Dine My Way - new MedallionClass enhancement

[Ombud]

8 minutes ago, skynight said:

If you have to book Alfredo's that is a real negative. It was always walk in anytime, almost never a wait. They only time I ever saw a shortage of tables was on boarding day lunch when only half the tables were open for service.

you don't have to book Alfredos but I have. I thought this 'Dine My Way' would take care of tgat

[skynight]

18 minutes ago, Ombud said:

you don't have to book Alfredos but I have. I thought this 'Dine My Way' would take care of tgat

Is Alfredo's on the list of venues you can book? If yes, is it anytime all day or just in the evening? If so that in itself could be a negative. 

[skynight]

Fail to understand. All ships have multiple DR's most have three, except Island and Coral with two. All serve the same menus, and have very similar designs. Why would it be important to select a DR? 

[Ombud]

39 minutes ago, skynight said:

Is Alfredo's on the list of venues you can book? If yes, is it anytime all day or just in the evening? If so that in itself could be a negative. 

No it's not on the list

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, skynight said:

Why would it be important to select a DR? 

If you consider pre-Covid situation, it is the only way to get the same wait team each night.

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Correct, but traditional has always been timed so that both early and late seatings can attend the show and/or other big event.

 

But without know the basic show times in advance, it is hard to pick a dining time that would still allow that.

Yes, but other variables that affect the length of dining time are the number of dishes ordered, the number of other people you eat with, the speed of service, and personal preferences.  At least experienced Princess customers will have a pretty good idea of what worked for them in the past.

 

[Astro Flyer]

10 hours ago, caribill said:

Maybe I am missing it, but I am not seeing the option to have the dining experience. I see you can select the same size table at the same time each evening, but no way to avoid having different people join you every evening. (Assuming you are not traveling with others you want to dine with.)

There are other options that were promoted in the webinar such as table location that aren’t yet included in the MC app. Maybe those will be added by Monday’s official launch date for DMY or later. Under the Preferences/Dining option it’s possible for me to choose Dining Pace and Repeat Dining Location which seems to be better to include those choices in the DMY section.

 

[Astro Flyer]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

Yes, but other variables that affect the length of dining time are the number of dishes ordered, the number of other people you eat with, the speed of service, and personal preferences.  At least experienced Princess customers will have a pretty good idea of what worked for them in the past.

 

Having the View Menu option in Dine My Way for every day will give passengers the option to see menu options in advance which could eliminate the delay of passengers reading the menu at the table to decide their selections. With so many advance functions now being required to use the MC app or onboard at the public displays & cabin TVs maybe we’ll be able to preselect our menu choices before arriving at meals to speed up service.

[Astro Flyer]

14 hours ago, Ombud said:

 

In the past I pre-ordered with my MDR HW and he asked for a dining time. I pick 6pm when given the choice.  No one knows how it will be when we restart 

 

 

5 hours ago, Ombud said:

you don't have to book Alfredos but I have. I thought this 'Dine My Way' would take care of tgat

You received special treatment from a MDR HW which isn’t available to others who need to stand in line to dine at Alfredo’s Pizzeria.

[Astro Flyer]

9 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Correct, but traditional has always been timed so that both early and late seatings can attend the show and/or other big event.

 

But without know the basic show times in advance, it is hard to pick a dining time that would still allow that.

I agree & coordinating performance times will be even more difficult to do now. We selected 6:00 dinner but that might make it very difficult to get a seat in the Princess Theater. Hopefully Princess will show performances live on cabin TVs if they’ll limit capacity. And even if not limiting capacity seating has always been a problem for popular performances so watching it live on cabin TVs is better than not at all.

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Astro Flyer

[wowzz]

23 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

Having the View Menu option in Dine My Way for every day will give passengers the option to see menu options in advance which could eliminate the delay of passengers reading the menu at the table to decide their selections. With so many advance functions now being required to use the MC app or onboard at the public displays & cabin TVs maybe we’ll be able to preselect our menu choices before arriving at meals to speed up service.

Surely part of the meal experience is looking at the menu with a drink in hand, deciding what to eat, and then choosing an appropriate bottle of wine. 

I want an MDR experience, not an Applebees! 

[Astro Flyer]

3 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Surely part of the meal experience is looking at the menu with a drink in hand, deciding what to eat, and then choosing an appropriate bottle of wine. 

I want an MDR experience, not an Applebees! 

And that is why Dine My Way has 3 options: Slow, Relaxed, Fast.

[voljeep]

10 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

We selected 6:00 dinner b

so if the dining room opens at 5:00 - will that table go un-occupied from 5:00 until 6:00 or so , effectively tying up that table for 2.5 hours or so ?

 

guess we better request our table of 2 for 5:55 - with a window seat - and let the HW know about our ________ allergy(s) so we get "special" treatment

 

and before anyone goes off on this, I am very familiar with people who have 'real' food allergies and must carry an EPI Pen with them at all times, not just to meals ...

