On Monday, 13th my travelling companion made a purpose trip to my house so we could book our cruise. We couldn't book getting the following error: "9000 : Carnival has returned an unexpected response condition code. Contact CCL support desk @ (800) 845-2599."
So it was a total waste of time. I tried again on Tuesday and got the same error.
I was emailed by a Carnival customer service representative. They said they could book it on my behalf. Over the course of 3 days and many emails back and forth it was booked. I was told to promptly pay the deposit.
I went into my online profile and I had no booking. I worked out how to add it using the booking number I was given. I went to make payment and no matter what address I put in I got errors:
I put in my Australian address: "Error: Address Validation is only for US and Canada. "
I put in the address that the customer service representative had used for my booking (address in miami florida) and got: "Error: Mailing Address is invalid. Please enter a correct Mailing Address. "
I put in an address for a hotel I am staying in L.A and got: "Error: Mailing Address is invalid. Please enter a correct Mailing Address."
How many errors do I have to get to make my booking? Its ridiculous. I'm a internet programmer so I'm not a novice computer user accounting for the errors. The errors are at your end and I can't understand why they wouldn't be fixed. I don't understand why you would have a list of all these countries when you won't let anyone from outside of the US and Canada book without being stopped by errors.
Also, on a usability aspect why isn't 'Other State' at the top of the dropdown list?
The annoying part is that my normal Australian address was accepted under my contact details in my profile. Yet when I entered them for payment, it wouldn't accept it.
I was told that I could send my details via email. Why would I sent my credit card details over an unsecure email? Is there no other way to accept payment on your website accept from your unusable payment form?
I was asked to ring Carnival to give my credit card details over the phone. Due to the time difference, it means I'm at work so I can't make international calls on my work phone. I asked if they could call me and sent my full number with country code and area code and got an email back asking me what my country code was? Seriously, I sent it already and said I was from Australia.
Now I get: "im trying to figure out how to call you, i will hold your reservation and try to call you tomorrow morning" what? you cant dial internationally? Tomorrow is a Saturday for me and the number I gave is my work number.
I could have booked through the Australian operator "Travel the World" but their website didnt offer any of the specials yours did and the cruise price was substantially higher. If you don't want International guests to book on your website you should specify so. You should not have the list of all world countries available.
I've previously been a customer of Royal Caribbean cruiselines and never had such an issue. What a total dissapointment. Having this sort of experience before I've even been able to book has left me severely wondering what the service is going to be like if I ever get on board.