Cunard website: am I the only one who thinks....

[Canuker]

... that it is:

Poorly designed

Poorly presented

Poorly layed out

Poorly 'cared for'
Poorly managed?

 

It must be a colossal job to keep up such a huge, rambling site, but there seem to be so many glaring errors/omissions that I have to wonder about the diligence and qualifications of those responsible.

Web links that lead nowhere.

Web links that purport to take you to "A" but go to unwanted and unrelated "B".
Web pages that cover way too much and make it difficult to zero in on what you're looking for.
Constant repetition of material that is not sought.
Information that is said to be there but isn't.

I think the website folk could learn a lot about application, relevance, accuracy, focus and completeness from their colleagues on board to put together, manage and operate  the ships' daily programs. Cunard's website could give an adverse impression of what to expect on board.

Not up to Cunard's established standards.

Rant over.

[exlondoner]

My only consolation is that it is better that Cunard have a ghastly website and lovely ships than the other way round.😀

[Ray66]

Over on the P&O forum, folks are complaining about the same thing. So maybe it's more to do with Carnival than Cunard.

[Host Hattie]

1 hour ago, exlondoner said:

My only consolation is that it is better that Cunard have a ghastly website and lovely ships than the other way round.😀

Definitely !

I don't think it's just Carnival either, several of the boards have complaints about websites.

The UK site has got worse since they started improving it

[PORT ROYAL]

37 minutes ago, Ray66 said:

Over on the P&O forum, folks are complaining about the same thing. So maybe it's more to do with Carnival than Cunard.

 

A numpty psyciphant designed it, and Carnival will roll it out across the group.

 

Cunard confirmed the new software is not campatable with any Apple iPad with series below 11, Apple Macs, and if your tablet, laptop, phone, computer finds the viewing unstable, then you (the client) should consider buying another product, but we (Cunard) are unable to give a list of appropriate products.

 

So there you have it.  It's the viewers fault for owning the incorrect hardware.

 

 

[amfc_lenny]

11 minutes ago, PORT ROYAL said:

 

A numpty psyciphant designed it, and Carnival will roll it out across the group.

 

Cunard confirmed the new software is not campatable with any Apple iPad with series below 11, Apple Macs, and if your tablet, laptop, phone, computer finds the viewing unstable, then you (the client) should consider buying another product, but we (Cunard) are unable to give a list of appropriate products.

 

So there you have it.  It's the viewers fault for owning the incorrect hardware.

 

 

🙄🙄🙄

 

its one of the worst websites for a large company I’ve come across. Agree it definitely appears to be carnival issue, as all their brands appear equally as bad

[Bigmike911]

3 hours ago, Canuker said:

... that it is:

Poorly designed

Poorly presented

Poorly layed out

Poorly 'cared for'
Poorly managed?

 

It must be a colossal job to keep up such a huge, rambling site, but there seem to be so many glaring errors/omissions that I have to wonder about the diligence and qualifications of those responsible.

Web links that lead nowhere.

Web links that purport to take you to "A" but go to unwanted and unrelated "B".
Web pages that cover way too much and make it difficult to zero in on what you're looking for.
Constant repetition of material that is not sought.
Information that is said to be there but isn't.

I think the website folk could learn a lot about application, relevance, accuracy, focus and completeness from their colleagues on board to put together, manage and operate  the ships' daily programs. Cunard's website could give an adverse impression of what to expect on board.

Not up to Cunard's established standards.

Rant over.

No you are not the only one who thinks so. But the big question for me, a Carnival shareholder, is how much these sites actually drive customers away, rather than attracting them. Would anyone put up with a retailer whose web site was so poorly done that the customer cannot do business with them, no I don't think so. Web sites are often the first opportunity to attract a customer, and if you run a sloppy poorly designed one you have missed an opportunity to ever do business with that customer.

[Bedruthen]

I absolutely agree. The palaver you have to go through to select your cabin grade and number is ridiculous. It feels like you select your type of cabin at the start, then have to reselect another 10 times before you finally get to the deck plan.  I now find it easier to use an cruise agent, so no longer book direct.

