Princess announcement re Medallion Class

[Bizziecruzer]

Princess have announced that all of their ships returning to service in 2021 will have be upgraded to Medallion Class. They must have confidence to spend all that capital on ships that don't have it yet. Looking forward to not having to locate my cruise card to get into the cabin late at night,!😀

[Chiliburn]

27 minutes ago, Bizziecruzer said:

Princess have announced that all of their ships returning to service in 2021 will have be upgraded to Medallion Class. They must have confidence to spend all that capital on ships that don't have it yet. Looking forward to not having to locate my cruise card to get into the cabin late at night,!😀

Is that a electronic tracker? That replaces you seacard?

 

 I think it’s going to be a requirement in the near future.

 

 It will cost a lot of money to convert the older ships and with business being bad we will see more going to the scrap yard.

[SinbadThePorter]

It's good to see that are doing something useful with their downtime.

 

Seems that it means that all ships will have MedallionNet as well. That was a revelation to me on Ruby.

 

Link.

Edited December 4, 2020 by SinbadThePorter

[Aus Traveller]

12 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

Is that a electronic tracker? That replaces you seacard?

 

 I think it’s going to be a requirement in the near future.

 

 It will cost a lot of money to convert the older ships and with business being bad we will see more going to the scrap yard.

Yes. The medallion is posted to the person's home prior to the cruise. It identifies the person for check-in, to order drinks etc. and to open their cabin door. Princess has been converting their ships to Medallion Class for quite a while. The system had a lot of problems at first, but they obviously thought it was worthwhile persevering with to get it right.

[Chiliburn]

It’s posted to you ?

Royal has had the WOW ban for a couple of years you can reprogram it at guest services.

I think it was originally a Disney idea, in Disney they track you and gather information. I was shocked when I first got home from Disney World and all these photos appeared and they tried to upsell them.

 

[lissie]

It seems like a good way to do contact tracing on a ship - wonder if other lines will follow.  Ican see the authorities making it compulsory to contact trace particularly on large ships 

[Tranquility Base]

No mention of Pacific Princess in that notice.

[Aus Traveller]

21 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

No mention of Pacific Princess in that notice.

There was a mention of Pacific Princess. The notice said "Pacific Princess excluded"! 🙂

[Ondine]

Pacific Princess is in  Civitavecchia, Italy.  She has been tied up there for several months.  Her itineraries are for the Med starting around May I think.

[NSWP]

On 12/4/2020 at 2:00 PM, Aus Traveller said:

There was a mention of Pacific Princess. The notice said "Pacific Princess excluded"! 🙂

Perhaps Pacific Princess might be on the market in a year or so, hence the reluctance to fit her out with the Medallion' infrastructure.

[Chiliburn]

5 minutes ago, NSWP said:

Perhaps Pacific Princess might be on the market in a year or so, hence the reluctance to fit her out with the Medallion' infrastructure.

I think we will see a few of the older ships disappear.

[Chiliburn]

5 hours ago, NSWP said:

Perhaps Pacific Princess might be on the market in a year or so, hence the reluctance to fit her out with the Medallion' infrastructure.

A little bit of feedback about carnival group for you uncle Les.

 Talking to my nephew today who works in advertising and marketing in Sydney.

The company he works for do work for carnival Australia.

He talks to them a lot and he said they are in a pretty bad way .

His thoughts where something had better happen soon ,very soon.

 

As I said to him ,the company may not survive but the ships and a strong Australian market will.
 

I don’t think Royal would be much better ,it will be 18 months before they get any income.

[By The Bay]

44 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

As I said to him ,the company may not survive but the ships and a strong Australian market will.

We are a strong market in Australia and NZ, but who would buy a cruise ship company during this crisis? The existing cruise companies are all in a bad way. Reading about the projected uptake of the COVID vaccine in the US of A of only 50%, well short of the 75% Dr Fauci says is required for herd protection, I cannot see cruising starting any time soon.😒

[NSWP]

Thanks Chilli and By the Bay.  If this cruise drought goes on into 2022, it will break some of the cruise companies.  If Covid vaccination is a prerequisite for booking a cruise, it could stretch out, it may take 2 years to vaccinate Australia's population. Vaxxing is not starting until post March 2021.

