econdly I'm trying to get the data from Excel onto the Arduino, not the other way around.
Check into Serial.parseInt() and Serial.parseFloat() ... These can be used in a loop() to load an array. This array can be SRAM or in EEPROM.
Nice part about the Serial.parse... Functions is it "eats" the comma separator... No need to manage it in your code.
Ex from my calculator program: http://www.hackster.io/rayburne/scientific-calculator
// ADD
a = Serial.parseFloat();
b = Serial.parseFloat();
LastX = a + b;
Serial << _FLOAT(LastX, decimals);
break;