How AIDA Cruises Scaled Feedback Analysis from Small Samples to 1.7M+ Guest Comments 

AIDA Cruises operates one of the most modern cruise fleets in the world, serving hundreds of thousands of guests annually. Part of the Carnival Group since 2004, AIDA has shaped the modern cruise industry with a focus on innovation and guest experience. 

Understanding what makes each cruise memorable (and what doesn't) is key to their mission. Guest feedback plays a critical role in shaping CX decisions across the fleet. 

We spoke with Stephanie Arndt and Joana Kuehn from AIDA's Market Research team about how they use Caplena to analyze post-cruise survey feedback and drive insights-led decisions.  

The Challenge: Sample-Based Analysis Led to Partial Insights

Every week, AIDA Cruises receives thousands of open-text responses from their post-cruise surveys. Guests often comment on multiple aspects of their cruise in a single response, sometimes in long and detailed texts. This made manual analysis increasingly difficult. 

Before implementing Caplena, the market research team analyzed this feedback manually using Excel-based workflows, including keyword searches and manual categorization. Due to the large volume of feedback, analysis was typically conducted on subsamples rather than the complete dataset. 

"

We knew there was valuable information in our open feedback, but manually analyzing only subsamples meant we couldn't always be confident about the overall picture.”

Stephanie Arndt

Manager Market Research 

As feedback volumes piled up, the limitations of this approach became clear: 

• Subsamples did not always provide a reliable view of overall guest sentiment 

• Manual coding required significant time and effort 

• Providing clear explanations behind key CX metrics, particularly Net Promoter Score, became increasingly difficult 

The team needed a solution that would allow them to analyze all available feedback in a structured, transparent, and scalable way.  

Why AIDA Cruises Chose Caplena for Feedback Analysis  

In 2022, the team evaluated several feedback analysis platforms. Their key criteria were setup effort, flexibility, ease of use, and alignment with their specific business needs. 

What set Caplena apart: 

• Analyst control: AI speeds up the process, but analysts stay in the driver's seat 

• Transparent results: Clear visibility into how feedback is categorized 

• Flexibility: Adapt coding frameworks to match their specific needs 

• Scalable: Handle growing feedback volumes without slowing down 

"

We chose Caplena as it was simple, understandable, and affordable."

Stephanie Arndt

Manager Market Research

Unlike black-box AI tools that provide answers without explanation, Caplena gave the team confidence in their analysis while reducing the manual workload. 

Implementation: From Manual Uploads to an Automated Workflow with Qualtrics  

Phase 1: Building Trust 

Initially, the team uploaded open-ended feedback into Caplena manually on a weekly basis. This allowed them to validate results, refine category systems, and build confidence in the AI-powered analysis. 

Phase 2: Qualtrics Integration 

The real transformation came when Caplena was integrated directly with Qualtrics, AIDA's customer experience management platform.

The integration was implemented carefully with data protection as a priority: 

• Only selected survey fields transfer to Caplena 

• All data is anonymized before analysis 

With the Qualtrics integration connection in place, feedback analysis shifted from a weekly manual task to a stable, automated process with no manual uploads needed.  

How AIDA Uses Caplena: From NPS Analysis to Strategic Insights 

Understanding What Drives NPS 

One of the central use cases is the analysis of open-ended follow-up questions tied to Net Promoter Score. Beyond identifying themes and sentiment, the team uses Caplena’s driver analysis to understand how specific topics mentioned in guest feedback relate to changes in NPS. 

Caplena enables the market research team to: 

• Analyze open-ended NPS follow-up questions across the full dataset 

• Enrich regular NPS reporting with systematically categorized guest feedback 

• Explain score changes using summaries and structured topic analysis 

• Measure how strongly individual topics are associated with higher or lower NPS 

• Identify areas where improvements are likely to have the greatest impact on NPS 

This allows the team not only to understand what guests are talking about, but also which topics matter most for customer recommendation and where CX initiatives can be prioritized most effectively. 

Serving as a Central Insights Hub 

 Beyond NPS, Caplena has become the go-to resource for cross-functional teams: 

• Onboard services, entertainment, and F&B teams get responses for their operational questions based in guest feedback 

• Ad hoc questions are answered using existing feedback data without the need for new surveys 

• Leadership inquiries receive insights-backed responses quickly with Insight Agent 

Key Discovery: Identifying “Value for Money” as a CX Priority 

By tracking sentiment across feedback categories over time, the team spotted a clear trend.   

The insight: While "price-performance" or "value for money" had always appeared in guest comments, the proportion of negative sentiment was increasing gradually and consistently. 

The impact: This observation led to a dedicated internal tracking study focused on value perception. The topic gained visibility at the leadership level and became part of broader strategic discussions around guest expectations and pricing. 

Having systematically analyzed feedback in Caplena allowed the team to ground these discussions in their own guest data rather than assumptions or industry trends alone. 

"

When we looked at the categories over time, we saw that the negative share for value for money was increasing, and that became the starting point for a dedicated tracking study.”

Stephanie Arndt

Manager Market Research

What’s Next: Expanding Access to Qualitative Insights 

AIDA Cruises is focused on making insights more accessible beyond the market research team. A key next step is the planned integration of Caplena’s Insights Agent with Microsoft Copilot. This will allow stakeholders to access insights within tools they already use, without the need to adopt an additional platform. 

In parallel, the team plans to extend analysis to additional open-ended survey questions and apply Caplena more broadly to ad hoc research projects. This will enable faster exploration of new topics without the need to define category systems upfront for every study. 

"

Working with Caplena for over 5 years, we've watched the platform grow in ways that directly reflect what customers actually need. That responsiveness is rare, and it's a big part of why this solution continues to deliver value for us.”

Joanna Kühn

Supervisor, Market Research