Suggestions for Improving Royal Caribbean and Carnival's Web Sites!

Some greatly needed features or functions for RCI, Carnival and other cruise line web sites:

Web site registration and profile
- Allow customers to register and store their profiles with information on family, home address (including state of residence), passport information including ages, specific interests, special needs (physical disabilities, wheelchair needs, dietary restrictions, etc.), and payment options (including registering a credit card or Paypal).
- Upon signing in, use profile information to customize all searches.
- Integrate all past cruises, C&A status and benefits with this main profile.
- Upon booking a cruise, transfer all personal booking information including passport info.

Improvements to search:
- Search by one or more departure ports
- Search by one or more ships or by class of ship(s)
- Search by user-specified cost range and not preset cost ranges
- Search for itineraries to include one or more specific ports and not just "destination" regions
- Search by specific number of dates (e.g. 4-10 days) and not preset date ranges
- Search by date inclusion ranges. For example, I am off from January 5 through January 13 so return cruises that fit entirely within this range
- Search only for available adjoining, connecting, handicapped or other special attribute staterooms
- Exclude obstructed view or handicapped staterooms
- Allow comparison of various cruises (ship, itinerary, costs) that meet one or more search criteria

Search Results
- When returning search results, don't lump all sailings of the same ship and itinerary together. List them separately.
- Handle holds and bookings using pre-populated profile data
- Allow customers to make deposits and one or more incremental payments toward booking
- Allow final payment to automatically be made on final payment due date

Bookings
- Specify stateroom preferences, including bedding arrangement, pillow/bedding preferences, child life preservers, remove balcony partitions, and options such as robes and other amenities
- Ability to make stateroom changes including downgrades and upgrades
- Ability to transfer booking directly to travel agent online

Other
- Show more stateroom details such as virtual 360 views, multiple angle photos

Mask your ATM, security system, garage and computer codes and passwords!

There was a discussion this morning about how crooks are modifying ATM's with fake card readers and miniature wireless cameras that allot them to steal people's ATM card numbers and the associated PIN. Here is the link to the Snopes article:

A suggestion was made to always use an ATM inside the bank. However this isn't always possible or feasible.

Remember that, like a computer login account without a password, your ATM card information is worthless without a PIN. Thus protecting your "last line of defense" is most important so I always try to "mask", or otherwise obscure, the process of entering PINs, security codes and passwords by placing the free hand over the typing hand whenever possible.

As a rule, always try to mask the entry of sensitive information when using a keyboard or keypad. Always enter this type of sensitive information with the assumption that there is a camera pointed at the keypad, someone is watching over your shoulder, or perhaps spying from afar with binoculars!