[seacruise9]

Hi, 

 

I am a big Cunard fan who recently booked a cruise on the Queen Victoria for late April 2020. There seem to be a lot of problems with the website and the Voyage Personalizer. This has deteriorated since I last sailed with Cunard on the QM2 in late April 2019. I regularly cruise with Princess and think that they generally have an excellent website. Thus, some lines owned by Carnival manage to provide useful websites.

 

Chuck

[bluemarble]

Canuker, you may be interested in this thread, if you haven't seen it already, about the trials and tribulations of the new Cunard website since it was first introduced almost a year ago now.

 

 

It might be interesting to go through that thread and try to determine how many of the issues discussed there have been addressed, how many are still around, and what new issues have been created in the mean time.

 

One issue I just started noticing today in my desktop browser is that the number of available "Filter by" options to filter voyage search results now varies according to how wide I have made my browser window. Oddly enough, the number of available filter options increases as my browser window width decreases.

 

I used to diligently report every issue I found using the "Feedback" mechanism on the website but I think that has mostly been a fool's errand. I'd estimate I've reported over 100 issues that way and not very many of those issues have been resolved. And I can't say whether any of those were resolved because of my feedback since there is no mechanism for the feedback to be acknowledged.

Edited December 10, 2019 by bluemarble

[lissie]

(I am in the business of making websites for small businesses) 

 

The actual design is OK - the search function for looking for and booking trips seems fine. 

 

The content  in the FAQs and VP section is like  no one has actually gone through and updated it properly.  For example I was looking for the info on dress code - I'm sure it used to say something smart attire for men jackets no ties for gala  nights dark suit  with tie or bow tie or tux. 

 

WEll that's gone - if you search for dress code in the FAQs all you get is stuff about children under 18 not having to wear it! This isbasic info people need long before the trip so they can shop and pack. 

 

The VP should never ever have been made live - its awful. Broken links all over the place -they want info eg next of kin - but you can't enter it and save it. The images don't load. The site is unbelivable slow to load (this is the Australian site in NZ). The shore excursions don't load in a reasonable time and then - all their "read more" links are broken - so they are losing money on that because we're going in a couple of months - will be booking with third party   operators not Cunard. 

 

I'm torn - if I'm going to like any cruise ship it should be Cunard because  I love ballroom dancing. But I also need to stay in contact with my business and PRincess has now got a very interesting product called Medalliion class which makes internet much cheaper - and more importantly - faster.  

 

We will see - but its a huge sales failure in my eyes. 

 

And its all very easy to fix really -hire some bodies to sort out the links and the content - speed up the servers. This is not rocket science for those in the game. 

 

The really odd thing is the website is obviously done by CArnival - who own both Cunard and Princess - so why the heck can't cunard have fast internet like Princess (and a decent website?) 

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, lissie said:

... The content  in the FAQs and VP section is like  no one has actually gone through and updated it properly.  For example I was looking for the info on dress code - I'm sure it used to say something smart attire for men jackets no ties for gala  nights dark suit  with tie or bow tie or tux. 

 

WEll that's gone - if you search for dress code in the FAQs all you get is stuff about children under 18 not having to wear it! This isbasic info people need long before the trip so they can shop and pack. ...

 

Part of the problem with the FAQs is that there are now separate but similar UK and US FAQs that need to be maintained independently. The UK FAQ is in better shape than the US FAQ. I get the impression that the US FAQ was initially copied to the new website rather haphazardly from the UK FAQ and then tweaked from there with very little effort being put into correcting the resulting issues or keeping the US FAQ up-to-date.

 

Here are a couple examples to illustrate this point.

 

From the US FAQ (not very helpful information about the dress code)

 

From the UK FAQ (much more detail about the dress code)

 

From the US FAQ (some old info and no links so you can't actually see an example of a menu)

 

From the UK FAQ (more up-to-date and with actual links to the menus)

[lissie]

@bluemarble - I was actually on the Australian website - which seems to be a copy of the US website - while its actually the UK website which covers the QE Australia cruise season *inserts facepalm* .  Absolutely incompetent at every level! 

 

In fact the UK website is in direct contradiction to the change in dress code for the Australia season which has been discussed ad nauseum. 

 

Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth will continue to have the standard Formal and Informal (Jacket Required) dress codes.

Edited December 11, 2019 by lissie

[larrythelabrador]

The site & the VP are a pretty poor advert for what is supposed to be an upmarket cruise line!