New Cunard Website

[Underwatr]

On the other hand, Royal Caribbean's website doesn't really work on my Android Tablet at all.

[bluemarble]

I just got very brave and booked a voyage using Cunard's new website. Somewhat to my surprise, it actually accepted my booking, gave me a confirmation number, and a few minutes later I received email confirmation with the booking confirmation pdf document attached.

 

The booking process in the US no longer asks you to select a seating or preferred table size for the Britannia dining room prior to submitting payment. That now appears on the booking confirmation page after you have submitted your payment. However, that part leaves a bit to the imagination. Here is the section of the booking confirmation page I received to select my dining preferences.

 

 

I guess I am supposed to assume the first radio button is to select first seating and the second radio button is to select second seating?

[Underwatr]

1 hour ago, bluemarble said:

I guess I am supposed to assume the first radio button is to select first seating and the second radio button is to select second seating?

That's my guess. You can still review and change your dining choice (request) in the Personaliser: https://vp.cunard.com/Dining/Dining-Options/

[bluemarble]

6 minutes ago, Underwatr said:

That's my guess. You can still review and change your dining choice (request) in the Personaliser: https://vp.cunard.com/Dining/Dining-Options/

 

Yeah, I'll see what I actually ended up requesting in the voyage personaliser when the booking becomes available there later today or tomorrow.

 

It apparently assumes a request of first sitting by default since the booking confirmation pdf file I received via email prior to making a selection on the booking confirmation web page states the following.

 

Dining Request: First Sitting / Waitlisted
Position: 224
Confirmed Dining: Second Sitting
Restaurant: Britannia Rest / Non-Smoking

[bluemarble]

Now that I can see my booking in voyage personaliser, it shows that selecting the second radio button (as seen in my screen shot above) did assign me to second sitting. I'm not waitlisted on first sitting any more as was originally indicated in my booking confirmation. And my request for a table size of 8 is also showing in voyage personaliser.

[bluemarble]

I know, you're probably thinking "Oh, no, not another post about the new website from bluemarble!"

 

I've noticed when using the "room selector" to choose a cabin on the new website, it always shows the aft-most available cabins in any given section and pre-selects the aft-most of those for you. That's great for forward sections of the ship where you probably want to be more toward midship. But that's probably not so great for aft sections of the ship.

 

Here's an example from a QM2 crossing showing what the room selector offers as available sheltered balconies on deck 4 aft. These are category "BY" cabins.

 

 

 

Elsewhere we have discussed how Cunard limits what it shows to a maximum of 10 available cabins within any given deck and section. Those 10 cabins it is offering here as available are pretty far aft. And it has even pre-selected the aft-most cabin 4225 for us. In other threads we have discussed how some might consider cabin 4225 to be one of the least desirable sheltered balconies on QM2 since it's positioned above the G32 nightclub.

 

Here is a diagram where I have filled in all the other available cabins in pink.

 

 

I know that I'd prefer one of the cabins further forward if I wanted to book a BY cabin on this QM2 voyage.

 

Just something to watch out for when working with the room selector in case you are inclined to actually book a voyage on the new Cunard website.

[Klapka]

A new website is always a challenge at first, but this is just weird!   Seems to be designed to confuse rather than clarify.  

[rsquare]

On 2/27/2019 at 4:28 PM, Klapka said:

A new website is always a challenge at first, but this is just weird!   Seems to be designed to confuse rather than clarify.  

Simpler explanation is that it was rushed onto the web without any testing or review.  A classic symptom is the use of "lorem ipsum.." placeholder text, which is normally done for internal visualization but which should never be seen on a live website:

 

[jean smith]

The new Cunard website is useless, and primitive offering faded pictures, lackluster font, limited information, all of which won't even load !

What happened ! If this were last year, I never would have been able to plan my transatlantic & Northern Europe jaunt. 

[Host Hattie]

I've just been on the phone to Cunard sorting out the mess of a booking I made on their website earlier this week. It managed to take 2 Future Cruise Deposits from my account, none from my husband's and not take the £100 from the amount it took from my credit card. I won't be doing that again.

Serves me right for cutting out my ever helpful Travel agent !

[tacticalbanjo]

I really hate the fact that the way its been coded stops you from opening links in new tabs. When I search for a trip I will be looking at multiple voyages to compare pricing, itinerary, dates. Now I have to do multiple searches to compare trips (and as others have mentioned, its then really hard to compare pricing between categories - it's easier to go for the cheapest category rather than faff about with the system) and its a really frustrating experience. Why make it harder for people to spend money? Companies should be going for the Amazon approach: making it as frictionless as possible to spend money.

[Wordzz]

The complaints have been ongoing for some considerable time now, and rightly so - the new site is still terrible. I wonder if they are actually heeding this and doing anything about it?

[TheOldBear]

54 minutes ago, Wordzz said:

The complaints have been ongoing for some considerable time now, and rightly so - the new site is still terrible. I wonder if they are actually heeding this and doing anything about it?

 

Usually an IT disaster like the Cunard/Princess/HAL website rollout results in a promotion for the manager, and continued contracts with the outsourcing company responsible for the update. Scot Adams' Dilbert is usually a reliable guide to this

[deck chair]

Hello

 

I found the old website very useful, easy to navigate the user friendly.   The new website is a disaster.  

Deck Chair

[PORT ROYAL]

47 minutes ago, TheOldBear said:

 

Usually a disaster results in a promotion for the manager.

