Dine My Way - new MedallionClass enhancement

[Steelers36]

36 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Is this too good to be true???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I have downloaded MC app again (using a link from Princess.com) and the darn thing appears to be working for DMW!!

 

Now, I had been in before the weekend and had setup dining for 2 for our full cruise.  I think it was the last thing I could do before crash.  Never was able to get friends included.

 

Just now, I can book for four of us, but bad thing is that old res is still there - perhaps it was a Princess default.  No matter - I have to go through 26!!! nights and delete it.  Setting up the res for all nights is a one-stepper, but I do not see a cancel for all nights.  That ought to be an enhancement, but for now I will take basic functionality as promised.  

 

Back to work no and will report later.

 

Phew!!  26 times to delete old dining 1x1.  DMW is sloooow, but it cleared them out. 

 

Then I went back to work on the new res I had just setup now.  It was offering 6-top and then had us at a 4-top for first two segments and a 6-top for final segment.  Not liking that.

 

This time when I went to change, the app informed me my existing plan(s) would be deleted.  They were replaced and now I have something new.

 

This time we got a 4-top for first segment, then a 6-top, and then another 6-top.  No thanks.  OMG - and then switch to an 8-top part way through 3rd leg.

 

Back to trial & error.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Steelers36

[Steelers36]

13 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

 

Phew!!  26 times to delete old dining 1x1.  DMW is sloooow, but it cleared them out. 

 

Then I went back to work on the new res I had just setup now.  It was offering 6-top and then had us at a 4-top for first two segments and a 6-top for final segment.  Not liking that.

 

This time when I went to change, the app informed me my existing plan(s) would be deleted.  They were replaced and now I have something new.

 

This time we got a 4-top for first segment, then a 6-top, and then another 6-top.  No thanks.  OMG - and then switch to an 8-top part way through 3rd leg.

 

Back to trial & error.

I have a major beef with DMW options.  Once we have our travel party (us + friends for 4 total), we ought to be able to select from 4-top, 6-top, 8-top.  We just want a 4-top with the four of us, but some might want to dine with others. 

 

Before the move to MC app, we had cross-referenced dining setup for the four of us at a 4-top.  Now I cannot get a 4-top for most of the first voyage (B2B2B). 

 

We are good for the 4th voyage on ISLAND.  

Maybe I will call someone.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Steelers36

[Condocat]

2 hours ago, skynight said:

You you board, call the dining line. They will be able to get you into the specialty restaurant for the first night. Full suite passengers have priority and there is space reserved for them. Do not pay up front to reserve.

You didn't ask, but your regular dining is in Club Class. It is walk in anytime. Special breakfast will be in one of the specialty restaurants.

 

[Condocat]

2 hours ago, skynight said:

You you board, call the dining line. They will be able to get you into the specialty restaurant for the first night. Full suite passengers have priority and there is space reserved for them. Do not pay up front to reserve.

You didn't ask, but your regular dining is in Club Class. It is walk in anytime. Special breakfast will be in one of the specialty restaurants.

Thank you so much!  This is very helpful information.

[Astro Flyer]

5 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Back to trial & error.

Wish they’d soon release their simple & easy to use tutorial with slides they promoted at the webinar. 🤞
 

Although with all of the glitches the current state of the app & the tutorial might be two different things. 🥴

Edited June 10, 2021 by Astro Flyer

[Steelers36]

Report on my experiences with DMW for our October 2022 bookings.  We have a B2B2B on REGAL and a separate departure on ISLAND for a single segment voyage. 

 

ISLAND

This one was easy.  I selected our travel companion friends and booked dinner for 6pm every day.  We were assigned a 4-top in Provence DR as I would have expected.

 

REGAL

As far as MC App is concerned, we are on a single 25-night voyage.  When I was looking at times, the default 5pm start time indicated Concerto, our preferred DR.  As I scrolled down for later time, the DR changed to Symphony.  BTW, DMW spins and is slow like working on dial-up, but it eventually works and responds.  It came back with 6pm in Symphony at a 4-top and when I tapped on that, it was confirmed.

