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Have you been considering going on a Disney cruise vacation, but aren’t quite sure that the whole experience would be enough fun? Sure, Disney cruises are some of the most luxurious vacations out there, but they’ve also got the potential to become a bit claustrophobic, and there were all those food poisoning incidents on cruise ships last year, even if none of them were on Disney ships.
Well, either the execs at the Walt Disney Corp. cruise division thought their marketing scheme needed an extra push, or someone over in the animation/graphic design department was feeling whimsical, because the Disney cruise online check-in website just got a little bit quirkier, Disney-style.
Given that I’m not going on a Disney cruise anytime soon I wouldn’t have seen anything about the new site if not for a post about it on the official Disney parks blog. That makes me think execs must really be pushing website revamp, because why else would it appear on a blog about the parks?
I’ll skip first to the cartoony element of the new site. I’m being literal; guests accessing the check in page are greeted by a brand new Goofy-themed video short. The few-minute video features Goofy experiencing a bad dream about all of the paperwork he has to fill out in order to embark on his cruise. Ticking the relevant boxes and signing the prescribed lines takes so long that Goofy misses the ship.
Upon waking from the nightmare Goofy is relieved; because he booked a Disney cruise, he merely has to go online, click a few boxes, print out a page and sign it, and bring it with him to the dock. Easy; and now Goofy is free to enjoy his sunny vacation.
I’m not really sure what the video is trying to achieve. Yes, it’s a cute little clip about Goofy, and given that it’s promoting Disney Cruise Line it is appropriate. But the main argument of the video is that checking in for a Disney cruise is easy thanks to the company’s new website. However, the video streams from the Disney cruise check in website, so presumably most people watching are at the site because they were already going to use the online check in.
I think I’m being just a little sarcastic or harsh about the video because it reminds me of the old public service shorts Disney used to crank out in the 1950s and 60s. The last time I saw one of these, which also starred Goofy, was in my high school driver’s education class. Goofy, not a very observant driver, got into a number of comic cartoon car wrecks. It was weird.
Silly little videos aside, the Disney Cruise Line has actually done more to update the ease of its website. They’ve organized the various forms required in an intuitive order, and made the necessary instructions clear and simple. While I still don’t think that the Goofy video will get guests excited to complete “this seemingly routine task,” as the parks blog post suggests, it’s a fun little addition very much in the spirit of Disney.
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*(This image by mhowry is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
