I would fire the IT person in charge of the website

[Mainiac II]

Oh WOW!! Improvement! Got an e-mail today alerting me to the fact that our Cruise Itinerary has changed. Included a side by side comparison from the old to the new. Nice! Also stated that the new Itinerary is available on the website under my reservation! BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT, alas it is still showing the old Itinerary! Baby steps, Celebrity! Baby steps!

:rolleyes: At least now I can plan private excursions since yours are still a mess.

[kenevenpar]

At least they haven't dropped to the level of Mr. Miggle's store in the Pogo comic strip, where apples were 25 cents each or 3 for a dollar. :D

 

Are you sure? :eek:

[K.T.B.]

A friend of mine designs websites as a hobby, not as a living. Nothing major in terms of "bells & whistles" to the sites he has designed. I asked him to look at Celebrity's site to get his opinion. He was blunt: It sucks.

 

According to him, to hire a REAL professional to re-do the entire site (not just a fix) from top to bottom would cost Celebrity somewhere between $20,000-30,000. In cruising terms, 2 penthouse suite cabins on ONE 7 night Alaskan sailing would pretty much cover it. (Let's have that sink in for a moment or two.....) Yeah, they could easily pay a lot more, but not more than $75,000. (If they hire some swanky NY firm whose name is more important than the work they do.)

 

The problem is the interface design needs to be trashed and completely re-done. What they've done with the interface is made it look different, put in a couple of patches to hopefully fix some problems, and they're done. It's the exact same interface, it just LOOKS different. They've essentially put a slipcover on to an old ratty couch and tried to sell it as a super-deluxe model!

[Snit13]

They are penny rich and pound foolish. Whatever it costs it costs. Loosing money daily with current situation.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I'm not even an amateur website designer like PP's friend, but I have experience with a large university automation project and I suspect that fixing this is a much bigger problem than people realize. With the large number of voyages times the large number of passengers, this website must be based on a massive database. If they are using Oracle -- my sympathies [that's the platform that is still screwing up my former employer]. If they are attempting to DIY -- that's even scarier, since Oracle has huge resources and experience and even they can't get it right! :eek:

Edited June 1, 2015 by Host Jazzbeau
spelling

[MVPinBoynton]

Large enterprise class systems like this require a lot of time and a huge amount of money to create. I am sure that they keep trying to patch the old inadequate system; but they need to bite the bullet and get something that works.

[Pipo]

Tried to add the emergency contact for my upcoming cruise, but it bumps me to the home page after clicking save. I returned to the emergency section to check the entries, and the information was not stored...

[ghstudio]

Tried to add the emergency contact for my upcoming cruise, but it bumps me to the home page after clicking save. I returned to the emergency section to check the entries, and the information was not stored...

 

You are assuming that if they needed to reach your emergency contact, they would know where to find it and be able to access it. I think that might be a stretch :)

[Pushka]

We are currently designing a website and with all the back end data bases it is in reality more like $200,000+. For Celebrity, I would say $500,000.

[Spf12]

OMG!

 

I was just on the Celebrity website and it was really a mess.:mad: I put cruise only and it gave me just about every cruise Pkg there was. I am a business owner and first thing I would do is inspect the website before it was made public. Celebrity needs to hire the Big Bang Theory cast to fix this now!:D

 

Ed

IT is a disaster for Celebrity.If I had the website in my business,my board would have fired me in a minute.Celebrity advertises that they are a premier cruise line but their website tells a different story.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

You are assuming that if they needed to reach your emergency contact, they would know where to find it and be able to access it. I think that might be a stretch :)

 

Love it! I did not get a post-cruise survey after my Alaska cruise. They sent it to the person I cruised with last October (who was not on this cruise). I also haven't received credit for the cruise, so that will mean a phone call with the Captains' Club. Way to go, Celebrity! I have no faith that they could find my emergency contact information.

 

Linda

 

[Longhorn-ED]

IT is a disaster for Celebrity.If I had the website in my business,my board would have fired me in a minute.Celebrity advertises that they are a premier cruise line but their website tells a different story.

 

DITTO Spf12,

 

You are so right about this matter. In business it's not what you expect, it's what you inspect that makes a difference. I am just amazed how the website is so bad compared to how great the ships and the crew are. If I were a first time cruiser trying to book on the Celebrity website I would go to another cruise line.

 

Ed

[helen haywood]

I just looked at the website and it has only one of my eight reservations listed. It also has a cancelled booking listed. When I clicked the "Delete This Reservation" I received an invalid code. When I clicked the "Add a Reservation" button and entered the information for the first of the seven bookings not listed I received a "null" pop up. Luckily for Celebrity I have cruised their ships many times so I know and love the product and am seasoned enough to know those reservations do actually exist....but what about first time cruisers?!

[ghstudio]

There really is no justification for the Celebrity web site changing without thorough testing...that's just such poor Management that the IT manager really should be fired. Combine that with the information that is changed, but only partially so the page is inconsistent and confusing. Look at drink package prices which now include the 18% gratuity in the "per day" cost....but then there's an * and if you read the bottom of the page it clearly says that you will be charged an additional 18% gratuity at check out.

 

Clearly, there is no feeling of pride in the web pages....and there is no feeling of responsibility for the information on the web pages. Apparently, management doesn't feel that responsibility either...or any sort of pride because if they did, we would be seeing a fully functional web site that worked with all mainline browsers including safari on ipads and iphones.

