 100% sure what your getting at but a shopping website is totally different than a hospitality booking website, even if it's a shopping website the size of Amazon.

Again, I'm not here to defend Celebrity, I have no interest in that, I just get frustrated seeing end-users talking about how "easy" it is to fix a website linked to several legacy systems.[/QUOTE]

That is all well and good. Except we are talking about [I]years[/I] of problems. I have enough experience to know that any system, anywhere could be built from the ground up in one quarter that amount of time. And do we know what legacy systems are still actively in service? And why a site such as Amazon, which is linked to [I]hundreds[/I] of vendor systems world-wide as well as hundreds of thousands of associates web sites never has this type of problem.

And how does the inability to access username/password factor into this? My guess is a corrupted database, but that is just a guess.

[ECCruise]

[quote name='Lois R']Actually I did and it worked for me............(today anyway).[/QUOTE]

But does it work now? Worked fine earlier for me, now no go. Edited October 7, 2014 by ECCruise

[hammo]

Good for you Lois :)

I just tried again and got this again .

[COLOR="Red"]Username or Password you entered is incorrect.Please revise your entry and try again. [/COLOR]

I'm using the same details I have always used so the problem is not this end .

[Lois R]

[quote name='hammo']Good for you Lois :)

I just tried again and got this again .

[COLOR=red]Username or Password you entered is incorrect.Please revise your entry and try again. [/COLOR]

I'm using the same details I have always used so the problem is not this end .[/quote]

OK...it worked for me today and now I am getting the same reply
you are....so, I decided to go through the other process of entering
my booking number......it now says
"We are unable to handle your request due to system maintenance. Please try again later."

So, you are correct and it is not available to us.