 

Totally agree.  Working on your premise, Robins will now get a Knighthood.

[bluemarble]

Here's my latest contribution concerning glitches on the new website. I think this one just started yesterday on the US website. This appears during the booking process.

In case you are having some difficulty reading this as I did, it says "Show price breakdown" on top of "See mobility scooter-friendly rooms". Clicking the text does indeed show a price breakdown for the booking in progress. No idea how to get this to show mobility scooter-friendly rooms though if that's what you'd rather see.

[3rdGenCunarder]

On 3/18/2019 at 10:14 AM, TheOldBear said:

 

Usually an IT disaster like the Cunard/Princess/HAL website rollout results in a promotion for the manager, and continued contracts with the outsourcing company responsible for the update. Scot Adams' Dilbert is usually a reliable guide to this

 

Ah yes, the principle of "screw up, move up."

 

Here's a new one. I was looking at tours for my upcoming cruise. I clicked on one to read about it, then clicked the green "back" button next to the description to return to the list for that port. That took me to a sign-in page for P&O voyage personalizer. 

 

What a mess!

 

Edited March 23, 2019 by 3rdGenCunarder

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

... Here's a new one. I was looking at tours for my upcoming cruise. I clicked on one to read about it, then clicked the green "back" button next to the description to return to the list for that port. That took me to a sign-in page for P&O voyage personalizer. 

 

What a mess!

 

Sadly, that behavior within the Voyage Personaliser is not new. See this earlier thread about the issue where the Cunard and P&O personlisers seem to get confused. In post #5 of that thread I mentioned where hitting the "back" button while viewing shore excursions in the US voyage personaliser actually sent me to the login pages for the German and UK voyage personalisers.

 

 

I don't think many changes have been made to the Voyager Personaliser in conjunction with the rollout of the new main Cunard website. For example, within the US Voyage Personaliser, the FAQs page still attempts to link to "www.cunard.com/frequent-questions/" on the old US website which now produces the error "There appears to be a problem."

 

In any event, I do agree with your "What a mess!" comment.

Edited March 23, 2019 by bluemarble

[bluemarble]

The latest wackiness I've found with the new website is that the "More details" page for the Queen Victoria seems to have gone missing a day or two ago and is still missing today.

 

On the US website, the "More details" link for Queen Victoria on the home page now simply displays a blank page at "www.cunard.com/en-us/cruise-ships/queen-victoria".

 

On the UK website, the "More details" link for Queen Victoria on the home page attempts to go to "www.cunard.com/en-us/cruise-ships/queen-victoria/8" which now generates a 404 error "The page that you are looking for cannot be found."

 

It's a bit discouraging that instead of making progress with fixing the many broken/non-functioning links on the new website, they seem to be creating more of them.

[Bigmike911]

I was trying to do some research on the website today. Needless to say all I accomplished was making myself mad. As a Carnival shareholder, I have to say the website reflect poorly on the company, and its ability to attract new customers. I hate pestering my travel agent for information I should be able to easily find. Cunard fix this mess. 

[Underwatr]

I think what it does is push potential bookings to third party TAs, which is a drag on the bottom line compared to booking direct with Cunard (since they have to pay commissions to to TAs). As a shareholder that unnecessary expense bothers me as much as the bookings that are lost altogether. 

[Bigmike911]

16 hours ago, Underwatr said:

I think what it does is push potential bookings to third party TAs, which is a drag on the bottom line compared to booking direct with Cunard (since they have to pay commissions to to TAs). As a shareholder that unnecessary expense bothers me as much as the bookings that are lost altogether. 

One has to wonder what the mind set at the Marketing Gurus at Carnival is?  Spend millions on advertising with links to the web site, which is only going to turn potential customers away. Not exactly the the best strategy for new and repeat business.

[Docker123]

Not sure if this special feature has been mentioned as yet ...

 

Friends are booking a cruise and asked for help. Oz site. Played with the multiple layers of opaqueness to get to the cruise. See the prices, $10,000 for the 2. About what was expected. Move to next stage, price shown as $30,000.

 

Cunard kindly added airfares — did not ask when they were departing or returning. Class of fare. Airline. Etc.

 

Then spent another while searching to find out how to remove the airfare that tripled the cost.

 

Friends have now gone to a TA as they were horrified by this nonsense and were loath to try and deal with it as an ongoing process.

 

[bluemarble]

3 hours ago, Docker123 said:

Not sure if this special feature has been mentioned as yet ...

 

Friends are booking a cruise and asked for help. Oz site. Played with the multiple layers of opaqueness to get to the cruise. See the prices, $10,000 for the 2. About what was expected. Move to next stage, price shown as $30,000.

 

Cunard kindly added airfares — did not ask when they were departing or returning. Class of fare. Airline. Etc.

 

Then spent another while searching to find out how to remove the airfare that tripled the cost.

 

Friends have now gone to a TA as they were horrified by this nonsense and were loath to try and deal with it as an ongoing process.

 

Oh wow! That's bizarre. I guess nothing ceases to amaze with the new web site anymore.

 

Would you mind sharing which voyage this is happening on? I'd love see if I can duplicate the issue here after I set up a vpn connection to pretend I am in Australia.

[Docker123]

3 July 2020 on QV.

 

Fjords cruise.

 

perhaps they were trying to be helpful getting the pax from Australia. 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Docker123