Another Website Complaint

[CherryG]

Honestly, I can't believe HA doesn't do something about their website. It's horrible. You can't access the "pick your own cabin" page. I've tried 4 times today, and other days as well. I know it's not just me that has a problem with it and I'm sure it's driving business away. I wonder if anyone from HA actually reads Cruise Critic to see what their customers are thinking? Vent over!

[sevenseasnomad]

Honestly, I can't believe HA doesn't do something about their website. It's horrible. You can't access the "pick your own cabin" page. I've tried 4 times today, and other days as well. I know it's not just me that has a problem with it and I'm sure it's driving business away. I wonder if anyone from HA actually reads Cruise Critic to see what their customers are thinking? Vent over!

 

Years ago I read several posts that confirmed that HA employees read these threads. Question is: Do they care enough to pass along repeated complaints, such as yours, and if they do, does anyone respond?

[colonialinnkeeper]

It might help if they actually had a forum of clients who cruise often and try to use their website and LISTENED to what we are saying. Its not as if the comments are just few and far between.

[Krazy Kruizers]

There are a couple of people in Seattle who do read CC.

But I doubt if they take much of what we complain here about their site into consideration.

Seattle doesn't even read all the survey's passengers fill out when they get home from a cruise.

[terrydtx]

I agree the new website is terrible. We just booked an Alaska cruise plus land tour for next year and the web site has zero information about what is included in the land tour portion of the cruise. It is the most user unfriendly website in the cruise industry.

[Fouremco]

Cherry, it is possible, but the website just isn't very intuitive.

 

After you have found a cruise that interests you, click on View Itinerary, then Book Now. Input the number of guests on the next page and click on Continue. Scroll down on the next page and click on Change Stateroom. You will now be given the options of Let Us Select Your Stateroom or You Select Your Stateroom. Pick the latter choice and you're on your way.

[CherryG]

Thanks for the instructions, but I do know this. It just goes round and round when I say pick my own cabin. Nothing loads properly. I know it's not my computer, as it's only a few months old, and I had the same problem with old computer. Same issue if I try to use my ipad. It's just a crappy website. I think people would be happier having a quick, well detailed site, instead of fancy pictures, etc.

[CJcruzer]

Thanks for the instructions, but I do know this. It just goes round and round when I say pick my own cabin. Nothing loads properly. I know it's not my computer, as it's only a few months old, and I had the same problem with old computer. Same issue if I try to use my ipad. It's just a crappy website. I think people would be happier having a quick, well detailed site, instead of fancy pictures, etc.

 

Same issue with my trying to choose cabin.... the site is so bogged down with pictures, and you have to toggle back and forth when inputting your criteria for cruise search.

[iancal]

Maybe it is a strategy to discourage all but the most loyal HAL customers from booking cruises. Leave the riff riff to cruise on other cruise lines/ship.

 

My guess is that this strategy will succeed.

 

It does make one wonder though. Two of the largest variable expense items in Carnival financials are fuel and travel agency commissions. Seems to me that HAL is driving customers and potential customers to travel agency bookings which increases their expenses and decreases the profit margin.

Not to mention all of sales and marketing attributes of a well designed/ high performing consumer web site that HAL is missing out on.

Edited July 29, 2018 by iancal

[PSR]

Cherry, it is possible, but the website just isn't very intuitive.

 

After you have found a cruise that interests you, click on View Itinerary, then Book Now. Input the number of guests on the next page and click on Continue. Scroll down on the next page and click on Change Stateroom. You will now be given the options of Let Us Select Your Stateroom or You Select Your Stateroom. Pick the latter choice and you're on your way.

 

I tried this yesterday on my iPad, my only device that I can get the new web site. I was able to get to Pick A Cabin, but only got the one the web site thought was the "best" of the 10 showing (kind of like the old site). However, I could NOT check to see if any cabins were available outside of the 10 (UNlike the old web site). At this point, more than a year away there are usually more than the HAL-selected 10 available, and the old site would show you if there were. Still disappointed.:(

[Fouremco]

I tried this yesterday on my iPad, my only device that I can get the new web site. I was able to get to Pick A Cabin, but only got the one the web site thought was the "best" of the 10 showing (kind of like the old site). However, I could NOT check to see if any cabins were available outside of the 10 (UNlike the old web site). At this point, more than a year away there are usually more than the HAL-selected 10 available, and the old site would show you if there were. Still disappointed.:(

That sucks. I use my MacBook Pro, and haven't tried it on my iPad. I'll give it a try and see if I can see anything.

