Dear NCL you have a horrible website

[david_sobe]

I am just venting.  Tried all day to book entertainment and restaurants online.  No success. I know this is a frequent problem and addressed here so forgive me as I vent.  Thought everything was successfully booked then I could not find it.  Then I rebooked everything again, went to cart and because its free entertainment the system wants me to pay but you cant pay for it so the entertainment just stays in the cart and expires after 15 minutes.  I feel like a dog chasing its tail.   I had a similar problem about a month ago when I tried to add 2 dining plans for our guests.  The system would not take it.  I emailed NCL's website support and they responded 4 days later.
I give up and will just call tomorrow.

NCL you have the worst tech support ever.  NCL you have a horrible website but you don't care because after years of complaints you never fix it.

[BirdTravels]

Just call if you are not able to figure it out yourself. 
 

We have actually had a lot more problems with the “new and improved” RCL cruise planner site messing things up. 

[Zippeedee]

I had to "pay" for my free entertainment and dining, but it is just a formality. I clicked on "Checkout" and it just put the reservations through. There were no charges applied or credit cards requested. 

 

I did run into a problem with one dinner reservation showing sold out (8 hours after they became available). I called and there were not able to process it. I tried again about an hour later and it went through.

[david_sobe]

Yeah not a problem with me calling tomorrow.  Just was trying to do everything today.  Believe it or not until this cruise, I never had an issue with their website before although I remember reading about it.

[FLAHAM]

Try booking one item (restaurant or entertainment) at a time.

[casofilia]

The phone is just a little more personal and if there is a problem you have someone to talk it over with.

[MotownVoice]

Web hosts frequently take websites down for maintenance, adding firewall securities when a vulnerability is detected, clearing out expired data etc.   it could take hours, days, or happen so fast you don’t even notice it.  If you call the regular customer service number and ask them questions about connectability or website malfunction they aren’t going to know what you’re talking about.   
 

And if you’re someone who is impatient on not web savvy you’re just going to go to the nearest industry chat board and fire off accusations of “bad customer service” because you don’t know any better. 

[david_sobe]

20 minutes ago, MotownVoice said:

Web hosts frequently take websites down for maintenance, adding firewall securities when a vulnerability is detected, clearing out expired data etc.   it could take hours, days, or happen so fast you don’t even notice it.  If you call the regular customer service number and ask them questions about connectability or website malfunction they aren’t going to know what you’re talking about.   
 

And if you’re someone who is impatient on not web savvy you’re just going to go to the nearest industry chat board and fire off accusations of “bad customer service” because you don’t know any better. 

You are welcome to flame away at me all you want.  But don't be reckless with your accusations.  Website is not down.  Several hours of believing everything was booked is not impatient.  4 days until a response from the NCL IT desk is not great customer service.  I am pretty web savvy and been using the internet since 1997.  So before you "fire off accusations" of attacking me, perhaps you should know a few facts.

When I tried to click on specific passengers for meal packages, the system would not allow me to unclick those who already had the meal plan.  Then when I was able to unclick those, it still charged me double.  This is NOT my first NCL cruise or booking entertainment or restaurants online either (check out my signature line)

Based on your post count (factual), you may not be aware but problems with the NCL site are not new and is usually the biggest complaint around here (another fact).  I deal in facts, you deal with speculation 🤣

Edited December 29, 2019 by david_sobe

[Cafedumonde]

I agree, bad website.

[Isabella Benjamin]

I just feel that NCL is one of those companies that don't particularly see the value in investing in great technology.  

 

 

[Oceansaway17]

well RCCL and Celebrity and Carnival sites can be challenging.

Celebrity loads their trips in very odd with photos and descriptions.  Carnival is also odd as well.

 

RCCL just keeps everyone over on their cc  board hopping with comments.

 

I think the Best is DCL and then NCL actually.  Oh and Princess is pretty good too.

[mking8288]

NCL's website has a long established reputation for their technical incompetency, especially on weekends - whereas technical support, customer services and even emergencies/urgent matters generally have no choice but to wait till Monday or Tuesday morning, if it's a holiday.  Occassionally, it will auto-restore sooner and update on its own timeframe.  Well managed sites do and will announce an alert on its home page ahead of any scheduled downtime & maintenance, and/or default to ... "ooops, we shall be back soon & apologize for connectivity errors, etc." as A.I. can detect & recognize website issues - and prompt for the IT support/help desk to respond & mitigate.  

 

Suffice to say, more than a few of us has been around for a decade or more to see NCL's failure ... it is a sad reflection of its corporate image, and I say that as a tiny, micro minority shareholders of their & other T&E stocks.  Imagine, for a moment, if United Airlines, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines operate in the same manner as NCL with their booking sites - obviously, far more complex perhaps, 24/7 but tens of thousands passengers coming, going and onboard.

