For most cruisers, the days leading up to a cruise vacation are full of excitement, anticipation, and planning.
Finally, your long-awaited vacation is almost here, and if you’re like me, you feel a sudden rush to plan out your days and prepare yourself for what to expect during your cruise.
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Besides planning port days in advance, I like to familiarize myself with the ship’s onboard features, look over dining menus, and review entertainment schedules ahead of time, if I can.
While plenty of cruisers choose to relax and wing it, some of us can relax more easily if we have an idea of how our days will go before we set foot on the ship.
But there's one big barrier to this kind of cruise vacation preparation — poor cruise line mobile app usability.
This problem was recently raised for discussion in the Celebrity Cruises community on Reddit, but it isn’t exclusive to one cruise line.
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Celebrity Cruises passenger points out major problem with cruise apps
“I'm excited for my cruise, but I need to put this out there,” Reddit user GreaseCrow vented. “The app, the organization, absolutely stinks.”
The passenger found it confusing that the Celebrity Cruises app has a calendar section that doesn’t include their upcoming cruise itinerary details, dates, or any activities they booked for their cruise.
“I want to find out what times the ship docks at which port,” GreaseCrow explained. “Why isn't it in the calendar? Why can't I find a single calendar that shows me everything relevant that is happening? Show me the docking times, show me what I have planned, show me the date of those things.”
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A number of Celebrity Cruises passengers weighed in on the Reddit thread to share similar frustrations. Some also explained that the app is designed to be much more functional for onboard use than pre-cruise planning.
“Long-time cruiser with Celebrity. I sympathize with you. I will say their app is mainly designed for once you get on board and it works very well at that point,” ApprehensiveHelp6015 pointed out.
“The app is an onboard tool. The website is the planning tool (generally speaking),” nana1960 chimed in. “The app will populate with more information in the week or so before boarding. Activities/entertainment may not load until you are onboard.”
This is common among most cruise lines’ apps, which led other passengers in the Reddit thread to note that issues with app usability and functionality, especially pre-cruise functionality, are widespread throughout the cruise industry.
Cruise app usability issues span multiple cruise lines
Some cruisers tried to encourage the frustrated Celebrity Cruises passenger by explaining that they’ve found other cruise line apps to be even less useful.
“I thought the Celebrity app was really pretty useless the first time I cruised with them. I have learned to adjust, especially after dealing with the Princess app. That one is the very definition of ‘user unfriendly,’” StableGenius369 noted.
Along with the Princess Cruises app, Norwegian, Carnival, Virgin Voyages, and Holland America Line apps were all brought up in the thread as examples of cruise line apps that some cruisers find cumbersome.
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“Now that we're going on an Alaska cruise with Holland America, I am wistfully dreaming about that glorious Celebrity app, in comparison to the dud that is the Holland America ‘Navigator,’” Dramatic-String-1246 shared. “We're leaving next week, and the app has very slowly been populating with information, but I still can't find anything there that even tells the hours the dining room is open, and for most programs listed, it doesn't show the location, price, etc.”
A few cruisers also pointed out that some of these app issues may stem from cruise lines hiring people who aren’t really familiar with cruising to design cruise apps.
“I’m starting to think that it needs to be mandatory that before you do any work for a cruise line, you take a cruise,” alcohall183 added.
Commenters who work in IT also attributed cruise app usability issues to a lack of consistency in the user experience between apps and cruise line websites.
(The Arena Group will earn a commission if you book a cruise.)
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