[MARLEY225]

Thanks for the instructions, but I do know this. It just goes round and round when I say pick my own cabin. Nothing loads properly. I know it's not my computer, as it's only a few months old, and I had the same problem with old computer. Same issue if I try to use my ipad. It's just a crappy website. I think people would be happier having a quick, well detailed site, instead of fancy pictures, etc.

 

I have had this same problem since the new web site started. I must say lately, I have been able to get pass the whirling circles and was able to pick a particular stateroom. When this happened, I felt like I won the lottery! I have complained about this problem twice via feed back on the web site, and also verbally to my personal consultant.

[Marigold252]

HAL sent me an email telling me my e-docs are ready for online check-in. Clicking on none of the links would get me to HAL. Friday I got another email, which was in a new format, and tried again. Same result so I used my browser, logged in and started filling out the forms. Got to the page to print boarding pass and luggage tags, nothing worked. So I called HAL and the answer was they were having problems with the website and to try again on Monday. Tomorrow I'll try again. I've never had a problem with the check-in process before so I have to think it's the new "improved" website.

 

HAL is going to lose customers over this.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Forums mobile app

[mame42]

Yesterday, I wanted to show a neighbor (and HAL newbie) how to browse through the excursion offerings for a specific cruise. Yikes! When we would select a port option (an exercise in task persistence itself) the search bar would disappear, only to pop up in random places on the screen after several minutes of futile scrolling. If I had not known the info was in there somewhere and sort of where to find it, she certainly would have given up.

[danacline]

Several things to consider. Many web sites use popups, so those won't work right if you have turned off popups (and some sites will tell you to turn off popups). Also, the issue is probably the browser.

 

New PCs come with Microsoft Edge as the default browser. It's gotten better lately but still may have issues. Alternately, hit Start/Run and enter "iexplore" to get IE 11. You can download and install either Chrome or Firefox, and either of those usually work on more web sites than the default browsers.

 

I think Chrome and Firefox are both available for Macs but as I'm not a Mac person, I can't swear to it.

 

In any case, if you have issues with ANY web site, try one of the other browsers. For instance, I had no issues printing my luggage tags and boarding pass from Chrome.

[HBCcruiser]

HAL sent me an email telling me my e-docs are ready for online check-in. Clicking on none of the links would get me to HAL. Friday I got another email, which was in a new format, and tried again. Same result so I used my browser, logged in and started filling out the forms. Got to the page to print boarding pass and luggage tags, nothing worked. So I called HAL and the answer was they were having problems with the website and to try again on Monday. Tomorrow I'll try again. I've never had a problem with the check-in process before so I have to think it's the new "improved" website.

 

HAL is going to lose customers over this.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Forums mobile app

 

 

 

Frustrating, I agree. Call it luck, but I was able to print my e-docs from my iPad by clicking SEVERAL times on the print button, then opening it on a separate page. Our friends who are traveling with us tried to print a day later but it did not work for them. Good luck! It seems to be random as to when the website works properly. I just booked a cruise on the Princess website no problems. Much easier to use.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Fouremco]

I tried this yesterday on my iPad, my only device that I can get the new web site. I was able to get to Pick A Cabin, but only got the one the web site thought was the "best" of the 10 showing (kind of like the old site). However, I could NOT check to see if any cabins were available outside of the 10 (UNlike the old web site). At this point, more than a year away there are usually more than the HAL-selected 10 available, and the old site would show you if there were. Still disappointed.:(

 

That sucks. I use my MacBook Pro, and haven't tried it on my iPad. I'll give it a try and see if I can see anything.

Well, I tried it on my iPad last night and had no problems, including being able to search on a specific cabin number to check its availability. FWIW, that's using an iPad Pro 10.5 running iOS 11.4.1 and the most current version of the Safari app using the Private Window mode.

[DaveOKC]

Frustrating, I agree. Call it luck, but I was able to print my e-docs from my iPad by clicking SEVERAL times on the print button, then opening it on a separate page. Our friends who are traveling with us tried to print a day later but it did not work for them. Good luck! It seems to be random as to when the website works properly. I just booked a cruise on the Princess website no problems. Much easier to use.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Maybe it is getting better! Yesterday I purchased a shore excursion via the new site and it was fairly easy.

[mame42]

Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't a successful website be consistently available without issue to as many potential customers as possible, regardless of browser or hardware?

[OlsSalt]

Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't a successful website be consistently available without issue to as many potential customers as possible, regardless of browser or hardware?

 

Exactly.

 

If I use Safari on a Mac for everything, why would a mainstream cruise line require me to leave my standard browser and go open a new one? Makes no sense. Using another browser right now is only a temporary work-around but it is absurd to think people will know, understand and expect this is what they need to do if they want to explore Holland America Lines.

