Princess Website - Scary Experiences

[SeaDays]

I'm just curious about your online experiences with the Princess website.

 

We cruise about two or three times a year. It's been a while since we sailed with Princess, and have more recently cruised with HAL, Carnival, and Celebrity. We realize the importance of needed immigration data, and we value our abilty to input all of this stuff in advance online. I'm sure it makes it more efficient for the lines as well. We've done this successfully with the other guys.

 

After booking a September cruise on the Diamond Princess, we were really impressed that the site showed our booking and all our preferences (that we probably indicated in a marketing survey). But.....

 

When filling out the registration form, we received a message that our "passport expiration date is invalid". Well, my eyesight hasn't gotten that bad, and, the date was submitted through a dropdown menu, and was recorded with our passports in front of us. This worked perfectly with Carnival in April, and HAL last Fall. We've also had no problem getting into other countries and back to the U.S. with our passports.

 

In addition, all the other personal information I submitted, including credit card number and expiration date for on board purchases, emergency contacts, etc., was lost. I tried this four times.

 

I e-mailed Princess about this problem. Absolutely no reply! In this era of concern about identity fraud, this is a big issue!

 

Also, although we established our Captain's Circle profile some time ago, and established a user I.D. to access it, it didn't work, even though I recorded our number and password. In frustration, I clicked the "forgot password" box to re-establish, but again, heard nothing.

 

Any other experiences?

 

Thanks!

[HighRoller]

Very common with that Cruise Personalizer...Princess has been upgrading that box since God was put on the cross...your eyesight is fine...if the problem persists just call them and have a CSR input everything in her computer with you over the phone!

[TinaLee]

Only one thing comes to mind immediately... is your passport still valid for 6 months after your planned trip? That's the new guideline for the cruise industry, that your passport must be valid for 6 months AFTER you return... don't ask me why they care, but apparently they do!

 

I'm with you. I'd be a little worried to. I'm paranoid and never enter my credit card info. I just give them the card at the pier.

 

TinaLee

 

p.s. - just saw you're from Plano - lived there for 3 years and I'd go back in a minute, but GEEZE has it grown! LOL!! ;)

[SeaDays]

TinaLee,

 

Thanks! -- We have another seven years on our passports.

 

And you're right about Plano. We've been here for sixteen years and can't believe the growth. In fact, we're about to run out of land to build on. But you need to see Frisco! Prairie when we got here, and booming now.

 

SeaDays

[SeaDays]

High Roller,

 

I appreciate this, and will call as you've suggested.

 

SeaDays

[sue d. miller]

You have already done it this time, but next cruise, you do not need to enter the CC. Just wait till you check in and give them your CC then. :)

[susmith1]

I'm not sure exactly how the cc info is used from the cruise personalizer. I have my cc number listed. When I went on the Caribbean Princess in June, when we checked in, the agent asked for the credit cards. At that time, my dad offered to give them his card for my key as he very graciously offered to pay for the onboard charges. However, on the last day, I was looking over my statement and noticed that they had used my cc number that had been on file. It wasn't a big problem as I was more than happy to pay for my own expenses, but I did think it odd that they didn't go with the cc info that had been given at check in. What if I had wanted to use another card (as in this case) or I had cancelled that other card? If anything, I would expect them to use the info provided at check in rather than on a website. After all, they never did have my signature on file for the card they used.

 

And to Sea Days... I'm right near you guys. I live in Far N. Dallas... you know that part of Dallas that's in Collin County. We've been in Dallas for 26 years and yes, it has changed considerably since 1978!

[surfnsun]

Only one thing comes to mind immediately... is your passport still valid for 6 months after your planned trip? That's the new guideline for the cruise industry, that your passport must be valid for 6 months AFTER you return... don't ask me why they care, but apparently they do!

 

I'm with you. I'd be a little worried to. I'm paranoid and never enter my credit card info. I just give them the card at the pier.

 

TinaLee

 

p.s. - just saw you're from Plano - lived there for 3 years and I'd go back in a minute, but GEEZE has it grown! LOL!! ;)

Correct about the 6 months, and this is a requirement for all type of travel, cruise or other. In addition, foreign embassies won't issue a visa unless your passport is valid for at least 6 months after the validity time of the visa.

 

P.S. I graduated from high school in Fort Worth and lived in Irving for a while. Now in DC. Go Cowboys! Just love rousing the Redskins fans. :p

[spongerob]

Back to the original question, I've got nothing but good things to say about inputting information to the web site and dealing with Princess directly on a couple of bookings. Some of the information is blanked out after it has been correctly input. You will be notified immediately if there is a problem with CC numbers or other information. The passenger information input screen seems to work extremely well, subject to the notorious vagaries of the entire site, that is. :)

[SeaDays]

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. I finally did call Princess and spoke to an efficient, but not real warm and fuzzy, rep who inputted our data manually.

 

Her first question was the same that you guys had already thought of... "Are your passports within six months of expiration"? "Nope, I said, they have seven YEARS left". (Good for you folks for suggesting this).

 

Well it seems that, although we inputted our valid current passport numbers with valid issue and expiration dates, the Princess site insisted on using (behind the scene) our old passport numbers left over from many years ago when we last sailed Princess. Didn't tell US that, but once the rep told us about the long-since past expiration date, I figured out what happened. It seems that the Princess site thinks that passports last for life. There was no message that asked if these numbers were new -- just "invalid expiration date".

 

Actually, I thought about this as a possibility prior to talking to Princess, and tried to log on to our profile using the Captain's Club identification and password that I've used in the past to see what was on record. Since it's been a while, my former password (which I had recorded) didn't seem to work, and clicking "forgot password" brought absolutely no response from Princess. Frustrated, I finally re-registered as a new user using the same information, and sure enough, there was data going back for many years.

 

The short of it is.... Princess needs to do some real quality control work on their site to see if it can approach the functionality of the rest of them, especially since new procedures rely more heavily on pre-cruise passenger input . They also need to be far more responsive in replying back when problems occur.

 

Can't wait for cruise number thirty-four!

 

 

SeaDays