Smartphone Tech

Hi all,

My wife and I really enjoy cruising with Princess and we are repeat cruisers.

The Princess web site is ( in our opinion )really easy to access, navigate and book a cruise with as well. We have booked ( on Princess) 3 cruises, each over 15 days ( including shore excursions and transportation & airfare) using just our iPhone. No hassles, no problems.

With that said, why is it so difficult to basically do the above with other cruise sites? Some cruise sites suck. Super hard to navigate and it basically tells me to go away......which I do. If it’s difficult for me to book a cruise on a smartphone and they aren’t smart enough to figure it out then I go elsewhere.

We are interested in other higher end cruise line web sites but it’s a pain in the A.

For all the reasons, to us it boils down to a lack of......?

The other lines just want you to call them so they can pitch it to you?

They don’t care?

My take on all of this, in this day and age of high tech wizardry, smartphones and AI or lack there of why are aren’t the cruise sites more tech savvy?

FYI I’m not a millennial, just an old salt that remembers life before the net.

Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Maybe I just answered my own question. Lol

Thanks.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I am aware of the various criteria people might have for selecting a cruise line, ship, or itinerary; however, this is the first time I have heard of the ability to book on an iPhone as the governing principle.

I’m not a millennial either and I consider myself pretty tech savvy. I own an iPhone X, but would never consider using it to book a cruise. My method of booking is comparatively low-tech...I email my TA.

You're eliminating a world of wonderful cruising options if your universe of bookable cruises is limited to how their cruise line's website renders on an iPhone.

While it may be nice to book on line direct with Princess, you will probably receive additional amenities and maybe a lower fare if you use a T.A. It may not be so easy, but can be worth the extra effort.

As for other cruise lines I can only guess, but I am convinced that the difficulties encountered by customers results in lost sales.

Personally I think that web designers and IT people have vastly different skill levels, lack insight into customer preferences and skill levels and, often, want to implement the latest design bell or whistle when a tried and true method would serve better.

HAL is currently having fits with a new site. It has been foisted on users for unnanounced beta testing. Everyone who logs on becomes a beta tester.

I am a fan of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', but I know everyone needs a job, so somebody gets to confound the online booking world of HAL.

I often comment that the Princess IT team is composed solely of people who couldn't make it as a Walmart greeter. Since their site is actually superior to most other cruise sites I can only wonder where those people get their IT team.

I don't use any "i" devices as I can't stand them but do use Android devices which work quite well and allow me the flexibility to do things multiple ways according to my preferences instead of being locked into doing things the Apple method which is "my way or the highway". However, I still wouldn't restrict myself to using a mobile device to book my cruises. If you must use an Apple device at least use a decently recent iPad. If nothing else the larger screen makes everything easier. I'm an old school dork with multiple computers and devices. I have a desktop with dual large screen monitors, a laptop, a smart phone, and a tablet. I tend to use the laptop most of the time these days for convenience even though the desktop has a much faster connection speed than the WiFi on the laptop. (I usually get 180 Mbps down on the desktop and WiFi just can't do that sort of speed.)

While I agree that some of the other cruise company websites are extremely poor I simply can't see using the iPhone performance and ease of use as a proper metric. The IT teams for these companies are struggling to even make the sites usable with a computer. Counting on them to be easy to use with an smart phone of any type is just asking for pain.

You should also be aware that anytime a new browser comes out then websites either have to alter their programming to recognize it or you get relegated to the "unknown browser" programming. That stuff is pretty basic and likely doesn't display well on newer devices/browsers. When I did this kind of programming there were only a few browsers out, so it was easy to test our sites on all of them. Now there are hundreds (especially when you add in the different phones) and it isn't possible to test them all. We did see a lot of really weird pages displayed! Loved the big images on top of the text so you couldn't read anything.

And if you are referring to Royal, they have enough trouble just displaying a booking in their engines. Many people use backdoors to access features that used to work somewhat reliably and now don't work at all.

Hi all,

My wife and I really enjoy cruising with Princess and we are repeat cruisers.

 

The Princess web site is ( in our opinion )really easy to access, navigate and book a cruise with as well. We have booked ( on Princess) 3 cruises, each over 15 days ( including shore excursions and transportation & airfare) using just our iPhone. No hassles, no problems.

 

With that said, why is it so difficult to basically do the above with other cruise sites? Some cruise sites suck. Super hard to navigate and it basically tells me to go away......which I do. If it’s difficult for me to book a cruise on a smartphone and they aren’t smart enough to figure it out then I go elsewhere.

We are interested in other higher end cruise line web sites but it’s a pain in the A.

For all the reasons, to us it boils down to a lack of......?

The other lines just want you to call them so they can pitch it to you?

They don’t care?

 

 

My take on all of this, in this day and age of high tech wizardry, smartphones and AI or lack there of why are aren’t the cruise sites more tech savvy?

 

FYI I’m not a millennial, just an old salt that remembers life before the net.

 

Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Maybe I just answered my own question. Lol

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I never book any cruises on line nor do I use my smart phone to book anything. I call my TA because I like talking to a human. I use the Princess website to look at cabin locations, pricing, and Princess website is easy to navigate. I have looked at the competition, and you're right, it's quite frustrating to navigate. If I wanted to cruise with another line, I'd just call my Discover card TA and get the cash back reward of 5-10%.

Whether or not we had ever researched or book a cruise on our smart phones was actually one of the questions in the Q&A I as a part of for CC at the past Seatrade Convention.

I actually booked a last minute cruise while sitting at a happy hour on my iPhone for 2 days later.

 

Personally I think that web designers and IT people have vastly different skill levels, lack insight into customer preferences and skill levels and, often, want to implement the latest design bell or whistle when a tried and true method would serve better.

 

In general I put the blame on cruise company management. The IT department normally cannot just do what they want. Some other part of the company has someone with a "brilliant" idea and asks IT to implement it. How practical. useful and needed has nothing to do with it. IT does what they are asked to do, sometimes with a good spec, sometimes with a poor one.

I have seen many cases of when an ungraded web site is implemented that what did not work previously still does not work, but some of what worked before no longer does.

I use a credit union which recently "upgraded" their website, I suspect by purchasing a total package from somewhere. The old interface had a easy-to-locate link to "Log Out" from the site. The new interface has one so hidden I had to call to ask for help in finding it.

I am pretty sure their IT department did not have a contest to pick the most obscure way possible to sign off. (Basically you click on a cogwheel on the upper right. This brings a drop down menu that goes past the bottom of the screen, so you still cannot see how to log off. You then have to scroll to the very last item on the drop down list where the "Log Off" link can finally be found.)

Having retired from IT I certainly can relate to other parts of the company dictating to IT how the website is to be set up even when it is obvious that person has no idea what they are talking about. As for the OP I cannot imagine researching and booking a cruise on a iphone but then I can't imagine paying the big bucks to Apple for anything. I do the research and book the cruise using my desktop computer and large screen often having two or more windows open at the same time as part of the research. My smartphone's screen is not large enough to have up several windows but I recently updated it to a Samsung 9+ with the larger screen. I bring the laptop along on cruises for email and other web related activities.

I have used the CCL website and find it hard to use. Princess website is much easier to navigate. The CCL website tends to take over the window and does not allow any deviation looking at alternatives. I find myself often just killing the window and starting over which is ridiculous to have to do.

My eyes are not good enough to be looking at all the icons on an smartphone android or iphone; to book a cruise; let alone looking at different cabin choices. I would have to pinch and zoom every page.