Dine My Way - new MedallionClass enhancement

[Al Aboard]

I agree with Steelers36 that they should have kept functionality in the current cruise personalizer and I would add also with the phone agents.

 

My wife and I made a booking for 14 day cruise in January 2023 for ourselves and my father-in-law traveling solo (age 90) including 1st seating traditional.  I thought we had everything completed except payments.  Friday we decided to add the prior 10 day cruise to make it B2B.  When I called and booked the additional cruise I was told I had to use the app to get the dining option.  That's when I first heard of this.  I asked about the previous booking and was told it was moved automatically.  I asked if she could tell me if it moved OK and she told me she couldn't see it.

 

I finally got the app reloaded on my phone and went to request the dining option to be told nothing was available.  I checked the calendar to see what was in place on the previously booked cruise and saw my wife and I have a table for 2 in the Palm dining room and my father-in-law is on a table for 4 in the Island dining room.

 

Not happy.  I know somehow it will work out but don't see why I have to go through who knows how much additional work just to get dining options straightened out.  Even though I know there is more than enough time, I would rather have it done and not worry about waiting too long and finding 1st seating TD is suddenly full.

[LynnTTT]

We are fairly new to Princess. We are planning on booking a Transatlantic on the new Enchanted Princess next April.  We plan on an inside or balcony cabin. Is this "medallion enhancement" for all cabins? 

And what is better about a "Medallion ship"?  And I hate all these new special restaurants because it may be that they then skimp on the included/no surcharge dining spots
 

[Steelers36]

18 minutes ago, LynnTTT said:

We are fairly new to Princess. We are planning on booking a Transatlantic on the new Enchanted Princess next April.  We plan on an inside or balcony cabin. Is this "medallion enhancement" for all cabins? 

And what is better about a "Medallion ship"?  And I hate all these new special restaurants because it may be that they then skimp on the included/no surcharge dining spots
 

The entire Princess fleet is Medallion Class now.  That means:

 

1.  The new Medallion Net higher speed internet.

2.  Cruise cards replaced with a coin-size Medallion that connects to ship's INTRAnet and also opens cabin door.

3. The Medallion Class app (for smart phones and some selected devices such as tablets) can be used for ship information on board and for pre-cruise registration info and dining reservations.  On board, you will also have functions on cabin TV as well as on video portals scattered around the ship - especially in elevator lobbies.

 

If you want to get more info, please see Princess.com and read about Medallion Class and the Medallion Class App.  Also, read up on Dine My Way (DMW). 

 

Note that there are many bugs in the new releases of MC App and with DMW.

[skynight]

7 minutes ago, LynnTTT said:

We are fairly new to Princess. We are planning on booking a Transatlantic on the new Enchanted Princess next April.  We plan on an inside or balcony cabin. Is this "medallion enhancement" for all cabins? 

And what is better about a "Medallion ship"?  And I hate all these new special restaurants because it may be that they then skimp on the included/no surcharge dining spots
 

Medallion 101

The medallion itself is a cruise card in a quarter sized disk form. All cabin category passengers have a medallion just like they would a cruise card. It identifies you on the ship for purchases and it allows you to embark and disembark just like you have used a cruise card in the past. Your cabin door will unlock as you approach. There are some other conveniences. One example your cruise partner can locate you on the ship. 

Medallion Class is an app program which you download. Once downloaded you enter all your immigration, credit card, and other travel data. You must have a kind of newer smart device or smart phone. Older smart phones with old operating systems probably will not work. I have a Samsung J7 and it works. If you do not have a smart phone or device then you have to call Princess. They are supposed to have a method to enter your data manually.

Dining. Dine My Way is now the new Princess way of selecting dining. It is in the medallion class app. You select your dining time either same time for every day or you can choose day by day. You are supposed to be able to change each day if you wish. There is no charge for main ding room meals. I have found them to be quite good, not sub par to force you to book surcharge dining locations. You select your dining in the medallion class app. The Enchanted has lots of no charge dining choices besides the MDR's. There is GiGi's pizza and other selections, waiter served open 11am until mid evening every day, International Cafe open 24/7, World Fresh Market Place buffet, Salty Dog Grill, Slices Pizza, 24 hour free room service. There is also supposed to be a section on the medallion class app where you can order meal selections and have them delivered anywhere on the ship. Dine My Way is filled with tech bugs right now, but hopefully it will be corrected in a month.

Is the medallion class ship better? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe no enhanced experience, maybe it contains too much tech to be useful. No one knows as no one has sailed with the full medallion class experience. 

 

[JMorbem]

We have a cruise fully paid on the Diamond Princess in March.  When I try to book our dining time, it says reservation does not exist.  Anyone else having this problem?  I have called Princess and they say the cruise will not be loaded into the system until October!