 

However, as I scrolled through the days, we were changed to a 6-top in second segment and had a 6-top beginning the third segment and then changed to an 8-top part way through that segment. 

Later on, during a do-over, we were assigned 4-top for first two segments and same 6-top and 8-top situation in final third segment. 

 

Earlier we were in Concerto in one trial I did at 5:20pm (I think) and that one even changed DR's on us part way through.  So much for booking same table and waiters each night. 

 

I should also say that when the app came back functional today and I made the first new reservation, I discovered that we already had a default res for my wife and I only at a 2-top.  So we were now double-booked.  

 

I had to go day-by-day and cancel 25 individual reservation entries.  There is no mass delete option I can see.  They need to add that.

 

Then I was playing a bit with the first night and ended up changing it.  So, the next time, I did a full cruise res attempt, it only replaced all nights except the first one.  So, I deleted night 1 res and then re-did the full cruise res process again.  Now I had all nights booked, but night one was blank.  Yikes. 

 

So, any sort of change to a single night removes it from the full cruise situation - even if you reset that single night to same time & DR as the other nights.  Yikes.

 

So, I did 25 more deletions to clear the decks.  

 

IDK if part of our issue is the three voyages.  Obviously, the app has to handle dining reservations for people booked on each of the voyages alone.  I suppose I have seen it happen to us in the past where we may be assigned a different table for the second voyage, but the MD can always assign to same table all the way through.  Perhaps this is what is going to be required going forward and I should just worry about getting  the 80% solution, having faith it will be corrected on board as in the past. 

 

[Steelers36]

Oh, I meant to add that the developers need to improve the dining selection.  Some people want to sit at a table that fits their dining party.  Some will want to join a larger table to meet other cruisers.  This option is not there. 

 

We should be able to select (for sure):

1. Dining Companions (if any outside our own cabin).
2. Table Size.
3. Time.  (I am a little surprised times are on the 20's; I might have expected every 15 mins).

As and added option, we could also select the DR.  That isn't critical, but they might offer back one to three choices based on the above three criteria.  Right now, there is no choice for #2 and it is just assigned and not consistent across all nights necessarily (could be a bug or by design).  Without this I don't see how they meet the promise of same table and wait staff as with TD. 

 

[Steelers36]

SPECIALTY DINING

I found if I tried to book Crown Grill on a particular night with our friends (4 people), it not only wanted to charge me not recognizing free dinner, but I would have to pay for all four of us instead of just my wife and I.  Now, of course I could book for two of us and our friends could book for themselves, but we still need someone to intervene (probably not until boarding) that we want to dine together at a 4-top in the Grill.  Again, not the best situation. 

 

Of course, if we are booking a second night, I could pay it all for the first time and they the second night and we are all square.  But, again, we have free dinner all of us on each segment. 

 

More work to be done, or we wait and book at embarkation.  But how many others might book using the MC app in the interim and we are hampered by inflexible functionality.  

 

Perhaps they will address in time.

 

[Steelers36]

Dining times bug.  I found another bug. 

 

If you are looking at dining options for a single night, such as booking Specialty Dining, a different set of times is listed.  The earliest is 5:30pm and then every 20 minutes.  If you back out of that to Main Dining, the default time shown is 5:00pm - the earliest - but when you tap on the time and get the pop-up list of all times, it displays the Specialty Restaurant times (5:30, 5:50, 6:10).  Not good.

 

If you select one of those times - say, 6:10pm - then the MDR res is filled in for 5:40pm.  Note that 6:10pm is the third available time for Specialty dining and 5:40pm is the third available time for MDR.  All offered times at 20 minutes apart.  MDR's begin at 5:00pm and Specialties at 5:30pm, so they never intersect.

 

How did I fix this?  By closing the app and restarting it.  The next time, I went to another section of the MC app and tapped on something - just so I was out of DMW.  When I returned to DMW, the times for DR's were fixed.

