Ocean Medallion App - Part 3

[Tedferg]

5 minutes ago, barrykel said:

Letting me order drinks anywhere on the ship is nice, but it's not like it's been hard to find a bar on any cruise ship I've been on.

I suppose it would be nice to order a drink while sitting by the pool - we never do sit by the pool - but aren't there waiters passing by periodically ?

I must admit something. Our daughter gave us smart electrical plugs and it is fun to shout 'Alexa turn the lights on'. I think Medallion developers were obsessed with such things.

[PacnGoNow]

8 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

I suppose it would be nice to order a drink while sitting by the pool - we never do sit by the pool - but aren't there waiters passing by periodically ?

I must admit something. Our daughter gave us smart electrical plugs and it is fun to shout 'Alexa turn the lights on'. I think Medallion developers were obsessed with such things.

I believe it was developed further to have a contactless experience at the port.  It worked very well for that.  Now you can download more information prior to boarding.  They have added more options and some will use it, others will not.  I used it to look up the Patter information of activities, menus and my folio or I could have just gone back to the room and looked on my TV.  It was a convenience.  I liked that I could order a drink from any location, but I could have found a bar somewhere too. 
I want to be able to book my boarding time ahead and specialty dining.  
We will see how it goes, but for now, I’ve been pleased.

There’s still a lot of improvement that is going on daily with the app, so it will be more user friendly. 

[Tedferg]

35 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

I believe it was developed further to have a contactless experience at the port.  It worked very well for that.  Now you can download more information prior to boarding.  They have added more options and some will use it, others will not.  I used it to look up the Patter information of activities, menus and my folio or I could have just gone back to the room and looked on my TV.  It was a convenience.  I liked that I could order a drink from any location, but I could have found a bar somewhere too. 
I want to be able to book my boarding time ahead and specialty dining.  
We will see how it goes, but for now, I’ve been pleased.

There’s still a lot of improvement that is going on daily with the app, so it will be more user friendly. 

Good points and if the App had been better from the start we would all be happier, calmer.

[skynight]

1 hour ago, PacnGoNow said:

I believe it was developed further to have a contactless experience at the port.  It worked very well for that.  Now you can download more information prior to boarding.  They have added more options and some will use it, others will not.  I used it to look up the Patter information of activities, menus and my folio or I could have just gone back to the room and looked on my TV.  It was a convenience.  I liked that I could order a drink from any location, but I could have found a bar somewhere too. 
I want to be able to book my boarding time ahead and specialty dining.  
We will see how it goes, but for now, I’ve been pleased.

There’s still a lot of improvement that is going on daily with the app, so it will be more user friendly. 

Not developed for contactless experience. Development began before covid was even known. Just a possible side advantage now. Controlling boarding times was something Princess always wished to accomplish. But most passengers always seemed to want to board as soon as boarding began, and in actual practice boarding went very quickly once it began. Passengers that wished to avoid the rush just arrived later. Now what do you do if your plane arrives at 10am & your boarding time is 1pm. Sit around the airport in crowds or hang around outside the pier with crowds? Specialty dining has been available to pre-book for years. No app required. Now you can only do it on the app. Yes you can book comped dining, but that could have been easily accomplished before. Many people liked to use OBC to pay for their dining and/or to review the schedule. So they waited to board. We always waited, never had a problem.  

[PacnGoNow]

1 hour ago, skynight said:

Not developed for contactless experience. Development began before covid was even known. Just a possible side advantage now. Controlling boarding times was something Princess always wished to accomplish. But most passengers always seemed to want to board as soon as boarding began, and in actual practice boarding went very quickly once it began. Passengers that wished to avoid the rush just arrived later. Now what do you do if your plane arrives at 10am & your boarding time is 1pm. Sit around the airport in crowds or hang around outside the pier with crowds? Specialty dining has been available to pre-book for years. No app required. Now you can only do it on the app. Yes you can book comped dining, but that could have been easily accomplished before. Many people liked to use OBC to pay for their dining and/or to review the schedule. So they waited to board. We always waited, never had a problem.  

No, I said developed further…..

I agree with a lot of your points.  Except, they did develop OM earlier, as we had It in 2018 and they wanted it to be as contactless as possible, just to speed

up the checkin process.  And it was very fast, not standing in lines at the counter, getting your card, etc.  
We just showed our passport 

and our OM brought up the rest of the

info.  They said you’re all set.  
So, now it is even a better product because of covid IMHO.  Contact tracing

for one.