[AF-1]

Caribbean Princess was first totally functional medallion class ship in 2019.  I sailed on her and the experience was great

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, JMorbem said:

We have a cruise fully paid on the Diamond Princess in March.  When I try to book our dining time, it says reservation does not exist.  Anyone else having this problem?  I have called Princess and they say the cruise will not be loaded into the system until October!

At least that is some information not announced previously.  I wonder if they plan by then to have all future voyages loaded for DMW purposes.

[skynight]

10 hours ago, AF-1 said:

Caribbean Princess was first totally functional medallion class ship in 2019.  I sailed on her and the experience was great

Not totally. Cruise personlizer still active to enter data and was the fully proved and working system. No Dine My Way. It was select dining at the time of booking and change in the cruise personlizer at any time. Smart devices were not required to enter immigration data and enjoy the cruise. No TV access to the system. No "schooling" or special devices required to book and enjoy a cruise. We were on the Caribbean in August 2019. 

[cruisenurse2]

On 5/5/2021 at 1:20 PM, Ombud said:

Something for all of us. You like the red part, I like the white part

 

[RRFan]

2 hours ago, skynight said:

Not totally. Cruise personlizer still active to enter data and was the fully proved and working system. No Dine My Way. It was select dining at the time of booking and change in the cruise personlizer at any time. Smart devices were not required to enter immigration data and enjoy the cruise. No TV access to the system. No "schooling" or special devices required to book and enjoy a cruise. We were on the Caribbean in August 2019. 

True. They were testing the medallion net prior to this season and not the full medallion app experience. Seems they have just jumped in with the app and finding lots of issues. I don’t understand why they didn’t run both the app and the online Personalizer simultaneously this summer season to get the bugs out. Bad IT protocol IMO. 

[voljeep]

2 hours ago, skynight said:

Not totally. Cruise personlizer still active to enter data and was the fully proved and working system. No Dine My Way. It was select dining at the time of booking and change in the cruise personlizer at any time. Smart devices were not required to enter immigration data and enjoy the cruise. No TV access to the system. No "schooling" or special devices required to book and enjoy a cruise. We were on the Caribbean in August 2019. 

April 2019 ? - anyway, we were on the first cruise on the CB after the drydock / wetdock ...

 

I was chosen and given a $ 50 OBC to attend a 30 minute focus group session , which turned out to be totally about the OM experience, what we did pre-cruise as far as online ( ordering and having the OM in hand when boarding, which we did ), and how we were using the OM, if any, on board

 

about 15 or so groups of 10 and I was assigned to "platinum level cruisers"    - the 'results' of our group were all over the board, from not really knowing about the medallion prior to boarding, to using your device ( smartphone, tablet ) for ordering, etc.  I was in the 'group' of a couple that left the phone in the safe upon boarding, except for ordering the first drink free.

[RRFan]

Has the DMW been unavailable for anyone else for several days?  I have had my table arrangements in there for several weeks. I just periodically checked to be sure all was still well. It was until maybe 4 or 5 days ago. Now I get this 

[phabric]

2 minutes ago, RRFan said:

Has the DMW been unavailable for anyone else for several days?  I have had my table arrangements in there for several weeks. I just periodically checked to be sure all was still well. It was until maybe 4 or 5 days ago. Now I get this 

I had my reservations for 6 persons @ 6pm each night for 14 nights now all have disappeared 

[CruisinCouple2010]

4 minutes ago, RRFan said:

Has the DMW been unavailable for anyone else for several days?  I have had my table arrangements in there for several weeks. I just periodically checked to be sure all was still well. It was until maybe 4 or 5 days ago. Now I get this 

We have gotten the same thing for days, apparently they must be working on it.

 

[AF-1]

8 hours ago, skynight said:

Not totally. Cruise personlizer still active to enter data and was the fully proved and working system. No Dine My Way. It was select dining at the time of booking and change in the cruise personlizer at any time. Smart devices were not required to enter immigration data and enjoy the cruise. No TV access to the system. No "schooling" or special devices required to book and enjoy a cruise. We were on the Caribbean in August 2019. 

Thanks for the correction;  I still had a good time with the medallion

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, RRFan said:

Has the DMW been unavailable for anyone else for several days?  I have had my table arrangements in there for several weeks. I just periodically checked to be sure all was still well. It was until maybe 4 or 5 days ago. Now I get this 

If you get the above, just try again and you will get in - eventually.  However, if try to book, expect to get a message of nothing found.  Also, as others have posted (me included), don't be surprised if your res you thought you had is now gone and nothing shows.  We lost res on REGAL for a B2B2B, but our res still exists for ISLAND (single voyage).