[OzKiwiJJ]

But the whole population doesn't have to be vaccinated before cruising can start again, just those people who want to cruise. It wpuld have to be a condition of embarkation - no vaccination, no cruise.

[getting older slowly]

Doesn't sound good.... cruises lines on back burner.....  oh  don't have a back burner.....

 

I look at cruising re starting... it just like the dangling carrot  on a stick.....

 

but they need a plastic carrot....... the real one gone off....

 

One thing I have never been good at is waiting..... ( particularly over a year )

 

Don

[Chiliburn]

What ever the brand you like,the facts are the ships will survive and there’s a strong market.

[OzKiwiJJ]

16 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

What ever the brand you like,the facts are the ships will survive and there’s a strong market.

They all seem to be doing everything they can to survive.

 

Once a vaccine is available in our region I really hope our governments act quickly to bring back cruising. If we maintain the current status of nil or very low incidences of local transmission this will be the safest region in the world for cruising to recommence. It won't exactly be cruising as we knew it as there will be conditions and restrictions but I think there will be enough people willing to cruise under those circumstances to make cruising viable again for all the regular cruise lines. Here's hoping anyway.😊

[Chiliburn]

5 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

They all seem to be doing everything they can to survive.

 

Once a vaccine is available in our region I really hope our governments act quickly to bring back cruising. If we maintain the current status of nil or very low incidences of local transmission this will be the safest region in the world for cruising to recommence. It won't exactly be cruising as we knew it as there will be conditions and restrictions but I think there will be enough people willing to cruise under those circumstances to make cruising viable again for all the regular cruise lines. Here's hoping anyway.😊

March is when they review the the cruise ship ban ,and `IF’ they say yes .

You could add 3 months to that, June ??

 Singapore will be back to cruises with ports of call by March.

March is when the Australian government wants to start the roll out of vaccines.

We are to conservative.

[Roger88]

11 minutes ago, Chiliburn said:

March is when they review the the cruise ship ban ,and `IF’ they say yes .

You could add 3 months to that, June ??

 Singapore will be back to cruises with ports of call by March.

March is when the Australian government wants to start the roll out of vaccines.

We are to conservative.

First time I hear about some term period for ship banning. I think all the valuable information will be available in January. I mean its clear that at the moment everyone is bothered with Christmas and stuff, but next month it will be all business 

[Chiliburn]

22 minutes ago, Roger88 said:

First time I hear about some term period for ship banning. I think all the valuable information will be available in January. I mean its clear that at the moment everyone is bothered with Christmas and stuff, but next month it will be all business 

But Roger this is our silly season and we are all supposed to be on a cruise in Australia.   LOL,  LOL

 

[getting older slowly]

Next month is new years...... as well as bush week.... so no business till March.... about what or what's not happening with Cruise Ships entering Australian Ports.....

 

And when they agreed.. there will be a long lag before things actually happen....

 

DOn

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, Chiliburn said:

March is when they review the the cruise ship ban ,and `IF’ they say yes .

You could add 3 months to that, June ??

 Singapore will be back to cruises with ports of call by March.

March is when the Australian government wants to start the roll out of vaccines.

We are to conservative.

Yes, it won't be before mid-year. It will take some time to roll out the vaccine. 

 

I wouldn't say we are too conservative. I think Singapore is taking a risk, especially when they start adding ports into the mix. Singapore is still getting cases although it's not clear whether they are community transmission or arrivals in quarantine. Australia has had one experience of the virus running through a cruise ship so it's understandable that they arsecautious. We haven't had 28 days without community transmission country-wide yet. 

 

What I hope will happen is that the government gives the cruise lines sufficient warning of a start date so that the ships can be prepared, crewed, and on their way to Australia to arrive by the "go" date. Then I would expect some trial cruises to take place before more ships arrive.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, Roger88 said:

First time I hear about some term period for ship banning. I think all the valuable information will be available in January. I mean its clear that at the moment everyone is bothered with Christmas and stuff, but next month it will be all business 

Actually it's not just a period of ship banning, it's a ban on all overseas travel unless a special permit is obtained. That decision will be reviewed sometime in March.

[NSWP]

One problem I foresee, someone wants to cruise, say mid next year and covid vaccination is required for all those embarking. No way will those cruisers get priority re vacc, unless the ships docs are going to jab them at check in, at $500 a pop plus 15% gratuity lol.

Edited December 13, 2020 by NSWP