Website is misleading

[shaun07]

Holy wow!

 

I'm so confused by this whole thread :confused:

 

Are we talking about one of the new builds that aren't even in water yet? If so, I work in construction and what is planned and intended and what is reality is 2 completely different things.

 

I agree with the posters who state, if you want to take a chance on what in the end the reality might be, go for it. Otherwise wait until the ship sails.

 

This thread has become like the ncl website...comfusing :)

 

I was distracted and rushed when I started this thread so I do apologize for the confusion.

 

I started this thread to try and inform people who do want to book the breakaway or getaway that the website is misleading and they should be careful.

[shaun07]

Where ?? NCL.com only shows Cat s2,s4 s6 not the s5 for 4pp

 

I am shocked that the website is unclear:)

 

i did a fake booking for 4 and could book the FFPH

[che5904]

This thread has become like the ncl website...comfusing :)

 

I was distracted and rushed when I started this thread so I do apologize for the confusion.

 

I started this thread to try and inform people who do want to book the breakaway or getaway that the website is misleading and they should be careful.

 

You would be hard pressed to find any large corporation's website that is not cumbersome and/or confusing to some, or full of inconsistencies. Cruiseships, hotels, resorts are full of depictions and what you "may" get.

 

For one thing. if again you are talking about new builds, they haven't set sail yet, so there is no reality as of yet. Secondly proofreading and double checking accuracies anywhere are a thing of the past it seems :(.

 

I laughed the other day, our weather website has 2 areas one that has the next 24 hours broken down into sections that stated a high probability of a quite a few inches of snow expected. Right underneath of that breakdown was the wording "we do not expect any precipitation in the next 24 hours". Say what? Which one is it?

[dwjoe]

I started this thread to try and inform people who do want to book the breakaway or getaway that the website is misleading and they should be careful.

Thank you for clarifying what ship(s) you are talking about.

[biker@sea]

I am shocked that the website is unclear:)

 

i did a fake booking for 4 and could book the FFPH

 

Are you talking about the ( S7s ) on lower decks that face forward ,and have a balcony ???

[time2cruise1]

Are you talking about the ( S7s ) on lower decks that face forward ,and have a balcony ???

 

Keep in mind only one S7 holds 4 passengers deck 13. All the aft S6 hold 4.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk - Jim

[shaun07]

Are you talking about the ( S7s ) on lower decks that face forward ,and have a balcony ???

 

Yes the forward-facing penthouse with "balcony" S7

[shaun07]

Keep in mind only one S7 holds 4 passengers deck 13. All the aft S6 hold 4.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk - Jim

 

Nice catch. It will only allow me to do it for deck 13.

 

I saw on a different thread that some people are concerned because of the latest photos it looks like it only has a enclosed side balcony-Uh oh here we go again!!

[brooklynparkslope]

I, too, agree with Shaun. We booked our aft penthouse (which was THOUSANDS higher than a regular balcony). The website is totally contradictive in several locations. We wanted to make sure that the room they presented to us in the sales brochure were accurate. This is the artist rendering of the aft penthouse master bath:

 

 

Looks great, right? Well, imagine my surprise when I asked my PCC to verify that there was a second "half bath" as stated in the room amenities. His answer was that he didn't see any listing for the "half bath" but that my master bath has a nice tiled shower...."Excuse me??? Shower??? What about that lovely, huge, oval soaking tub in front of the expansive window?? " ...his answer..."It doesn't show that on MY screen" ...whoa...ok..."can someone check this out for me?"

Long story short, I am still waiting for the person in charge of the room layouts to get back to me. hmmmm.

 

For those of us who have booked these suites, it is a source of frustration. Shaun was just trying to relay this information to others. I, for one, hope that this will be remedied before our final payment is due...because it is a fairly sizable payment.

 

 

~enough said,

 

~Michele:)

 

sorry for the huge picture, I tried to make it smaller:confused:

 

 

I too am very concerned because I originally booked the forward penthouse but after reading on another thread about it not having a forward balcony I changed my mind and booked the aft penthouse. Mainly due to the half bath (because their are 4 of us). I also loved the idea of soaking in a hot bath watching the wake of the ship. I don't mind some errors or vagueness in their descriptions, but to advertise and sell features that now don't seem to be available is very shady. Not sure what to do because I am very excited about this cruise and while not having the half bath is not the end of the world or anything but I can't help but feel duped.....twice!!!

[shaun07]

I, too, agree with Shaun. We booked our aft penthouse (which was THOUSANDS higher than a regular balcony). The website is totally contradictive in several locations. We wanted to make sure that the room they presented to us in the sales brochure were accurate. This is the artist rendering of the aft penthouse master bath:

 

Looks great, right? Well, imagine my surprise when I asked my PCC to verify that there was a second "half bath" as stated in the room amenities. His answer was that he didn't see any listing for the "half bath" but that my master bath has a nice tiled shower...."Excuse me??? Shower??? What about that lovely, huge, oval soaking tub in front of the expansive window?? " ...his answer..."It doesn't show that on MY screen" ...whoa...ok..."can someone check this out for me?" Long story short, I am still waiting for the person in charge of the room layouts to get back to me. hmmmm.