[capriccio]

6 hours ago, RRFan said:

Has the DMW been unavailable for anyone else for several days?  I have had my table arrangements in there for several weeks. I just periodically checked to be sure all was still well. It was until maybe 4 or 5 days ago. Now I get this 

For our March 2022 cruise, our dinner reservations have always been there.

 

For our July 2022 cruise I received that same message last week and noted in posting #990 how I discovered that the reservation was still in the system.

 

So tonight I checked again.  Again I received the 'Dine My Way is not available right now' message so I backed out and went to "Reserve for the same time each day" on the Personalize Your Experience screen.   I received the "You're double-booked!  Modifying this plan will overwrite your existing one" message.  So I canceled making a new reservation and clicked on "View or book individual daily reservations".   My reservations were there!

 

So I suggest trying that just to assure yourself that your reservations are still in the system. 

 

Of course none of these workarounds excuse Princess for rolling out such a shoddy app.

[RRFan]

13 minutes ago, capriccio said:

For our March 2022 cruise, our dinner reservations have always been there.

 

For our July 2022 cruise I received that same message last week and noted in posting #990 how I discovered that the reservation was still in the system.

 

So tonight I checked again.  Again I received the 'Dine My Way is not available right now' message so I backed out and went to "Reserve for the same time each day" on the Personalize Your Experience screen.   I received the "You're double-booked!  Modifying this plan will overwrite your existing one" message.  So I canceled making a new reservation and clicked on "View or book individual daily reservations".   My reservations were there!

 

So I suggest trying that just to assure yourself that your reservations are still in the system. 

 

Of course none of these workarounds excuse Princess for rolling out such a shoddy app.

Thanks for the info.  Actually our dining is probably the thing I’ll worry about least. I already had it in the Personalizer before they switched it to the app. They’ll put us at a table for two somewhere and we don’t care where. It’s interesting how these bugs are running through the various parts of the app. I can’t get over why they didn’t run the app and Personalizer parallel for these majestic cruises to give pax more options as they work through these IT issues.  

[Astro Flyer]

On 7/11/2021 at 6:42 PM, Steelers36 said:

At least that is some information not announced previously.  I wonder if they plan by then to have all future voyages loaded for DMW purposes.

In early June we made DMW reservations for all 3 of our future cruises: Fall ‘21; Spring ‘22; Fall ‘22.

 

Hopefully when they make the promoted major MC app changes Princess doesn’t delete all DMW reservations to start all over again. 🥴

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by Astro Flyer

[Steelers36]

8 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

In early June we made DMW reservations for all 3 of our future cruises: Fall ‘21; Spring ‘22; Fall ‘22.

 

Hopefully when they make the promoted major MC app changes Princess doesn’t delete all DMW reservations to start all over again. 🥴

 

Perhaps not for the near-term ones, IDK.  But they have already cleared out saved res for a number of people per CC posts, so I imagine quite significant beyond that.

[StrawberryHill]

Cant make reservations for the eight of us on our Aug 8 cruise.   We are all paid in full   I can make reservations for two if I only select myself on the select the persons in your party screen.   Called the medallion help number yesterday and got the " try again in a few days" response.   UGH........

 

Having a nice evening meal with the same waiters each night is one of the  things we look fwd to.   It should not be this hard. Princess has had what, a year ?  to work this out 

 

 

 

 

[HleeCruiser]

I remain underwhelmed by Princess handling of the Dining My Way part of the app.  I have tried several times over the past couple of weeks to reinstate the Late Traditional dining time that was booked and confirmed when I made the reservation.  They just dumped it with no explanation and Princess Res. does not have a clue what is going on with our dinner reservations.  Our cruise is 30 Dec. 2021.  

 

On another note, no one at Princess can tell me what our internet will cost.  We are Elite loyalty level and have enjoyed the free minutes in the past.  Really not happy with Princess's "improvement" of the loyalty benefits.  

[LACruiser88]

55 minutes ago, HleeCruiser said:

They just dumped it with no explanation and Princess Res. does not have a clue what is going on with our dinner reservations.  Our cruise is 30 Dec. 2021.  

Don't feel alone, our next cruise is on November 5th and we can't make any dinner reservations.  The app tells us that there are no reservations available at this time.

 

Apparently, there will be a major app update sometime in August that will correct issues with the app.  We are waiting until then before even looking at the app again.

[DuncanBlizzard]

I hope someone has more answers than Princess does.  We reserved the August 1st sailing to Alaska two weeks ago.  It's my first ever cruise (and my last ever given my experience with Princess).  I've read a lot on this forum but still have a lot to learn.  I spent 2-3 hours Friday, Saturday, and Monday on the phone trying to get the app to work and to then get them to manually enter anything for me, and nothing has happened more than them telling me I don't have the "correct" software version on my Samsung Galaxy (with which I have had no other problems downloading apps) and that I should buy/borrow a new phone for my one-week cruise.  I am dreading this cruise and having trouble sleeping.

