There has to be a better way

[juanarcin]

The RC website. I'm loosing my sanity over it. I want to plan out my cruise but life happens. Work, activities, friends, events, dinners, just basic life stuff that always keep us busy. as the cruise gets closer I keep telling myself, you HAVE to make time to plan out your cruise! I''ll finally have an hour to dedicate to it. I'll flip on the website and it wont let me in. I'll search for help online and most people say, wait half an hour or a few hours and try again, that cant be right! I call RC and get the same response! How is it that if I can only dedicate 1-2 hours or so a week to this, I have to wait 1-2 hours after going to the site, before I can use it! Am I taking crazy pills here?

 

So today I started thinking, I'm going to have to make my own spreadsheet and enter all the information manually and just do it that way. So I start getting excited and put down where I'll be on what day, and then as I start making plans the obvious questions come up: what will be open at this port? what will be available for food at this port? how long do I have at this port? Well let me check the schedule of each stop....oh wait! that info is only available after I log in on the website!!! and it wont let me in for 1-2 hours!!! 😤😩

 

There has to be a better way! Royal Caribbean, I doubt you'll ever read this post, but if you somehow run into it, all I want to ask is: really?!?! Really?!?!!? you can't set up a simple session feature on a website? Everyone else has it figured out except for you guys? how is that possible?

Edited October 29, 2018 by juanarcin

[bouhunter]

How long you'll have at the port - it's printed on the schedule on your invoice.  What's open at the port - do you mean on the ship?  It will be in the cruise compass, no reason to think hours for individual ship facilities would be listed on the website.  What's available for food?  If you mean on the ship, same answer.

[Dewaldcruiser]

On Chrome, using an incognito window seems to help with the RCI website.

[cruiselvr04]

If you booked thru Royal your port times will be listed on your email that confirms your boooking.  

If you sign in with your booking number you can also see a cruise plannner which lists shore excursions, drink packages, etc.  

 

And yes it can be hard to get in and find what you want.  For instance there’s no link from the cruise planner to gifts.  You have to go in another way.  And you can’t pay tips on line....you have to call. Signing waivers seem to have disappeared from the website.

 

Those of us who cruise a lot just put up with it.  But it’s not user friendly for the most part. I had a lot of trouble printing luggage tags for my November cruise for instance. It was a pain!

[dcgrumpy]

The website stinks. But I don't think you need to be logged in to answer most of your questions.  The itinerary will be on your invoice or you can just search for the cruise without being logged in. 

 

What do you mean by what's open and what food is available? Do you mean on the ship while in port? 

[juanarcin]

I guess the itinerary shows up with times if you book through RC, I go through an online travel agency. The invoice shows the ports, but not the schedule. As far as what I mean in regards to whats available, I'm specifically looking into port activities. I'm going to be doing a SE Asia cruise in December. An example of what frustrates me:

 

I am looking for things to do while in Penang. I see some night markets mixed with hawker centers that open at 7pm, I know that some of our ports are late arrivals with late departures, I believe they depart at 10pm. I have no idea if Penang is one of these late ones. Only way to find out is to log onto to my cruise planner.

 

I'll have to try DewaldCruisers advice and try incognito mode.

[vickiw0318]

Try doing a dummy booking online.  Look at the itinerary - that should give you the port times.

[Ourusualbeach]

10 minutes ago, juanarcin said:

I guess the itinerary shows up with times if you book through RC, I go through an online travel agency. The invoice shows the ports, but not the schedule. As far as what I mean in regards to whats available, I'm specifically looking into port activities. I'm going to be doing a SE Asia cruise in December. An example of what frustrates me:

 

I am looking for things to do while in Penang. I see some night markets mixed with hawker centers that open at 7pm, I know that some of our ports are late arrivals with late departures, I believe they depart at 10pm. I have no idea if Penang is one of these late ones. Only way to find out is to log onto to my cruise planner.

 

I'll have to try DewaldCruisers advice and try incognito mode.

 

Lots of different travel agents websites list the times in port, and they have excursions far cheaper than Royal offers.