 

[Steelers36]

52 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Report on my experiences with DMW for our October 2022 bookings.  We have a B2B2B on REGAL and a separate departure on ISLAND for a single segment voyage. 

 

ISLAND

This one was easy.  I selected our travel companion friends and booked dinner for 6pm every day.  We were assigned a 4-top in Provence DR as I would have expected.

 

REGAL

As far as MC App is concerned, we are on a single 25-night voyage.  When I was looking at times, the default 5pm start time indicated Concerto, our preferred DR.  As I scrolled down for later time, the DR changed to Symphony.  BTW, DMW spins and is slow like working on dial-up, but it eventually works and responds.  It came back with 6pm in Symphony at a 4-top and when I tapped on that, it was confirmed.

 

However, as I scrolled through the days, we were changed to a 6-top in second segment and had a 6-top beginning the third segment and then changed to an 8-top part way through that segment. 

Later on, during a do-over, we were assigned 4-top for first two segments and same 6-top and 8-top situation in final third segment. 

 

Earlier we were in Concerto in one trial I did at 5:20pm (I think) and that one even changed DR's on us part way through.  So much for booking same table and waiters each night. 

 

I should also say that when the app came back functional today and I made the first new reservation, I discovered that we already had a default res for my wife and I only at a 2-top.  So we were now double-booked.  

 

I had to go day-by-day and cancel 25 individual reservation entries.  There is no mass delete option I can see.  They need to add that.

 

Then I was playing a bit with the first night and ended up changing it.  So, the next time, I did a full cruise res attempt, it only replaced all nights except the first one.  So, I deleted night 1 res and then re-did the full cruise res process again.  Now I had all nights booked, but night one was blank.  Yikes. 

 

So, any sort of change to a single night removes it from the full cruise situation - even if you reset that single night to same time & DR as the other nights.  Yikes.

 

So, I did 25 more deletions to clear the decks.  

 

IDK if part of our issue is the three voyages.  Obviously, the app has to handle dining reservations for people booked on each of the voyages alone.  I suppose I have seen it happen to us in the past where we may be assigned a different table for the second voyage, but the MD can always assign to same table all the way through.  Perhaps this is what is going to be required going forward and I should just worry about getting  the 80% solution, having faith it will be corrected on board as in the past. 

 

 

REGAL Follow-up

I reported a newly found bug above (Post #484).

I again went through and deleted all individual night-by-night bookings so slate was clean.

Re-setup dinner booking for entire cruise at 6pm. 

 

Seg .1:  (7 nights) - Got Symphony @ 6:00pm at 4-top as requested.

Seg .2:  (7 nights) - Got Symphony @ 6:00pm at 4-top as requested.

Seg. 3:  (11 nights) - Got Symphony @ 6:00pm at 6-top NOT as requested.

 

BUT, Seg 3 was better than before as I had less than half the voyage at a 6-top and then the rest of the nights at an 8-top.  So, things are looking up.  Perhaps a future day will yield better results.

 

Now, just need to see OCEANReady get functional.

 

Wil have to follow-up from time-to-time and see if more dining times.

Rarely saw Concerto offered.

Never saw Allegro.

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Steelers36

[Barry ATL]

We have a pre-cruise hotel night booked with Princess.  DMW app is allowing me to schedule dinner on the ship for a night that I am not even on the ship.

[Steelers36]

15 minutes ago, Barry ATL said:

We have a pre-cruise hotel night booked with Princess.  DMW app is allowing me to schedule dinner on the ship for a night that I am not even on the ship.

Now there's a service they will have a hard time fulfilling!!  More bugs.

[wowzz]

Rather than spend hours trying to sort out reservations for a cruise 15 months in the future, wouldn't it be much better use of your time to stop playing around with it until this time next year,  when the app will have been fully tweaked?

We are meant to be crusing in October this year,  and I'm not even going to start thinking about the app until 4 weeks before we board.

Edited June 10, 2021 by wowzz

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, wowzz said:

Rather than spend hours trying to sort out reservations for a cruise 15 months in the future, wouldn't it be much better use of your time to stop playing around with it until this time next year,  when the app will have been fully tweaked?