 

I have some significant dietary restrictions and was informed yesterday I missed the date to register those (required 35 days before sailing).  The supervisor I talked to on Saturday claimed she took down my restrictions, but I was told yesterday that she did not.  We can get no boarding or meal reservations, and I can't take the late meal times.  I don't know if I can get food that I can eat and no one will tell me if I have any access to buffets or other food if I don't have reservations (which I doubt I'll ever have).

 

I've given up and will be bringing on all of my own food.  I was told yesterday that Princess has a long list of rules for bringing on food and will confiscate everything they can.  I asked for the list of rules and all I got was to bring nothing that needs to be heated and no fruits and vegetables.  The list of what I can bring on, according to her, is water, soda, potato chips and peanuts (and I can only consume the water on that list).

 

Does anyone know where this list of rules for bringing food on is located?

 

Does anyone know if we can get food at any time on the ship if we don't have reservations and don't have the app?

 

Thanks!

[Steelers36]

29 minutes ago, DuncanBlizzard said:

I hope someone has more answers than Princess does.  We reserved the August 1st sailing to Alaska two weeks ago.  It's my first ever cruise (and my last ever given my experience with Princess).  I've read a lot on this forum but still have a lot to learn.  I spent 2-3 hours Friday, Saturday, and Monday on the phone trying to get the app to work and to then get them to manually enter anything for me, and nothing has happened more than them telling me I don't have the "correct" software version on my Samsung Galaxy (with which I have had no other problems downloading apps) and that I should buy/borrow a new phone for my one-week cruise.  I am dreading this cruise and having trouble sleeping.

 

I have some significant dietary restrictions and was informed yesterday I missed the date to register those (required 35 days before sailing).  The supervisor I talked to on Saturday claimed she took down my restrictions, but I was told yesterday that she did not.  We can get no boarding or meal reservations, and I can't take the late meal times.  I don't know if I can get food that I can eat and no one will tell me if I have any access to buffets or other food if I don't have reservations (which I doubt I'll ever have).

 

I've given up and will be bringing on all of my own food.  I was told yesterday that Princess has a long list of rules for bringing on food and will confiscate everything they can.  I asked for the list of rules and all I got was to bring nothing that needs to be heated and no fruits and vegetables.  The list of what I can bring on, according to her, is water, soda, potato chips and peanuts (and I can only consume the water on that list).

 

Does anyone know where this list of rules for bringing food on is located?

 

Does anyone know if we can get food at any time on the ship if we don't have reservations and don't have the app?

 

Thanks!

Oh my, you have not had a good guest experience by a long shot.  Princess is normally very good about dealing with special diet concerns.  IDK your particulars, but the 35-day (5 weeks!!!) thing must be in cases where they might need to order on particular items they do not already have. 

 

You cannot bring on your own food as you have found out.  At worst, go and see the Maitre D' on embarkation day.  They have hours in one of the dining rooms.  Alternatively, find a Head Waiter at the buffet area and speak to them about your needs and they should be able to guide you I should think for initial lunch and put you together with someone to help you at dinner.  Normally, the HW for your dining room section will visit you during dinner hour and discuss the next night.  I do believe you can get help on board. 

 

I don't see why someone at Princess cannot update your file for food concerns.  There are options for diet concerns/need in the MedallionClass App.  Perhaps the OCEAN team can update???  IDK.

 

As for the App download, you did not state which Samsung Galaxy you have, nor the operating system version.  It is true that Princess is not supporting older models of phones that do not support the more recent OS levels.  You did mention troubles trying to get the App to work, which makes me think you downloaded and installed it okay.  The App is buggy for sure and incomplete, but if you can get logged in, you can at least set preferences.  You mentioned having familiarity with other Apps and such.  Go to SETTINGS > APPS > (scroll down now to find MedallionClass.  Tap on that.  Scroll down to the bottom and it should state "Version 3.0.92015".  If you have that, you are good.

 

Since this is your first PCL cruise, have you set up an account in the App?  You need to setup credentials.  Did you set up an online account on Princess.com website?

 

I am trying to help with things that are more suited to a 1-on-1 conversation.  That said, the OCEAN Medallion support team should be able to help you get going.  You can also access your voyage by Booking Number, Name, Birthdate.  Have you tried this?  Once you are "IN" the app, you should go to PREFERENCES and enter your dining dietary needs.  

 

I will leave it there and see if you provided any more info to help zero in on your issues.  Or maybe I have provided a tip or two to get you going.