The MSC cruise website is horrible

[bltrn]

I booked mine thru Travelocity and they have excursions as well. After I was booked, I went to MSC's web site and it indeed showed my booking. A LOT less hassle. ;)

[AmoMondo]

On the msccruises.co.uk website i click on Log In and it goes to the "my msc area" where you have to fill in E mail and password details ..... Once logged in it says Dear David welcome to your personal area, the Right hand side shows my Full name and level of club membership and card Colour and points.

 

Below that there is a box that says Excursions and Special Services, after clicking on Excursions the page changes to "onboard reservations" and you have to fill in the details below ie Booking Ref, Name, Ship and Departure date... and the security check captcha... on the Right hand side is the Web check in.

 

After pressing Enter the details of the booked cruise are shown across the top of the page, below that is the Allegrissimo booking section, Excursions and Special services available for your cruise.

 

Under that is the information "go to your shopping trolley" when you click on that another page comes up and shows the two bookings for the Allegrissimo drink packages we have ordered.

 

Is this what everyone else can see ?

 

Yes Dave, that's exactly what I see as well.

[Skipper Tim]

On the msccruises.co.uk website i click on Log In and it goes to the "my msc area" where you have to fill in E mail and password details ..... Once logged in it says Dear David welcome to your personal area, the Right hand side shows my Full name and level of club membership and card Colour and points.

 

Below that there is a box that says Excursions and Special Services, after clicking on Excursions the page changes to "onboard reservations" and you have to fill in the details below ie Booking Ref, Name, Ship and Departure date... and the security check captcha... on the Right hand side is the Web check in.

 

After pressing Enter the details of the booked cruise are shown across the top of the page, below that is the Allegrissimo booking section, Excursions and Special services available for your cruise.

 

Under that is the information "go to your shopping trolley" when you click on that another page comes up and shows the two bookings for the Allegrissimo drink packages we have ordered.

 

Is this what everyone else can see ?

 

That is pretty much what I see now. To the left of the Excursions and Special Services box is a 'Find and book your cruise' search box. Above the two boxes is a row comprising three links: MSC CLUB BENEFITS, MSC MAGAZINE and MSC LOG BOOK. Then between that and the "Dear..." line is an animated ad.

 

What is missing, which I used to have and others have is a line immediately below the animated ad with two links: "My Dashboard" which works as a 'home' link to get back to this layout and 'My Reservations'. Clicking on 'My Reservations' first listed the one cruise I had booked and clicking on that brought up every detail of the booking held by MSC in half a dozen or so subsections much of which could be edited or added to, e.g. addresses, emergency contact, telephone no.s. etc. and appeared to be a 'one stop shop' for seeing all booking details of multiple cruise bookings in one place. I have not seen it since I returned from my first MSC cruise!

Edited February 28, 2013 by Skipper Tim

[Skipper Tim]

I managed to get a screenshot (actually two spliced together as I had to scroll down) of what you see when you choose a reservation from the 'My Reservation' menu on a fully-function MSC a/c (not mine). All the tabs at the bottom expand to show all the relevant details and so no, if this feature were working for us, it would not be necessary to log out and in to switch between reservations. Who are you going to call? Rachel!

 

Edited February 28, 2013 by Skipper Tim

[sidari]

Tim .... Nothing like that on mine here, very odd.

[AmoMondo]

Tim .... Nothing like that on mine here, very odd.

 

Me neither! What a weird set up that website is.

[sthelder]

I think this thread ought to be posted on the Q&A forum with Mr. Vago.

 

I do appreciate the efforts to provide information in the native languages and with a bit of digging, there are tons of information available. Yet when it comes to the business end, like finding out schedules (especially for those cruises not targeted in your region), booking cruises, checking status etc, it is not very user friendly.

[sidari]

sthelder .... a good idea ... :) have you added a post about it ?

[sthelder]

sthelder .... a good idea ... :) have you added a post about it ?

 

Since someone else has posted a question about website quality, I have tagged along this thread.

 

The link to the question thread:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1802651

[vkuehne]

It can get even worse than all this. Last July I booked 2 cruises through Germany's MSC website, paid 100% in full. Apparently the site was buggy and I should have paid a higher price. German office tried to get the price adjusted in Italy, never got authorization, at some point someone decided I must have been "hacking" the site to get the price :eek:.

 

Since then, "someone in Italy" is blocking the refund of my money. MSC's lawyer in Germany, their office people, nobody can get my money back. It's actually quite crazy. 7 months of emailing, phone calls etc.

 

So yeah, be very careful of entering your credit card data on MSC's site...or booking anything directly with them.

[papcx]

I've booked our 5th cruise today through MSC. All the others have been through a TA.

 

I spent time last night filling in all the pages on the MSC site, clicked on the "book now" button, got a pop up telling me to wait for an email and then click the link to confirm the booking, and nothing happened!

 

Had to phone MSC this morning and give all the details over the phone to get it booked.

 

I wonder how many people give up and cruise with someone else?

[sidari]

papcx .... maybe that is one of the glitches that Mr Vago mentioned that they hope to have ironed out by the end of the year ?

[dad son team]

Let's hope they do some fixing soon. I tried to book my party of 3 for a December cruise on Divina and got all the way through the payment window and got an error message. Tried a few hours later and did the same thing and got the same error message. Something told me to chacke my credit card and sure enough the deposit was taken out twice. I never received an email with a confirmation or anything.

