Disney Cruise Line updates site

Sometime in the last few days Disney Cruise Line has updated its site.  The new site now looks much more like the Walt Disney World website.  It has a nice Flash intro along with a more streamline user interface. 

The cruise search and online checkin systems have been updated with the latter now offering options to upgrade your cruise right online which wasn’t offered before.  The site now has several new virtual tour functions that work pretty nicely as well to show what the rooms look like, where they are located, etc. both in pictures, 360 views and a virtual ship.

Unfortunately it also looks like they went to press just a little early as there are more than a few niggly issues with rendering and some strange wording in a few places.

If I was king of the Disney Cruise Line website for a day, here are the things I’d change:

1. Add more fun and interactivity to booking your cruise.  The current process is nice if somewhat pedestrian.  
   
   A couple of possible examples:  Have Donald ‘lead’ mom through the process of booking with small movies that highlight different parts of the booking process.  Donald can play the part of the curmudgeon in the group (yeah, that’s you Dad) while leading us through setting up our cruise.
   
   Also, if you want to get the whole family onboard, then add the capability for the kids to login and see activities and stuff too (with minimal help from Mom and Dad).  
   
   Feel free to add your ‘blue sky’ thought to the comments section!
2. The website it technically executed well and all of the graphics are very well designed, polished and presented.  However, the whole thing lacks a certain cohesiveness and simplicity.  I’m a tech guy and I like knobs, but my dad nor my in-laws are and they don’t. 
   
   The option and checklist screens when you search for a cruise are exceptionally drawn, but they lack the intuitiveness and simplicity that ‘leads’ you through the process of making all the choices necessary.  That’s why it should tie to number 1 above and leverage the strong characters and others to build a ‘story’ about going on a cruise as the adventure that it is. 
   
   People need to be able to tie that adventure together as a family, both nuclear and extended, to have as much fun planning and planning together from the initial cruise booking to setting up shore excursions as possible. 
   
   Social interactivity has a place here whether it be through Skype or Disney brokered meeting services or similar.  Take the EPCOT dream and move it forward by allowing families to interact in conference with a Disney travel agent in voice or better yet, as EPCOT had in the 1980’s by video! 
3. On the branding side, the Magic and the Wonder have the only ships whistle’s in the world that play ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ vice the more typical ‘foghorn’ signal.  Yet the beginning of the Flash intro movie uses a ships bell’s, more common in the Navy and the Coast Guard, then the Disney whistle.
4. On the technical side, I should be able to ‘associate’ my cruise to my login so I don’t have to enter my cruise information every time I log on.  If this ‘feature’ is because of security (which I applaud, being the security conscious engineer/architect/system designer that I am), then maybe allow me to put in a PIN or something similar to cut down on the login process. 
5. The website should be able to handle multiple cruises for one family.  I should be able to have my profile show more than one cruise and the details about it.  This would be handy if I booked a further out cruise while I’m onboard or just in anticipation of one of the longer cruises when they offer a good deal.  I shouldn’t have to log in again to switch from one cruise to another.
6. TEST, TEST, TEST…  especially with IE7, IE8, Firefox and at least WebKit browsers (i.e. Safari, iPhone, Palm Pre, etc.).  Opera would be nice too, to make sure formatting and placement are correct. 
   
   Here is one example below or formatting gone awry.  See that ‘hanging’ Save a Cruise? link in the top right?  Looks like part of the sentence no?
   
   
7. Check and double check your English. 
   
   Here’s one example of strange punctuation and sentence structure:
   
   ‘Imagine being able to extend your dream vacation by staying in or near your departure or arrival port to soak up more of the excitement! Pretty soon, Disney Cruise Line Guests with 2010 sail dates can add to their cruise package a stay at Walt Disney World Resort—for the ultimate Disney experience—or in the enchanting European cities of Barcelona and London.

   Return to this page this fall for all the details—coming soon!’

8. Fix the website so that it either runs entirely in SSL mode (i.e. HTTPS) or fix it so I quit getting pop up errors when the website pulls graphics from a HTTP site when I’m on a HTTPS page looking at my reservation.  Most people don’t understand this error dialogue, and think it’s a problem with the web site.
9. If we are going to have a ‘Castaway Club page’ (and go through the effort of moving it to the new format) then we should probably update the information from the 2008 info that their now:

   The Castaway Club Compass, Fall 2008 Issue:
   "2010 Passage to New Disney Magic in Europe"

10. Add back the ability to ‘mute’ the sound on the main page.  I like the Flash movie, but every time you surf back you get the full on movie as if you’d come to the site for the first time.