Doesn’t matter really, most of the cruiselines & airlines have apps to

upload information ahead of tour trips.

 

But, good for conversations anyway.

 

Stay safe everyone!

[Grego]

12 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

No, I said developed further…..

I agree with a lot of your points.  Except, they did develop OM earlier, as we had It in 2018 and they wanted it to be as contactless as possible, just to speed

up the checkin process.  And it was very fast, not standing in lines at the counter, getting your card, etc.  
We just showed our passport 

and our OM brought up the rest of the

info.  They said you’re all set.  
So, now it is even a better product because of covid IMHO.  Contact tracing

for one.

Doesn’t matter really, most of the cruiselines & airlines have apps to

upload information ahead of tour trips.

 

But, good for conversations anyway.

 

Stay safe everyone!

True it gives some folks something to find fault with because it offers a lot of options that they will never use.  Automobiles have the same situation.  They have a lot of features that they will not use such as turn signals.

[AF-1]

I like the app and have used it on my cruise in 2019. I plan to use it for my Oct cruise. I have everything uploaded on app and its working great.  All the best and keep smiling

[Musky Ike]

2 minutes ago, AF-1 said:

I like the app and have used it on my cruise in 2019. I plan to use it for my Oct cruise. I have everything uploaded on app and its working great.  All the best and keep smiling

The app is fine onboard. Just did not need all the pre-cruise stuff moved into it. Especially before it was ready for general use. 

[AF-1]

Musky Ike: I agree with you.  Princess figured that all the online info in your personalizer would flow seamlessly to the app.  That didn't happen with everyone; thus, frustration set in. Have a wonderful day. 

[barrykel]

6 hours ago, Grego said:

Automobiles have the same situation.  They have a lot of features that they will not use such as turn signals.

Er, turn signals are a horrible example - everyone really should use them. A better example would be, say, satellite radio, which is only attractive to a small percentage of drivers. And it points out the real issue with the Medallion - no car manufacturer has decided that since they offer satellite radio, they should remove the FM radio. But that's exactly equivalent to what Princess has done by crippling the Personalizer website. 

[cltnccruisers]

2 minutes ago, barrykel said:

Er, turn signals are a horrible example - everyone really should use them. A better example would be, say, satellite radio, which is only attractive to a small percentage of drivers. And it points out the real issue with the Medallion - no car manufacturer has decided that since they offer satellite radio, they should remove the FM radio. But that's exactly equivalent to what Princess has done by crippling the Personalizer website. 

But car manufacturers have removed the CD player which ticks my wife off no end.

[Tedferg]

13 minutes ago, cltnccruisers said:

But car manufacturers have removed the CD player which ticks my wife off no end.

Agree - have you tried an iPod ?

[cltnccruisers]

2 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Agree - have you tried an iPod ?

I just run Pandora through my iPhone.  Works OK, though I haven't used it for a while - better check before we head to Florida next week.

 

[Tedferg]

9 minutes ago, cltnccruisers said:

I just run Pandora through my iPhone.  Works OK, though I haven't used it for a while - better check before we head to Florida next week.

 

Even better, you can load CDs onto phone too !

[wowzz]

16 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Agree - have you tried an iPod ?

Do people still use those!

I just stream off the internet and download onto my phone and tablet. Then connect via bluetooth to the car stereo. 

[cltnccruisers]

3 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Do people still use those!

I just stream off the internet and download onto my phone and tablet. Then connect via bluetooth to the car stereo. 

We're old - still have a few hundred vinyl albums.  I do have to upgrade my old iPhone 6 after this next cruise.  Maybe I'll look into dumping the CDs then.  I could have one of our granddaughters do it.  🙂

[Tedferg]

7 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Do people still use those!

I just stream off the internet and download onto my phone and tablet. Then connect via bluetooth to the car stereo. 

I was rummaging through car console and found ours, nice to have all albums in one place, plugged in to USB. Especially since iPhone is usually at home on kitchen table 🙂

[barrykel]

36 minutes ago, cltnccruisers said:

But car manufacturers have removed the CD player which ticks my wife off no end.