We are meant to be cruising in October this year,  and I'm not even going to start thinking about the app until 4 weeks before we board.

That is a personal choice, but you will have to agree that when making a booking with Princess we were able to link a booking with any other friends or family sailing with us and also select our dining preference.  Those who booked late would often find themselves on a wait list or having to select an alternative. 

 

When Princess says they have a feature and what it will do, and broadcasts it on website and from the Sales VP lips, I expect it to function as advertised. 

 

I am sharing my experiences as others have and I have found other posts helpful in understanding how other experiences align with my experience with the app.  That is one purpose of CC Princess forum and its topics.

 

 

[Ombud]

7 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

 

REGAL Follow-up

I reported a newly found bug above (Post #484).

I again went through and deleted all individual night-by-night bookings so slate was clean.

Re-setup dinner booking for entire cruise at 6pm. 

 

Seg .1:  (7 nights) - Got Symphony @ 6:00pm at 4-top as requested.

Seg .2:  (7 nights) - Got Symphony @ 6:00pm at 4-top as requested.

Seg. 3:  (11 nights) - Got Symphony @ 6:00pm at 6-top NOT as requested.

 

BUT, Seg 3 was better than before as I had less than half the voyage at a 6-top and then the rest of the nights at an 8-top.  So, things are looking up.  Perhaps a future day will yield better results.

 

Now, just need to see OCEANReady get functional.

 

Wil have to follow-up from time-to-time and see if more dining times.

Rarely saw Concerto offered.

Never saw Allegro.

 

How did you change table size? 

[dreaminofcruisin]

11 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

That is a personal choice, but you will have to agree that when making a booking with Princess we were able to link a booking with any other friends or family sailing with us and also select our dining preference.  Those who booked late would often find themselves on a wait list or having to select an alternative. 

 

When Princess says they have a feature and what it will do, and broadcasts it on website and from the Sales VP lips, I expect it to function as advertised. 

 

I am sharing my experiences as others have and I have found other posts helpful in understanding how other experiences align with my experience with the app.  That is one purpose of CC Princess forum and its topics.

 

 

 

I am not 'stressing' about cruises too far in the future.

However, I think it is good that people are trying this out and reporting found bugs to Princess.

Obviously they do not have good testing practices and far better that they find out these bugs sooner rather than later.... 

[wowzz]

10 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

That is a personal choice, but you will have to agree that when making a booking with Princess we were able to link a booking with any other friends or family sailing with us and also select our dining preference.  Those who booked late would often find themselves on a wait list or having to select an alternative. 

 

When Princess says they have a feature and what it will do, and broadcasts it on website and from the Sales VP lips, I expect it to function as advertised. 

 

I am sharing my experiences as others have and I have found other posts helpful in understanding how other experiences align with my experience with the app.  That is one purpose of CC Princess forum and its topics.

 

 

I understand needing to make arrangements if travelling with friends or families,  but as to making individual reservations as a couple for every night, this far ahead, I am at a loss! 

We will decide each afternoon when and where we will be dining that evening. If we have to accept second or third choice, sobeit. 

[Ombud]

Can anyone change table size? (65 days to embarkation) If so, please tag me. Thx

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Ombud

[Nicole&Pete]

4 hours ago, Ombud said:

Can anyone change table size? (65 days to embarkation) If so, please tag me. Thx

 

 

I'm not sure if this is the answer to your question as I am very new to this and don't understand it myself but we booked traditional dining and a table for 6 for our cruise next year but I could go on the app last night (on an iPhone) and can select a time for the entire cruise (granted I haven't actually gone through and confirmed the selection but I can see the option is there to select). Interestingly it defaulted to a table for 6 for me which is what I booked, I don't know if this is coincidence????

 

Also I did a mock booking for the same cruise where it automatically defaults to medallion app booking but it also still asks for the table size so I wonder if the table size default is something to do what one has selected when they booked their cruise. However this does not explain why some people have seem different table sizes on different days on the app, so I'm not sure. 