 

I called MSC and a lovely agent told me that I in fact have 2 booking. She canceled one and put in to refund the deposit. Good think I checked my card. She gave me the reservation number for the good one, and also informed me that I was booked at a senior rate for people 50+. Now I'm close to that, but not there for a few years yet, but she said they had to honor it because it was a glitch in their system. I'm hoping there will be no problems down the line, but that would explain why the rate on the website was better than any of the online TA's.

[vkuehne]

she said they had to honor it because it was a glitch in their system

 

You should get that in writing! At least in my case, not only did they not honor the rate the website gave me (and I paid for), I'm fighting to this day to get my money back (since July last year!).

 

It sounds like you booked in the States or UK, I did mine on the German website, and they can hardly do anything without approval from Italy - that's why (they claim) it's soooo difficult to simply refund. Good luck!

[Skipper Tim]

Over the last few days I have made four separate bookings via the UK MSC website. On all four occasions, having filled in all the details, infuriatingly twice or three times over for some, and clicked on the final payment submission button, I was taken to the the 'doreme' error page.

 

Wait 10 minutes and the error clears to show booking details with a deposit paid of zero but with a balance to pay reflecting the correct deposit paid!

 

This is not one-off quirkiness, this is consistent, reliable behaviour. The site is pathologically troubled. MSC really ought to put in some temporary fix. The end of the year is a long way away.

[Maya53]

She gave me the reservation number for the good one, and also informed me that I was booked at a senior rate for people 50+.

.

 

There is a senior rate for over 50's? Is that just on selected cruises?

[dad son team]

You should get that in writing! At least in my case, not only did they not honor the rate the website gave me (and I paid for), I'm fighting to this day to get my money back (since July last year!).

 

It sounds like you booked in the States or UK, I did mine on the German website, and they can hardly do anything without approval from Italy - that's why (they claim) it's soooo difficult to simply refund. Good luck!

 

I did book through the US website and she said it was a known hiccup in their system and that until they get it fixed they will honor what I booked. I have the reservation document from them that indicates it was booked online, but doesn't say anywhere on it that it is a senior rate. When did they come to you and ask for more money?

 

My plan was to transfer the reservation to an agent that was offering OBC, but now I think I'll just leave well enough alone and not be greedy.

[dad son team]

There is a senior rate for over 50's? Is that just on selected cruises?

 

Apparently so, at least here in the US. I believe it's called a "boomer" rate.

[AmoMondo]

Well it's still horrible! Tried to book a cruise last night on my IPad but got stuck at the bit to enter my details...the drop downs won't work with an IPad and despite sailingnwith them numerous times, it had pulled through the county as Greater London!

 

Wasn't too bothered as there are still a few sites that don't work with Apple gizmos. So trundles upstairs to boot up the ancient desktop. Got as far as the final stage of entering in my credit card for the deposit, and it all looked like it was going to complete as I got a message saying it was being processed and my reference would follow, but no. What I got was a Doremi cartoon character telling me there was a server error and to try later. As I'd already managed to read an entire chapter of a book duringnthe process, could not bother. Looks like I'll be reverting to the phone in an hour or so.

 

They really need to get this sorted.

[Skipper Tim]

Well it's still horrible!

 

They really need to get this sorted.

 

You got exactly the same experience as I had. I also live in Greater London, though in my case it is Yorkshire, Greater London.

 

Despite getting the doreme server error page for each of my four bookings, the bookings were made so be careful not to book twice!

 

Tim (currently in Side, Turkey in quite a remarkable £7.50 per night all-inclusive hotel).

[papcx]

You got exactly the same experience as I had. I also live in Greater London, though in my case it is Yorkshire, Greater London.

 

Despite getting the doreme server error page for each of my four bookings, the bookings were made so be careful not to book twice!

 

Tim (currently in Side, Turkey in quite a remarkable £7.50 per night all-inclusive hotel).

 

Tim.

 

DW and myself spent a week in Side years ago. Beautiful part of the world. Stunning Apollo's temple ruins, just a shame it was totally open and therefore abused by the locals!

 

Enjoy!

[AmoMondo]

What a bargain Tim. Must research Side!

 

I di get booked by phone the next day (at the same bargain price of a superior balcony being priced the same as an inside - Orchestra 30 Aug). When I got home, I'd also received an email advising that my online booking hadn't fully completed and to email or call them if I wanted to go ahead with it. I was able to tell them it was already booked by phone.

 

They, at least seem to be noticing these online bookings aren't working correctly. Just wish they'd fix it. It is far more convenient to make the booking at home online, than to have to call in the middle of a busy working day.

[Maya53]

I tried to book online as well, but I too was stuck in Greater London, which is kind of strange for a West of Scotland island. Nor would it accept by passport issue date so after several tries I gave up and phoned. Very nice lady took all my details then found that she could not book it either and was going to have to call Naples to find our what the problem was. She took my number and though I wasn't really optimistic about it she did call back within the hour and booked me in at the online price and I received my confirmation email immediatly. So all well, but I had already wasted a great deal of time of the website. Not the way to encourage sales I would have thought in today's internet savvy world they could get this sorted out a lot quicker than the end of the year.

[wobblypops]

I was considering booking one of their cruises. I am in the United States but after reading this thread, no way will I even give them a chance.

[papcx]

I was considering booking one of their cruises. I am in the United States but after reading this thread, no way will I even give them a chance.

 

This thread is about booking through the website!

 

Phone them instead.

 

Have you read any of the threads regarding fantastic cruise experiences?