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by Ourusualbeach

[juanarcin]

6 minutes ago, vickiw0318 said:

Try doing a dummy booking online.  Look at the itinerary - that should give you the port times.

this isn't a bad idea, but actually DewaldCruisers advice of using incognito did the trick! I got all the information I could and pasted it over to use outside the website. It's still annoying to have to do this though. I get that there are ways to go around it, but I guess my biggest issue is why should we have to? Maybe not everyone will agree with me on this, but the way I see it, they offer us this feature as paying customers, so we should have access to it without having to figure out creative ways of accessing our information.

[vickiw0318]

Glad you got the info!  

[Ourusualbeach]

2 minutes ago, juanarcin said:

this isn't a bad idea, but actually DewaldCruisers advice of using incognito did the trick! I got all the information I could and pasted it over to use outside the website. It's still annoying to have to do this though. I get that there are ways to go around it, but I guess my biggest issue is why should we have to? Maybe not everyone will agree with me on this, but the way I see it, they offer us this feature as paying customers, so we should have access to it without having to figure out creative ways of accessing our information.

 

Did you try using a different browser.  Royal’s site dies not like some.  The other thing I find I have to do is go in and delete cookies and cache for Royals site and then it works fine.

[juanarcin]

2 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

 

Did you try using a different browser.  Royal’s site dies not like some.  The other thing I find I have to do is go in and delete cookies and cache for Royals site and then it works fine.

 

Your first post didnt load the picture for me for some reason, I just got to see it now. That is actually a much better option for next time (I seem to have this issue every time I go on a royal cruise 😔). I ended up sticking to chrome but incognito mode fixed it. clearing cache and cookies would have also done the trick I guess, but I think either of those option (your first travel agent suggestion or incognito) are faster.

 

One of the reasons this annoys me so much is that I work on websites for a living. Usually for tiny companies, and the slightest issue usually brings everything to a halt til it gets fixed. the reason is that we want customers to enjoy the experience.  Meanwhile Giant corps like Royal (and many many others) Have these extremely annoying situations (that can make entire sections of the website unusable) and no one bats an eye!

 

But my rant is over, I got my info, life goes on. Now I'm excited planning out my trip. The real nightmare will be if my parents ever book a cruise and I become their tech support for these issues! It'll take me an hour to explain how to use incognito mode followed by another hour explaining that it wont cause viruses or ask for credit card info! 🤣

[neverbeenhere]

Fire up your vpn, it might go a bit slower, but I always (mostly) get on. 

[matj2000]

I use an online TA 

 

Can't believe people are still doing it the old fashion way.

 

Messing with that ridiculous website....

Edited October 29, 2018 by matj2000

[cb at sea]

Your cruise is a vacation...you really don't need to "plan" it to the minute!  There will be openings for specialty restaurants onboard...same with activities.  Believe it or not, there are PLENTY of cruisers who get on the ship with NO plans at all!

[Fitzget]

Have you tried clearing your cache when you have website issues like this? 

[gliles]

1 hour ago, juanarcin said:

this isn't a bad idea, but actually DewaldCruisers advice of using incognito did the trick! I got all the information I could and pasted it over to use outside the website. It's still annoying to have to do this though. I get that there are ways to go around it, but I guess my biggest issue is why should we have to? Maybe not everyone will agree with me on this, but the way I see it, they offer us this feature as paying customers, so we should have access to it without having to figure out creative ways of accessing our information.

Exactly. They have the absolute worst website. 

[juanarcin]

18 minutes ago, cb at sea said:

Your cruise is a vacation...you really don't need to "plan" it to the minute!  There will be openings for specialty restaurants onboard...same with activities.  Believe it or not, there are PLENTY of cruisers who get on the ship with NO plans at all!

I get that, and Ive tried that. But it isnt for me. I dont need to plan it down to the minute, but I usually get a list of things I want to do. Once there I can go by the list or do my own thing. I've had plenty of ports where I get off with nothing to do and just feel lost and surrounded by tons of people trying to sell me items or services. At that point sometimes it's best to just grab . food and head back onto the ship. I'm sure plenty of people love getting to a port with no plans, but not really for me unless I've been to that port before.

[DeputyDawg46]

I find the RCL Website one of the worst I have ever tried to use.  Whether I'm on the iPhone, iPad, or Computer it is slow, unforgiving and absolutely frustrating.  I've written them about it but nothing has changed.  And I've cleaned all those cookies, apps, buffers, etc., that is supposed to make it easier.  Nothing really changes.