 

Still puzzled why this new improved website got so many things wrong. At least once you get booked you are given a "secondary" website link which is clean and smooth - but you can only deal with your current booking on this link. That workaround must be saving them a lot of grief at HAL central.

[danacline]

To answer the few above questions... Yes, all web sites should work on all browsers. In an ideal perfect world. However, and this is a big however, the standards don't stand still. Flash worked great, back in the day, for visuals and videos. It turned out to have security issues, so the newer HTML standards added the ability to show videos. Many web sites have phased out Flash, others have not. Same thing with Java applications, Java applets, JavaScript, style sheets, and anything else. The days of "display-only" web sites are mostly gone - most web pages have more code in them than text. That code has to follow a standard, and the browser has to be able to correctly implement the standard.

 

Browser manufacturers are trying to juggle many things, only one of them being "compatibility". There's also "security", and "privacy" (not the same thing), OS compatibility, hardware/graphics differences, etc. That's why it's always best to keep on top of updates to your browsers, and keep other browsers handy just in case you find something that doesn't work, or behaves weirdly.

[bEwAbG]

Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't a successful website be consistently available without issue to as many potential customers as possible, regardless of browser or hardware?

 

Yes, but in reality it's often the settings for a particular machine that is the issue, so it never hurts to recommend someone try a different setup. That's also why some people express skepticism about the root cause.

 

My issue a couple of weeks ago was that it wouldn't load the "choose your own room" screen if I was signed in. No problem getting it to pop up if I was signed out. So that's a programming bug, and I've seen many of those in the three months since they made the switch from old to new website.

[OlsSalt]

Yes, but in reality it's often the settings for a particular machine that is the issue, so it never hurts to recommend someone try a different setup. That's also why some people express skepticism about the root cause.

 

My issue a couple of weeks ago was that it wouldn't load the "choose your own room" screen if I was signed in. No problem getting it to pop up if I was signed out. So that's a programming bug, and I've seen many of those in the three months since they made the switch from old to new website.

 

Last night when I was struggling to make a reservation on the new website, I had personally trouble even with using the word "rooms" instead of cabins. Many of the linkage terms on the "new" website made no sense to me. These are still ships. they are not hotels. Again, someone in Seattle is disconnected from the product.

 

Over-selling this as a "hotel" experience with land-based expectations in my mind is fraught with peril due to the nature of this very much being a closed-system, sea-going transportation device. Yes, I do know there is a Hotel Director, but only in context of there also being a critically important engineering side of the operation as well.

 

Ships create a very different onboard experience than checking into a land-based hotel, And that distinction needs to start the minute a "customer" chooses to become a potential passenger.

[iancal]

That may be so. But a good website has to be functional. It has to be intuitive with easy navigation features for even the most novice computer users. It has to be fast. It has to be accessible to various user platforms 24X7 given the nature and scope of the business.

 

A company's website is the face of the company to the consumer who logs on. It is an indication of how well run the company is. There are several firms that we stopped ordering product from because of their abysmal web site. Why bother when their competitors had such good web sites that were a pleasure to shop.

 

Can anyone truthfully say that the HAL website ticks even one of these basic boxes?

[dockman]

Maybe it is a strategy to discourage all but the most loyal HAL customers from booking cruises. Leave the riff riff to cruise on other cruise lines/ship.

 

My guess is that this strategy will succeed.

 

It does make one wonder though. Two of the largest variable expense items in Carnival financials are fuel and travel agency commissions. Seems to me that HAL is driving customers and potential customers to travel agency bookings which increases their expenses and decreases the profit margin.

Not to mention all of sales and marketing attributes of a well designed/ high performing consumer web site that HAL is missing out on.

 

I agree.

If, just as an example the average HAL booking is $3000 per person (6 k per booking) and the average commission to OTA (online travel agents) is at least 15%, that is approx $900 in commission HAL pays out to OTA when customers get so frustrated with the website that they book with a user friendly OTA website. I believe the discussion re website problems/issues/complaints has been going on for at least a month.

Assuming HAL loses 100 direct bookings per day (3000 bookings per month) that means they have paid out 2.7 MILLION dollars in commissions on those 3000 bookings that if booked direct would have been zero paid out commissions.

I don't claim to know if my estimates are high or maybe even low but if even close that is a heck of a lot of money paid out in commissions because some IDIOTS at HAL/CCL don't seem to be able to get the website fixed to compete with the much more user friendly sites.

Just think of what HAL could do with an extra 3 million $ or so per month whether to the bottom line, better pay for employees, less nickle and diming of passengers, etc.

One would think that some heads would be rolling over whoever is/ was in charge of the website.

Whether incompetence, ignorance, or arrogance is the problem it needs to get fixed pronto.