 

Lisa's been in the job long enough that her honeymoon is over. She really needs to clean the IT house and put someone in place who will clean up what we see on the web site....someone who knows how to make changes cleanly...someone who cares and creates an atmosphere where the folks who make these changes care about what Celebrity shows the world through their web site.

[ecslady]

I just looked at the website and it has only one of my eight reservations listed. It also has a cancelled booking listed. When I clicked the "Delete This Reservation" I received an invalid code. When I clicked the "Add a Reservation" button and entered the information for the first of the seven bookings not listed I received a "null" pop up. Luckily for Celebrity I have cruised their ships many times so I know and love the product and am seasoned enough to know those reservations do actually exist....but what about first time cruisers?!

 

All my reservations are there, but there is a gray box under the one that you can see which states "Manage your reservations, check-in online, book shore excursions and add dining or beverage packages of your choosing." and then a "View All" link. When you click on View All, a new page pops up and all my reservations are there to view.

Edited June 2, 2015 by ecslady

[ecslady]

Lisa's been in the job long enough that her honeymoon is over. She really needs to clean the IT house and put someone in place who will clean up what we see on the web site....someone who knows how to make changes cleanly...someone who cares and creates an atmosphere where the folks who make these changes care about what Celebrity shows the world through their web site.

 

Maybe the IT person should be someone who actually cruises and has an appreciation for what makes a more user friendly website for us cruisers.

[Oz_Steve]

They seem to have updated the site and it is worse than ever. I am an aussie that lives in Fiji temporarily but their geocoding will no longer allow me to log in to my profile or Captains Club so that I can complete all the paperwork, look at day trips etc.

For some reason they do not want to allow people from Fiji to cruise with them.

It really is beyond pathetic and the new generation of cruisers will look to their web site for everything and based on my experience will look elsewhere.

[Pushka]

They seem to have updated the site and it is worse than ever. I am an aussie that lives in Fiji temporarily but their geocoding will no longer allow me to log in to my profile or Captains Club so that I can complete all the paperwork, look at day trips etc.

 

For some reason they do not want to allow people from Fiji to cruise with them.

 

It really is beyond pathetic and the new generation of cruisers will look to their web site for everything and based on my experience will look elsewhere.

 

 

It doesnt matter. I'm an Aussie living in Australia and when selecting Australia I go round back to here: cant get past this screen :(

 

 

I can however, log in if I say I live in the USA! The boffins have been busy today.

 

Good grief. I dared to look at the checkin area, didn't change a thing, and now I am being unable to view it for 20 minutes as it has been modified. Except, I didn't.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Pushka

[mrsgoggins]

It really is beyond pathetic and the new generation of cruisers will look to their web site for everything and based on my experience will look elsewhere.

 

Just wanted to add that I think there is some truth in this. I'm relatively new to cruising and so far, know only the Disney and Princess websites well, but I do have my first Celebrity cruise booked and I groan inwardly at the thought of navigating the site. It must put people off.

 

Had it been like this when I booked (I did so online last year) I doubt they would have my booking now. It's an awful site to navigate.

[hopeless holiday booker]

It doesnt matter. I'm an Aussie living in Australia and when selecting Australia I go round back to here: cant get past this screen :(

 

I think and I could be wrong but if you scroll down instead of going to the first 'my celebrity' which I just did and go to the second log in you will get to your bookings.

 

I appreciate this isn't the point but what I don't understand is why the big pictures on each page and the information at the bottom that you have to scroll down all the time to find.

 

Very weird.

[Pushka]

Very weird. They have changed it back. I am on my phone so not a cache thing.

[DerInduktionator]

My cynical side wonders if one of the on-board "Celebrity iLearn" courses explains how to use their web site.

 

It does look like something is broken at the moment, I am greeted by HTML turds in the dropdown menus.

 

Oddly, sometimes https://www.celebritycruises.co.uk/ seems to work better than the US site, but I guess not helpful if you want to check your reservation stuff.

 

v=L di/dt

[aring75]

They *know* they have a problem. They just aren't all that concerned about it.

 

I have two cruises on the books. An Alaska cruise in September and an Antarctica cruise next February. Well the Antarctic cruise shows up, but the Alaska cruise is nowhere to be seen. When I try to add it, I get a message saying something about my account being modified (?). Try again in 20 minutes. Every. Single. Time.

 

Also, I am now getting emails addressed to Jessica. My name is not Jessica. Never has been Jessica. I have never sailed with a Jessica. I know not of this Jessica who is now apparently the new recipient of my Celebrity emails.

 

So I called. Talked to three different people in their IT department. Explained everything in detail...three different times. No one seemed the least bit surprised. In fact, one woman went so far as to give me a number to call to book my shore excursions. When I asked about whether or not I would be able to complete the online check-in for the Alaska cruise, her response was, "Probably not."

 

That's three months away. And they are not feeling very optimistic. Fantastic.

[hcat]

Two days ago I could not browse any excursions...the first drop down menu had no choices listed for destination other than "all"...but if you tried that it scolded you for not selecting a destination.and said you had to select one, but you couldn't....classic Catch 22 .. tried a few times and just gave up....

 

the next day it was working ...but there are little glitches if you want to turn back...often sends you ALL the way back to the first screen

 

the overall design and procedure for browsing and then booking excursions is poor!

 

It is not operator error or a browser issue....just a bad website that is erratic...

Edited June 5, 2015 by hcat