jce2 Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 O.K. so I ignored advice (dumb) and booked my reservation on-line (sorta). For starters there a number of technical glitches with the reservation process. As a software developer of 35 years I pay attention to this sort of stuff and most of it is "repeatable". For example, we tried to reserve three rooms. The software then randomly placed our rooms on 3 different decks. No biggie....so far. next came the panels where they ask for passenger info for each room. Notice on the right side of page it shows the room assignment for the room your are currently assigning people to. It includes an "edit" button that supposedly will let you change your room assignment .......DONT DO IT!!! It will look like all is well..but when you finish entering the last passenger, instead of moving on to the next step in the reservation it kicks you all the way out to the cruise selection screen and all your work is lost! Wait to edit the rooms until you are past the initial passenger info screens.In any event, after wrestling with it (took a good 6 tries), I finally had everything as I wanted it and paid. Success!!!!....oh wait! My date somehow is wrong (admittedly that might have been my fault after 6 tries). No need to panic. Called RC and talked to a very nice man who worked to move us to the right day.....but right in the middle of reassigning our first room, his phone disconnected. I know it was on his end because my call timer continued to increment. So...call again! This time things went very well and at long last I had my reservations, rooms I was happy with etc.So time to explore "Cruise Planner". God news! Excursions seem to be there! ...Bad news...dining is not. Worked my way thru booking one excursion just to see the process and confirm we can use different credit cards. Looks good! Now how about......Wait...what suddenly happened?? It wants my logon info again. Okay, type it in....hit enter....What? It throws me to the customer support screen. Make several more attempts before giving up for the night. Sigh.......now about the TA....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jce2 Posted February 28, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 So I couldnt leave well enough alone and finally was able to log back into the planner. Cool feature....that excursion I played with but never finished with payment shows up on "My Calendar" but is patterned so I know its not paid for and conveniently includes a checkout button. It looks like for now my Janauy 7th cruise is accepting shore excursions and spa treatments but not dining, activities, entertainment etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocLC Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 Dining may not show up until 90 days or so before sailing. As for shows, those are only reservable on Oasis class ships, so there's nothing to reserve on the Liberty when it comes to entertainment. You just show up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monctonguy Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 Sounds about right based on a lot of people's experiences with the booking engine on RCI.... I haven't booked a cruise on there since they took away the free 24hr holds they used to offer. Too many other sites out there that work better and offer better perks and price's...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 This won't make you feel better, but it is lightyears better than what it used to be Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dejagatkins Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 Sounds about right based on a lot of people's experiences with the booking engine on RCI.... I haven't booked a cruise on there since they took away the free 24hr holds they used to offer. Too many other sites out there that work better and offer better perks and price's...... Just to be clear though, if you wish to book on a website for RC, you can only do it on their official site, right? That or through an agency? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monctonguy Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 No..you can book on MANY different sites....each may offer better pricing or perks. I learned that the hard way..after MANY cruises with RCI and paying full price on their own site with little or no OBC, and then talking to ppl who paid way less and had more perks I caught on. Haven't booked with them since. The final straw was no longer giving us 24hrs to hold something while I tried to make arrangements with work and flights etc before committing to the cruise. Once they did away with that , there was NO advantage left in my mind to booking with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocLC Posted February 28, 2017 Report Share Posted February 28, 2017 FWIW, any TA can put a courtesy hold on a cruise. If it's after final payment, they can usually hold it for 24 hours. If before, they can usually hold it for 5 days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdcackler Posted March 1, 2017 Report Share Posted March 1, 2017 This won't make you feel better, but it is lightyears better than what it used to be Holy Cow - I can't imagine what it used to be like then. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted March 1, 2017 Report Share Posted March 1, 2017 Holy Cow - I can't imagine what it used to be like then. ;) Back in my day, we had to traverse a much more clunky site that routinely crashed. And I walked uphill in the snow both ways. RestingBird, coneyraven and tdcackler 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Posted March 1, 2017 Report Share Posted March 1, 2017 No..you can book on MANY different sites....each may offer better pricing or perks. I learned that the hard way..after MANY cruises with RCI and paying full price on their own site with little or no OBC, and then talking to ppl who paid way less and had more perks I caught on. Haven't booked with them since. The final straw was no longer giving us 24hrs to hold something while I tried to make arrangements with work and flights etc before committing to the cruise. Once they did away with that , there was NO advantage left in my mind to booking with them. I would love to take a look at those sites, any recommandation ? Floski 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monctonguy Posted March 1, 2017 Report Share Posted March 1, 2017 Two that I look at often are Vacationstogo as well as Crucon.....but their are lots out there..even priceline has better deals than booking with RCI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coneyraven Posted March 1, 2017 Report Share Posted March 1, 2017 This is exactly why I don't bother with the web site --- I just call in for everything. Everyone is incredibly patient and helpful, I get receipts and confirmations almost immediately ..... I've never had to be on hold more than just a couple minutes. tdcackler, WHStoneman and WAAAYTOOO 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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