[voljeep]

7 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Surely part of the meal experience is looking at the menu with a drink in hand, deciding what to eat, and then choosing an appropriate bottle of wine. 

I want an MDR experience, not an Applebees! 

Unbelievable ... we actually agree on something ...

 

too bad there will not be dining in the mdr, or cruising at all,  because the crew can't be fully vaccinated - that darn queue 

[voljeep]

5 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

And that is why Dine My Way has 3 options: Slow, Relaxed, Fast.

we have requested "fast" way before this DMY - no problem at our 2-top

[Astro Flyer]

2 minutes ago, voljeep said:

we have requested "fast" way before this DMY - no problem at our 2-top

Me too when we want to rush off to a popular performance to get seats.

[Astro Flyer]

11 minutes ago, voljeep said:

so if the dining room opens at 5:00 - will that table go un-occupied from 5:00 until 6:00 or so , effectively tying up that table for 2.5 hours or so ?

Only Princess knows that answer…they provided options & we choose one of their available dining times.

[Roberto256]

 

I wonder how many people will be heading to the buffet, when the 'app' fails to work properly for them...

 

Nah ... that could never happen.

 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Astro Flyer said:

Having the View Menu option in Dine My Way for every day will give passengers the option to see menu options in advance which could eliminate the delay of passengers reading the menu at the table to decide their selections. With so many advance functions now being required to use the MC app or onboard at the public displays & cabin TVs maybe we’ll be able to preselect our menu choices before arriving at meals to speed up service.

 

I do like seeing the dinner menu earlier in the day and not always convenient when a port day.  They are always posted outside the DR's and somewhere near one of the WorldFresh Market/Horizon Court entrances.  Since I normally have my own wine, if I check the menu out (usually take a cellphone photo of it) ahead, I know which wine(s) to bring to the DR (I prefer to keep my wine in the cabin).  It will be great to have it anywhere/anytime in the MC app!!

 

We too often have asked our waiter(s) if we want to get out extra early for some reason and they have been great to accommodate.  We are happy with a speedier than normal service any evening as there is usually something else we are interested in doing.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Steelers36

[RRFan]

18 hours ago, wowzz said:

That's fine, but I'm worried that if we stroll up to the MDR we will be told that we as we don't have a reservation, we will have to wait an hour or two before a table is available. In the good old days, we'd just have been given a pager and waited 15 minutes .

It all seems unnecessarily complicated,  when, as has been said, the old system worked perfectly well.

I'm brand new to this thread so I apologize if I'm repeating what has already been hashed out.  We always request a table for 2 at early dining.  We always have an assigned table so we never have to wait.  If our schedule doesn't work with that time, we decide whether to do a specialty restaurant, go to the buffet or just get in the anytime dining line.  I don't see how this is an improvement except maybe having the passengers do the selection instead of the HW.  ??   PCL seems to be still doing it that way because when we booked our Sept cruise, we requested and have confirmed a table for 2 at early dining.  I agree with you that I don't see how this is an improvement unless maybe you can reserve your own table at a specialty rest or Alfredo's . . . .  That might be nice.  

 

[KeepCalmBearOn]

How old are the people designing the Dine My Way app? Do they have 70 year old beta testers giving them feedback?

 

This whole program (app) seems like it is designed by 20 and 30 somethings and they are all in a mutual admiration society of how well they are doing. Have any of them been on a 7 night cruise, let alone 15 night?

 

I am trying to see how this truly benefits the cruiser.

[RRFan]

On 6/4/2021 at 9:57 AM, skynight said:

I searched Princess Cruises Medallion App. Nothing showed. Don't believe it is available.

I believe the App is called "Ocean Compass"   At least that's what I have and used on our last cruise which was Jan-Feb, '20.  

[Sea Hag]

5 minutes ago, RRFan said:

I believe the App is called "Ocean Compass"   At least that's what I have and used on our last cruise which was Jan-Feb, '20.  

The app is now "Medallion Class" and is the Google and Apples stores. Maybe other places as well, but I don't know about that.

[caribill]

10 minutes ago, RRFan said:

 PCL seems to be still doing it that way because when we booked our Sept cruise, we requested and have confirmed a table for 2 at early dining. 

 

 

But selecting early/late seating is something you can no longer do while booking your cruise. In the future once your cruise is booked you will need the app to select your dining preference.

 

It may be there, but so far Princess has not shown that an option for early/late traditional will be an option. All they have shown is that you can specify a time for each evening and pick a dining room for each evening.

[RRFan]

3 minutes ago, Sea Hag said:

The app is now "Medallion Class" and is the Google and Apples stores. Maybe other places as well, but I don't know about that.

That's interesting.  Thanks!  I went to the App store and it said "open" so I guess I already had it or it was linked to the one I mentioned earlier.  I could already see my bookings in the old one, but this one is definitely different.  I'll go explore.