The Disney Cruise Line website was recently updated. There weren't any major changes, like adding the Wish's deck plans, but they did remove "finder.deck-plans.facet-bar.ship-wish". It was replaced with an empty box:
Besides that, the site mainly received a minor visual update. However, there were a few things I found that were changed, and some of them are pretty nice features. Let's take a look!
Starting out on the website's homepage, the cruise finder bar has been changed.
This change may appear to be just a minor cosmetic change, but clicking on the search tabs reveals that there was a substantial change made.
The cruise date selection used to just be a list of months, and users could click on the months they wanted to see cruises for. Now, though, it's much more friendly, as it asks a question! "When would you like to sail?" It also changed the look and size of the month boxes, which makes them easier to select, especially on a mobile device.
The next tab shows the destinations that the DCL ships sail to. Like the previous tab, it now asks a question. "Where would you like to sail?" Also like the previous tab, this tab used to just have a list of destinations, but now, it shows photos of them.
The next tab is the departure port tab. The question here is "Where would you like to depart from?" Like the destinations, there is now a photo of each departure port.
This is the tab to select how many people are going on the cruise. This question is "Who's sailing?" Online, you can book up to five people per room, and four rooms per one cruise. If you want take over twenty people or book more than four rooms on a cruise, you can make multiple reservations, contact a travel agent, or call DCL. This policy has not changed with the new website update.
The last tab, for other search filters, has some miscellaneous search filters. Keeping with the friendly question theme, this tab asks, "Would you like to experience a Themed or Holiday Cruise?", "How many nights?", and, "What ship would you like to sail on?" I don't know why there's a "14 or More" option, since the longest DCL cruises are 14-nights. Maybe once the Wish starts sailing one of the existing ships will occasionally do longer cruises. I don't think this will happen, though, because the 14-night Panama Canal cruises don't sell as well as other cruises because they're so long.
If you select a filter in one tab, the filters in the other tabs will update to show this change. For example, if you choose January 2022, you can't select Alaska as a destination, because there aren't any Alaskan cruises in the winter. This feature was here before this update, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
This cruise ends exactly one year from the date I wrote this post, so I chose it to show the other updates to the DCL website. Next to the cruise date, it says that this cruise starts on a Thursday and ends on a Monday. This is super helpful and a great addition. Now, I don't have to waste time looking on a calendar to see what day of the week the cruise starts on and ends on! Another helpful change is the addition of the "Sailing on..." text on the right side. It said the name of the ship before this update, but having the name of the ship in the font that's actually on the ship makes it more obvious.
This doesn't have anything to do with the update, but for some reason, there are two different photos for Very Merrytime cruises. I don't really know why Disney would do this, but it does add some variety to the cruise selection page. I guess that's a good thing.
This update didn't include anything mind blowing, but the small updates that were made were nice. Having a pleasant user experience while searching for cruises may get more people to decide to book a cruise, so this update is good for both users and Disney. As the Wish gets closer to completion and more is announced about it, there will probably be more interest in DCL, so it's good their website was improved for the potential new guests! When more gets announced about the Wish, I know I'll be using the DCL website a lot.
Hi DCLKid. Great post! In general I like the changes. Very nice user interface and easier to click through and find what you are looking for. One thing I noticed is it does not seem to allow you to save cruises. The old site you could select cruises to keep in your saved list. This was handy when you are trying to decide between two or more cruises.
ReplyDelete