 

For those of us who have booked these suites, it is a source of frustration. Shaun was just trying to relay this information to others. I, for one, hope that this will be remedied before our final payment is due...because it is a fairly sizable payment.

 

~enough said,

 

~Michele:)

 

sorry for the huge picture, I tried to make it smaller:confused:

 

That is why I started this thread, I am just trying to give people a heads up that what they are paying for is not what they may get.

 

I do feel torn about criticizing NCL because I love their product and it feels weird to criticize something I enjoy so much.

 

Saying that, these issues with advertising items that they wont offer may not be that big a deal in the grand scheme of things but it is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. The FFPH not having a forward facing balcony should have been pretty obvious to NCL considering the first photos released showed portholes instead of balconies. When I saw it first I thought maybe its just a rough rendering and they will add the balconies as time goes by. Obviously that wasn't the case but yet they advertised it with a forward facing balcony from day one. These ships are designed down to the very last detail so to miss something that obvious is worrying. What else have they said will be there but won't?

 

Instead of "NEED HELP we'll call you" how about calling the IT dept!

Do they have any quality control on their website? They seem to be able to advertise sales and specials pretty well. Why can't they have up to date and correct info on their website. Maybe they know people love ncl and wont abandon ship because of some misleading information on their website. I hope thats not the case!

 

Rant over.

[SeaShark]

That is why I started this thread, I am just trying to give people a heads up that what they are paying for is not what they may get.

 

I do feel torn about criticizing NCL because I love their product and it feels weird to criticize something I enjoy so much.

 

Saying that, these issues with advertising items that they wont offer may not be that big a deal in the grand scheme of things but it is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. The FFPH not having a forward facing balcony should have been pretty obvious to NCL considering the first photos released showed portholes instead of balconies. When I saw it first I thought maybe its just a rough rendering and they will add the balconies as time goes by. Obviously that wasn't the case but yet they advertised it with a forward facing balcony from day one. These ships are designed down to the very last detail so to miss something that obvious is worrying. What else have they said will be there but won't?

 

Instead of "NEED HELP we'll call you" how about calling the IT dept!

Do they have any quality control on their website? They seem to be able to advertise sales and specials pretty well. Why can't they have up to date and correct info on their website. Maybe they know people love ncl and wont abandon ship because of some misleading information on their website. I hope thats not the case!

 

Rant over.

 

Interesting rant. I do have to admit to some confusion on my part. Here is the Breakaway's initial rendering:

 

 

I guess my confusion stems from the fact that what you refer to as portholes actually look like balconies to me. :confused:

 

 

Overall though, your rant seems to center on your dissatifaction with the website...which, obviously, nobody here can control. There is contact information on NCL's site for their IT folks....have you tried addressing your concerns directly with them where your input could do some good? You know what they say...if they don't know it is broken, it is doubtful that they will fix it.

[shaun07]

Interesting rant. I do have to admit to some confusion on my part. Here is the Breakaway's initial rendering:

 

 

I guess my confusion stems from the fact that what you refer to as portholes actually look like balconies to me. :confused:

 

 

Overall though, your rant seems to center on your dissatifaction with the website...which, obviously, nobody here can control. There is contact information on NCL's site for their IT folks....have you tried addressing your concerns directly with them where your input could do some good? You know what they say...if they don't know it is broken, it is doubtful that they will fix it.

 

That picture is from the announcement of the breakaway I was referring to the original (and current) rendering they put up when they launched their breakaway website. Sorry for not being clear

 

Yes i have spoke to them on the phone twice and also filled out a survey.

[bonvoyagie]

I agree that info on the Breakaway is very vauge and conflicted. I think there are several factors that contribute to this. First actual changes in the ship between the early artist drawings and later renderings. Second there were early room descriptions based on the early drawings that were most likely copyed and pasted into the new website - this is way easier than trying to redo everything and while it usually does not lead to problems in this case there were enough major changes made that it did make a difference. Now that the damage is done, it would probably be best if NCL cleared up the website - however we are also close enough to having some real data on the ship so lets hope that the NCL marketing department gets its act together and put up some correct information.

[SeaShark]

That picture is from the announcement of the breakaway I was referring to the original (and current) rendering they put up when they launched their breakaway website. Sorry for not being clear

 

Yes i have spoke to them on the phone twice and also filled out a survey.

 

I still seem to be confused... If the picture I used is from the ANNOUNCEMENT of the Breakaway, isn't that (by definition) the "original" rendering?? I'm fairly certain there was not another rendering done before this one.

 

If this rendering came out at the very beginning, I don't see how you could possibly think that the current rendering is "original".

 

Do you think that the "forward facing balcony" descriptions just might be there because the "original" rendering/design of the ship had balconies in the front?? Think maybe that the rendering was changed to the porthole version, but the descriptions have all not been updated as well? Is that at all possible?

