Incoming HAL website rant

[1ANGELCAT]

39 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

Yep, I get TA can do all that, but what about completing the  check-in details and printing luggage tags? Those things are frequently hard to do due to website issues.

Again, she does it all including check in and printing luggage tags. I’ve been her customer for more than 30 years.

[ski ww]

I'm also one of those that use a TA. I use the HAL web site, find a cruise we want to do & then contact our TA and she does all the rest, never a problem. Have never had a problem printing our luggage tags or boarding pass. Hope you get what ever problems there are sorted out and enjoy your cruise. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

4 hours ago, ski ww said:

I'm also one of those that use a TA. I use the HAL web site, find a cruise we want to do & then contact our TA and she does all the rest, never a problem. Have never had a problem printing our luggage tags or boarding pass. Hope you get what ever problems there are sorted out and enjoy your cruise. 

 

 

I do the same. I do the research and know what I want before I call. I've had a few issues with the website and the dreaded error messages, but InPrivate has always solved that. (oh no! did I just jinx myself?)

[atexsix]

Everybody has made valid points.  The reason I stick with the website is because of the horrific level of customer service after the restart, reaching CSA's at home while the laundry machine is going in the background and the dog is barking is not professional, and in all fairness to HAL, Princess wasn't any better with this. 

 

Similarly trying to get my PCC to return phone calls is like pulling teeth, I need an answer on things NOW, not next week when the staterooms I want may be sold out, this happens a lot with Pinnacles and Neptunes, but especially Pinnacles because there's so few of them, they go fast, sometimes as soon as the itineraries open up. 

 

I'm just going to have to go back to what I used to do, pull out my 15 year old macbook that works flawlessly with HAL's 15 year old website; I'm exaggerating, but that stupid old thing has come in handy numerous times and I'm glad I held onto it. 

[Cruise NH]

58 minutes ago, atexsix said:

 

 

I'm just going to have to go back to what I used to do, pull out my 15 year old macbook that works flawlessly with HAL's 15 year old website; I'm exaggerating, but that stupid old thing has come in handy numerous times and I'm glad I held onto it. 

 

What good does a Mac do?  I have one too.  I'm trying to look at shore excursions.  I tried multiple browsers on my pc and then went to my (brand new) Mac.  The only difference is on the Mac I get the 'continuous circle of death' while on the PC I just get a white screen.  It comes to the same thing...no access.

[KarefreeKaren]

34 minutes ago, Cruise NH said:

 

What good does a Mac do?  I have one too.  I'm trying to look at shore excursions.  I tried multiple browsers on my pc and then went to my (brand new) Mac.  The only difference is on the Mac I get the 'continuous circle of death' while on the PC I just get a white screen.  It comes to the same thing...no access.

I’ve been trying for two weeks to look at excursions for the 2025 world cruise on my two year old iPad—tried everything and still get the spinning wheel.  I am booked on two other long cruises and the excursion pull up works fine. Yesterday I visited the local Apple Store—tried their computers and same thing happened.  The “Mac Genius” said it has to be a coding problem.  It is so annoying as I love to read the reviews and you cannot do that on a printed PDF that HAL seems to think is a good solution!  And, of course, an email was sent to HAL; no response.  

[Sea42]

I had no issue canceling a couple of excursions and booking others on the website today. I never have had an issue with the website but until HIA I never booked excursions with HAL.

I have a PC laptop/Windows 11/Firefox browser and everything for my 2 cruises comes up without an issue.

[Cruise NH]

1 hour ago, Sea42 said:

I had no issue canceling a couple of excursions and booking others on the website today. I never have had an issue with the website but until HIA I never booked excursions with HAL.

I have a PC laptop/Windows 11/Firefox browser and everything for my 2 cruises comes up without an issue.

 

You must have magic Firefox 😜.  I've tried Firefox (made sure it was up to date first) and I get the white screen only.  Also made sure my windows was up to date.  So frustrating.

[Cruise NH]

Okay, so I always forget about Microsoft Edge.  I tried that and it worked, I'm able to see excursions.  I did say okay to cookies when I signed in, not sure if that made a difference.  

 

My advice...try Edge now and good luck.

 

[Catlover54]

Seabourn "luxury" cruise line (also mostly owned by Carnival, just like HAL), is oddly worse than HAL, i.e., definitely there is no luxury pre-cruise and administrative service.  I use an ipad for most of my travel planning, and though my experience with HAL website is limited, it has been better than on tiny SB (where customer complaints about the website are ignored). 

It is ironic that Carnival/HAL/Seabourn  etc are based in Seattle, which is one of two key centers for high tech manpower (the other being silicon valley), and yet for years, Carnival  has been unable (or more likely unwilling) to pay for IT contractors to do a decent job to set up a website with a great, reliable customer interface.

Silversea, another "luxury" line, (co-owned by Royal Caribbean) is marginally better (though only recently), but not that long ago their website was completely down for several weeks, and pax could do no manipulations at all on their booked cruises (TAs couldn't do much more except sit on the phone for hours instead of pax sitting on the phone). 

 

Despite bad website service, it's amazing what inconveniences customers will still put up with to give large cruise corporations their hard-earned money:  they have us  hooked on cruising, and all the lines pretty much do the same thing, with minor variations. So unless pax vote with their feet and refuse to cruise, or go elsewhere (where unfortunately there is a similar race to the bottom), the cruise lines have a captive audience of people still cruise rebounding from Covid, and they can continue to get away with suboptimal websites. Cruise stock prices have increased recently , perhaps due to higher profits due to not keeping up with increased service needs the higher demand has created. 

 

I often use a TA, but when I'm making a quick decision for something with limited availability, she is not always quickly available (works 9-5 M-F and is often away on cruises herself, and has many other clients) so then I prefer having control over things myself to make sure it gets correctly done so I don't lose an opportunity  (at least as much as the cruiseline website will allow).  Often I read about new developments relating to my cruises on CC  (like port changes and/or even disembarkation day changes made a few weeks before a cruise), days before my TA notifies me, when time is of the essence, and that has helped me make timely changes before everyone else starts thinking about doing the same (e.g., get an upgraded airline seat or excursion based on the new port routing) .

Otherwise, she is a good TA so I still book through her on less urgent and more complicated trips that might require a lot of phone work if something went wrong (as it did when we were on a cruise when Covid hit, and also for travel on 3rd world continents or where visas are required). She also provides a small amount of OBC, which is nice.  I will have to use her more, if website quality and service further deteriorates, because I'm already at the point where I dread talking to *any* customer service agent, be it for a cruise or an airline, because they are usually so bad on difficult questions, take forever to get back to you, put you on hold for unacceptable periods of time, and/or give wrong or robotic style information because they are undertrained and inexperienced.

[Mary229]

2 hours ago, Catlover54 said:

Seabourn "luxury" cruise line (also mostly owned by Carnival, just like

The Seabourn website is almost an exact copy of the HAL website once you get past the splash banners. 

[IAcruising]

5 hours ago, Cruise NH said:

Okay, so I always forget about Microsoft Edge.  I tried that and it worked, I'm able to see excursions.  I did say okay to cookies when I signed in, not sure if that made a difference.  

 

My advice...try Edge now and good luck.

 

 

Never would I have dreamed I'd use a Microsoft web browser, but I use Edge, and man, I never have the myriad of problems others seem have. It's not just the HAL site, either.