 

It is still Sunday here on Eastern or Central Time but somewhere else, it is already Monday.  Feel free to disagree and wave the pom poms.  

[Two Wheels Only]

3 hours ago, david_sobe said:

NCL you have the worst tech support ever.  NCL you have a horrible website but you don't care because after years of complaints you never fix it.

 

Compared to MSC's site, NCL's site is nearly perfect. 

 

I'd also put NCL's site over Celebrity's. Maybe someone (a Mod?) can make poll across all lines and let people vote for who has the worst cruiseline website... 

 

[MotownVoice]

1 hour ago, david_sobe said:

You are welcome to flame away at me all you want.  But don't be reckless with your accusations.  Website is not down.  Several hours of believing everything was booked is not impatient.  4 days until a response from the NCL IT desk is not great customer service.  I am pretty web savvy and been using the internet since 1997.  So before you "fire off accusations" of attacking me, perhaps you should know a few facts.

When I tried to click on specific passengers for meal packages, the system would not allow me to unclick those who already had the meal plan.  Then when I was able to unclick those, it still charged me double.  This is NOT my first NCL cruise or booking entertainment or restaurants online either (check out my signature line)

Based on your post count (factual), you may not be aware but problems with the NCL site are not new and is usually the biggest complaint around here (another fact).  I deal in facts, you deal with speculation 🤣

As a few cooler heads have pointed out ....... you call.    When you had the first anomaly you should have known something was up.   But you decided instead to charge through and just hammer on it until you got the result you wanted which was likely never coming since you had already initiated errors.  

[mking8288]

4 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

Compared to MSC's site, NCL's site is nearly perfect. 

I'd also put NCL's site over Celebrity's ... (snipped)

 

 

This, I agree, let's vote on the cruiseline's race to hit the bottom ... Last night, looking at another luxury liner's online site, like what the heck.  It was/is functional but absolutely useless.  I can understand the rationale to use a T/A and get live "support" ... at least, 9 to 6 except weekends & holidays, or get a call-back by leaving a voicemail.  

 

All the smoke & mirrors to disguise the products and services being peddled.  Their competency with spam emails and robo marketing calls, are world class on its own, however.  Oddly enough, you can talk to sales 7 days a week but if there is a problem ... better luck on Monday.  Gotta love the logics. 

[mugtech]

Glad we don't reserve anything but the cabin before we get on the ship.  Won't be calling anyone from the Philippines to make show or dinner reservations.........

[GettotheSun]

Just a newbie perspective but as I was doing research on various cruise lines to book our first cruise, I honestly found NCL to be the most user friendly.  Just from a navigation perspective and helped me get to the answers to my questions most easily.  

[Falckon]

3 hours ago, FLAHAM said:

Try booking one item (restaurant or entertainment) at a time.

I agree. I tried booking several dinners at a time without success. Then I tried booking one at a time, and it worked.

[Georgia_Peaches]

Regardless of the tricks, I completely agree with david_sobe regarding NCL website.  More often than not, it is malfunctioning over functioning.  One should not have to try "tricks" in order to get the thing to work correctly.  Goes back to programming and IT, and I don't buy the web hosting maintenance malarkey as I have done plenty of that myself and know that this is often used as a crutch for faulty programming.

[Georgia_Peaches]

2 hours ago, GettotheSun said:

Just a newbie perspective but as I was doing research on various cruise lines to book our first cruise, I honestly found NCL to be the most user friendly.  Just from a navigation perspective and helped me get to the answers to my questions most easily.  

Agree that navigation of the site is pretty straight forward. It’s going into the NCL platform after booking to do things such as make reservations and book excursions that is particularly vexing. 

[Gershep]

Problems with NCL excursion website too.

[luckyinpa]

try booking excursions with the 50 bonus offer online...

[dshefter]

2 minutes ago, luckyinpa said:

try booking excursions with the 50 bonus offer online...

You can't do it. You have to call to get the discount, or do it on board. 

[david_sobe]

Update:
The next day I tried following the advice given here.  I tried only booking one item at a time.  It worked the first 2 items.  The third item still would not process through.  It was added to the cart, box checked that I agreed on conditions but the final box to click was not lit for me to click and make it final.  I left the website and came back and it worked.  I also got emails confirming my reservations.

Thanks to those who offered the advice.

[fshagan]

9 hours ago, david_sobe said:

Update:
The next day I tried following the advice given here.  I tried only booking one item at a time.  It worked the first 2 items.  The third item still would not process through.  It was added to the cart, box checked that I agreed on conditions but the final box to click was not lit for me to click and make it final.  I left the website and came back and it worked.  I also got emails confirming my reservations.

Thanks to those who offered the advice.

 

I think it's some kind of caching problem. It has been that way for over a year that I know of.