 

I also can't understand why we can select different times etc. if we have booked traditional dining and they say this will still be honoured?? Im also not sure how they can possibly still honour traditional dining when many cruisers are yet to book the cruise and cannot select traditional dining?? So many questions.......

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, Ombud said:

How did you change table size? 

Sorry if my post implied that it was me.  We are a group of 4 and I wanted and expected a 4-top.  I cannot explain why the System was assigning us to 6-top and 8-top on the final leg of our B2B2B.  I imagine it has something to do with inventory in the System at this time??

 

From behavior I have seen, I think the system is trying to assign the smallest table available for the group.  But I do not consider this good design. 

 

We should be able to select our desired table size as part of the process - same as we used to do in Cruise Personalizer.  As I have posted, some people will want a table just for themselves, while others will want to select a larger table in order to dine with other passengers.

 

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, Ombud said:

Can anyone change table size? (65 days to embarkation) If so, please tag me. Thx

 

 

No, you cannot explicitly select table size.  The app doesn't even offer you a selection of choices.  For example, a couple wishing to dine at 5:40pm could be offered any or all of 2-top, 4-top, 6-top, or 8-top.  IDK if this will happen some day in the future, but right now, it is simply assigning something.  You could try searching again and see if something else appears (I briefly saw this before last weekend, but speaking of the present situation, I only see the opportunity to select the time.  Every 20 minute intervals beginning at 5pm.  And choices today are for larger tables than yesterday. 

 

No way to know if the full DR inventory is loaded as available.  My guess is no way.

 

ETA - By "no way", I am referring to farther out voyages as I would think near-term voyages are receiving more attention.  That said it is interesting how part of our voyage still has 4-tops and another part has only 8-tops to offer.

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Steelers36

[XBGuy]

I spent 40 years in the I.T. business--and I worked for a vendor.  Our company's  policy was to provide support for a current software release and, also, the previous release.  When most of my customers received a new release, they would put it on the shelf.  They would always run one release behind the current.  Also, when they considered the reception of that new release a the signal to retrieve the previous release tape and all subsequent patch releases and plan for the upgrade to the now one-release-behind-current soffware.  It might be telling that most of my customers were financial institutions and, possibly. accustomed to conservative oprerational philosophies.

 

As a young, eager tech rep, I was chatting with the SVP at one of my sites about this practice.  His response to me was, "Pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs."

 

My next cruise is booked for January 2022.  In all honesty I'm not sure that I need the Medallion Dining My Way capability.  I certainly don't need it to make dining room reservations.  I do hope, however, that the issues that people are having are resolved.

 

 

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, wowzz said:

I understand needing to make arrangements if travelling with friends or families,  but as to making individual reservations as a couple for every night, this far ahead, I am at a loss! 

We will decide each afternoon when and where we will be dining that evening. If we have to accept second or third choice, so be it. 

And that is precisely why they have Dine MY Way.  You do it your way and we do it our way and everyone is happy.  We like to dine early each night (we also elect earlier times for Crown Grill when we go there).  Early dining has been historically the first thing to book up to capacity and go to a wait-list. 

 

This new system seems even better for folks like you as you will be able to check the DMW app and see what's available each day and book it without perhaps standing in line.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Steelers36

[suekel]

I want to do 2 things.  I want to be able to look at each cruise and on the home page (or whatever you call it on an app) and see exactly each day when my dinner is scheduled.  I have 5 cruises out there that some are with friends, some are not, some are CC and I don't want to have to hunt.  I also want to pick my table size.  I love my husband but I would also like to talk to others at dinner.  

[Nicole&Pete]

All,

 

Can I please ask if anyone had booked traditional dining on their cruise? We had booked that and it confused me that I could then book a time for the entire cruise on the medallion app. However I then went into the book each day section and I had a default time in there which was 7pm table for 2 (our traditional time was 7:15 but take fir 6) has anyone else found they had a default time booked in already?

 

Thanks all,