 

 

 

FWIW...If you've spoken to IT twice and filled out a survey, what is the point of this thread? IT is aware, nobody here can possibly change the site, and everyone was made aware of the issue with your first post. I appreciate you making everyone aware of the issue, but anything past that is just not productive. People make mistakes, nothing is always perfect, pointing it out (once) is one thing, but beating the dead horse is another.

[LadyShiva]

shaun07, you won't get satisfaction on this issue of misinformation, because NCL won't spend money to fix things to your satisfaction. That's why there's secondary websites that offer the pictures of real cabins on the ships... There's a market in providing the real information, because the cruiselines won't.

 

Same reason tripadvisor provides user-donated pictures of hotel rooms... the travel industry won't provide real pictures.

 

Have you thought about cancelling until you get the information you want? I personally moved out my cruise to the Getaway, and I'm a lot less worried. The rates finally came down for the Getaway to make it worth my while to move.

 

P.S. - I wrote an email to NCL's social media email address asking them to at LEAST spellcheck their blog posts... no answer, but they took action and fixed the ones I pointed out. For example, even the Breakaway's name was spelled wrong on one of the posts, in the first sentence!!

[shaun07]

One would think that being in the hospitality and service industry they would be on top of things like this. It would make sense to me to provide as much info as possible about your cabins etc to show what makes you stand out against other cruise lines.

I don't think it would be too difficult to at least provide the correct info even if it is limited.

 

My attempts at contacting NCL directly failed so i figured someone from NCL may read this tread and the many comments agreeing with me ( that worked out well ) about the mistakes on their website and they would spring into action.

 

As frustrating as it is we will just have to live with it and be thankful for cruise critic and other resources.

Sailing on!

[rvsullivan]

Thank God!!!

[brooklynparkslope]

I for one apprecited this thread. I was already having doubts about my cruise and thanks to the info on this thread a lot of my concerns were confimed. So I decided to postpone my cruise until some concrete details are released. Which will probably happen on CC and not on the ncl website. :mad:

[shaun07]

I for one apprecited this thread. I was already having doubts about my cruise and thanks to the info on this thread a lot of my concerns were confimed. So I decided to postpone my cruise until some concrete details are released. Which will probably happen on CC and not on the ncl website. :mad:

 

I am sorry you decided to cancel your cruise. I am thinking of booking the 2 bedroom villa as the descriptions seem to be pretty consistent, but it is a lot more money. Hopefully it will have 2 bedrooms :)

[shaun07]

The ships deck plans and stateroom feature is not working(on all the ships...maybe they are updating them....doubtful!

 

anyone else having this problem?

[LadyShiva]

The ships deck plans and stateroom feature is not working(on all the ships...maybe they are updating them....doubtful!

 

anyone else having this problem?

 

I've checked various sub-sites, and found problems with Jewel's landing page of Deck 8 from the NCL website to the deckplans. Change decks to Deck 9 and the deck plans come up. breakaway.ncl.com does not have this flicker, but it also uses another set of code to display deckplans.

 

Gem also had sporadic decks missing (landing page from Deckplans link, and deck 9, while other decks display).

 

I would venture a guess of another website code issue, versus any updates to their deck plans.

 

Let's face it... we're not talking about cream of the crop coders and QA people here. It's a professional presence, yes, but NCL is twisting to use Facebook and other lower cost social media more than keeping up their websites. Too much sunk cost in website maintenance nowadays. For proof, I offer the downright PITIFUL Getaway area. That sub-site would fail to look professional on MySpace! *shaking my head* I've seen blogs look more professional than that hot mess (Pioneer Woman, for example).

[shaun07]

I've checked various sub-sites, and found problems with Jewel's landing page of Deck 8 from the NCL website to the deckplans. Change decks to Deck 9 and the deck plans come up. breakaway.ncl.com does not have this flicker, but it also uses another set of code to display deckplans.

 

Gem also had sporadic decks missing (landing page from Deckplans link, and deck 9, while other decks display).

 

I would venture a guess of another website code issue, versus any updates to their deck plans.

 

Let's face it... we're not talking about cream of the crop coders and QA people here. It's a professional presence, yes, but NCL is twisting to use Facebook and other lower cost social media more than keeping up their websites. Too much sunk cost in website maintenance nowadays. For proof, I offer the downright PITIFUL Getaway area. That sub-site would fail to look professional on MySpace! *shaking my head* I've seen blogs look more professional than that hot mess (Pioneer Woman, for example).

 

They are back working now..

 

I didn't even bring up the getaway "website". Its a total joke!!

[sjbdtz]

They are back working now..

 

I didn't even bring up the getaway "website". Its a total joke!!

 

 

Just wanted to say that I approve of this thread.

 

 

.

 

 

;)

[shaun07]

Just wanted to say that I approve of this thread.

 

 

:o

[Burpelson]

It would be great if they would post architectural (but much simplified) layouts of each room.

 

In any case, this forward facing S7 Haven ROOM, with balcony on the SIDE (I admit they are slightly but not technically misleading..... and I wish there was a forward balcony!!) claims to sleep four, as of their website: http://www.breakaway.ncl.com/ship/staterooms/the-haven-forward-facing-penthouse-with-balcony/