But in addition to all the more modern mechanisms mentioned, you can still get a portable CD player and plug it into the aux jack. Of course with Princess, you can just show up at the pier with your docs, but they didn't bother to mention that in any of the instructions on the website.

[cltnccruisers]

1 minute ago, barrykel said:

But in addition to all the more modern mechanisms mentioned, you can still get a portable CD player and plug it into the aux jack. Of course with Princess, you can just show up at the pier with your docs, but they didn't bother to mention that in any of the instructions on the website.

We have a portable player someplace.  I don't think it's ever been used.  I'd be worried about stability in the car.

 

App or not, when checking in for a cruise we always have hard copy at hand. 

[Roberto256]

On 8/18/2021 at 8:08 AM, Grego said:

The app is written by a outside company and are not Princess "coders".  

 

How do we know this?

 

Carnival hired John Padgett from Disney.  He an some other people were in doral, developing medallions.

 

Carnival hired accenture to do something.   

 

Who knows whether Padgett's direct employees were doing the app, or someone else...

 

The below seems full of hope and optimism!

 

https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/university-of-houston-clear-lake/business-data/accenture-carnival-case-study-final/14597469

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Roberto256

[Thrak]

8 hours ago, cltnccruisers said:

But car manufacturers have removed the CD player which ticks my wife off no end

 

My wife wanted a newer car and wanted a small SUV so today we bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. Sheesh...  I don't even know if it has a CD slot as I failed to look. Her current car is a 2011 Ford Taurus Limited. It has a CD slot but also has local storage. She stuck her CD collection in one at a time and ripped them all to the car's storage. Now it works like a jukebox and you can play artists, albums, individual songs, etc. I know everybody uses their phones for music these days but that local drive for music storage was a great deal. The CD rips much faster than it takes to play it so you can either listen to the music while it's being ripped or just feed the CD collection in one after the other. I know she will miss that feature.

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, Roberto256 said:

 

How do we know this?

 

Carnival hired John Padgett from Disney.  He an some other people were in doral, developing medallions.

 

Carnival hired accenture to do something.   

 

Who knows whether Padgett's direct employees were doing the app, or someone else...

 

The below seems full of hope and optimism!

 

https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/university-of-houston-clear-lake/business-data/accenture-carnival-case-study-final/14597469

 

 

 

Hmm.. you and someone else have mentioned Accenture.  A while back, one or more other posters mentioned Cap Gemini.  So, now I suspect PCL's regular IT dept was out-sourced to Cap Gemini and Accenture was hired for the OCEAN project.  As in a staff augment.

 

Also, the referenced document isn't much of a case study as it lacks any depth and as I started into it, it seemed to me that it was an Accenture marketing piece and by the end page, that seemed exactly what it was.  

 

The document appears to reference the original first phase of the project which was installing all the sensors a d wiring, developing the Medallions, and the communications and data gathering aspects, along with the billing connections using the Medallion and "pinging" on and off the ship.  

 

IDK who is working on the MC App new functionality.  Could still be Accenture or perhaps resources from Cap Gemini.  Remember that the App is a separate beast from the Medallion itself.

 

Yes, Padgett is still involved, but now I am not sure who the IT team is.  And it doesn't really matter as I am not looking to staff a large IT project and interested in knowing who NOT to hire.

[debsjc]

How far in advance does the entertainment, like the shows, come on app please? 

[Grego]

16 hours ago, Roberto256 said:

 

How do we know this?

 

Carnival hired John Padgett from Disney.  He an some other people were in doral, developing medallions.

 

Carnival hired accenture to do something.   

 

Who knows whether Padgett's direct employees were doing the app, or someone else...

 

The below seems full of hope and optimism!

 

https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/university-of-houston-clear-lake/business-data/accenture-carnival-case-study-final/14597469

 

 

Thanks for posting that link to a great explanation of the Medallion process and its future.  Knowing the track record of Accenture there is little doubt this will be working as advertised soon. 

[memoak]

4 hours ago, Grego said:

Thanks for posting that link to a great explanation of the Medallion process and its future.  Knowing the track record of Accenture there is little doubt this will be working as advertised soon. 

Having dealt with Accenture for the last 8 years I would give them a 50-50 chance to get it to work correctly.  Some of their folks are very talented some others not so much