Holland America Line Navigator 4+

The latest update completely changes the user interface so I’m still trying to find things that were muscle memory on the old app.

It is good having an app to carry and plan the days activities from. Being able to see what activities you have booked day by day is a great feature.

On the bad side, the app will only accommodate the most recent cruise for excursion purchases. Thus is a deficiency that should be corrected as the other two voyages I have can only be accessed through the web site.

Two highly desirable features should be added to this app:
1. The ability to select the ship’s audio broadcast channel on my device. When you’re in your stateroom, on the balcony, bathroom or the outer decks during scenic cruising we can’t hear the announcements. It would be fantastic to select this channel, put in the earphones and get the narrations while in the fjords, ice fields and scenic harbors.

2. The cruise directors love to give a long narration of port information when we arrive in port. Often they include where the gangway is located but more often than not they neglect that piece on information. That location can also change during the day, plus you have to be in an area where it can be heard when the information is given. I suggest adding the CURRENT gangway location as a header in the my itinerary section of the app.

Many of the features of this app work fine. Events, excursions, etc were informative and up to date. There were 16 people in our immediate party plus others in our organization. It was nice to have a form of communication while on board with the Messages feature. However, while you can add any passenger onboard, there is no way to form groups. Therefore if you want to tell everyone to meet at the aft bar, you must message each person individually. It’s very primitive at this time. Also it’s slow to post so don’t expect to have a conversation. And despite having properly set my phone to give notifications I never received any. Most of our group had that issue. Hoping this app is updated before my next voyage.

The app has a lot of potential but it is very clunky and hard to navigate. It’s like the built an app around a web page and not a stand alone app. Examples: *I should log into the app and not have to retype my log in again period. *There is no direct link to my planned trips unless I navigate thru three menus. *The doesn’t have a logical flow based on users and how people plan trips. It just takes you where folks want you to go spend money. *Some menus and navigation paths match how you just navigate the Holland Desktop site. *If you have multiple cruises there is no way to toggle between them on the first screen. I just don’t feel this is a finished product that was tested with real users. It feels like an older app design where they tried to cut corners by leverage existing infrastructure. I love Holland and really love bragging about cruising with them. Sadly, I can’t brag about this app until it’s really brought up to their shipboard standards.