Ocean Medallion App - Part 3

[jsn55]

5 hours ago, kamelia said:

I am just about out of patience with being told, “it’s not a problem, we have a ‘workaround’ for this.”  A workaround is NOT a fix for the systemic problems that continue to exist with the MedallionClass app.  Their excuse for a workaround is no different than being told at the garage, “Well, we can’t find the cause for your tire leaking, but it’s not a problem.  You can still get to your final destination by stopping every 20 miles to put more air in.”  At what point does that ‘workaround’ become more trouble than getting to the final destination is worth?

Trust me, the whole medallion thing is far worse on the ship.  

[Dbld777]

46 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Which brings us to another question.  Especially from a Shareholder perspective.  While I understand that the various brands like CCL, HAL, PCL have their own identity and such, surely they could have shared technology platform and made it possible to have a similar app with custom badging and wording and such, but the base functionality should be the same in terms of registering for a cruise and so forth.  Whatever technology works for booking dining ought to work across cruise lines, just as it should across different ships. 

Great questions. Would be interesting as a customer and shareholder, as many here are, to attend the annual shareholder's meeting and ask questions like these. Change is needed.

[Steelers36]

22 minutes ago, Dbld777 said:

Great questions. Would be interesting as a customer and shareholder, as many here are, to attend the annual shareholder's meeting and ask questions like these. Change is needed.

I would go since we are down here in SW FL for Winter, but mtg is in April and we are back north by then.

[capriccio]

1 hour ago, jsn55 said:

Trust me, the whole medallion thing is far worse on the ship.  

That wasn't our experience at all on cruises in January 2022 and March 2022.

[PacnGoNow]

18 minutes ago, capriccio said:

That wasn't our experience at all on cruises in January 2022 and March 2022.

It wasn’t a problem for us either.  We did 8 cruises last year. 

[sultan_sfo]

3 hours ago, jsn55 said:

Trust me, the whole medallion thing is far worse on the ship.  

Our Medallion experience on  board 3 different Princess Ships in the last 12 months was quite different. We loved the new features that the Medallion provides.

 

For us, Princess is looking to  the future. Thank you Princess.

[Thrak]

4 hours ago, jsn55 said:

Trust me, the whole medallion thing is far worse on the ship.  

 

3 hours ago, capriccio said:

That wasn't our experience at all on cruises in January 2022 and March 2022.

 

3 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

It wasn’t a problem for us either.  We did 8 cruises last year. 

 

1 hour ago, sultan_sfo said:

Our Medallion experience on  board 3 different Princess Ships in the last 12 months was quite different. We loved the new features that the Medallion provides.

 

For us, Princess is looking to  the future. Thank you Princess.

 

Count me with this group. I don't seem to have all the issues others have with the Medallion service. Yes, on our May cruise the system was very slow and waiters often just asked for out cabin number when ordering drinks. Not exactly a huge inconvenience. On our December cruise things worked really well.

 

Using the app here at home to get setup for our B2B2B in October/November is working really well. I also decided to do setup for our April 2024 cruise and am having no problems with that either. Now if my wife was trying to do this stuff on her cheapo phone it would be a problem. My phone isn't the newest or snazziest - Samsung Galaxy S10e - but it has a decent processor and a decent amount of both RAM and Storage. It seems to run the stupid app pretty well. Yes, the app is not well written or implemented and it should be able to run on a lower end phone but I get tired of people saying things like, "It works with iPhones but not with Android". That is a total crock. It works with decent phones.

 

It won't work at all on my tablet as it's older and can't even run the lowest version of Android that is required. Oh, well. Not a big deal. Additionally I have tried using the online version and it seems to work pretty well. If it doesn't work for someone and they refuse to try a different browser that's on them.

[PaperSniper4]

4 hours ago, capriccio said:

That wasn't our experience at all on cruises in January 2022 and March 2022.

I agree. The times we sailed on Princess the "medallion class" worked well. Of course, we didn't use the smart phone for anything, but we did like the door unlocking and locking with the medallion in our pocket.

 

I have heard a lot of people say the medallion app is crap, but once on board, it worked well. I am one of those fortune people who do not ask much from the app (we are green for our March 2023 cruise). Only problem we had is I had to re-book all our MDR meals about 2 weeks after doing it the first time. Now I check those MDR reservations every couple of weeks; no issues.

 

Doug

[kapsgp]

We are also in the group that has not  had issues during setup or on the ship. We were beta testers back when the Regal was being connected and have both had several new phones since. We run android on Samsung and recently a Pixel 6. It's too bad Princess can't figure out what is common between passengers that don't seem to have the issues others do.

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, jsn55 said:

Trust me, the whole medallion thing is far worse on the ship.  

Hmm.  sorry, I have to agree with others that the App functions intended for onboard a ship are by and large much better working and reliable, etc, than the pre-cruise experience.  Yes, the events page is poorly designed compared to what they had before and the messaging page is not as good as WhatsApp or similar smartphone apps.

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, jsn55 said:

Trust me, the whole medallion thing is far worse on the ship.  

Hmm.  sorry, I have to agree with others that the App functions intended for onboard a ship are by and large much better working and reliable, etc, than the pre-cruise experience.  Yes, the events page is poorly designed compared to what they had before and the messaging page is not as good as WhatsApp or similar smartphone apps.

[jsn55]

3 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

 

 

 

Count me with this group. I don't seem to have all the issues others have with the Medallion service. Yes, on our May cruise the system was very slow and waiters often just asked for out cabin number when ordering drinks. Not exactly a huge inconvenience. On our December cruise things worked really well.

 

Using the app here at home to get setup for our B2B2B in October/November is working really well. I also decided to do setup for our April 2024 cruise and am having no problems with that either. Now if my wife was trying to do this stuff on her cheapo phone it would be a problem. My phone isn't the newest or snazziest - Samsung Galaxy S10e - but it has a decent processor and a decent amount of both RAM and Storage. It seems to run the stupid app pretty well. Yes, the app is not well written or implemented and it should be able to run on a lower end phone but I get tired of people saying things like, "It works with iPhones but not with Android". That is a total crock. It works with decent phones.

 

It won't work at all on my tablet as it's older and can't even run the lowest version of Android that is required. Oh, well. Not a big deal. Additionally I have tried using the online version and it seems to work pretty well. If it doesn't work for someone and they refuse to try a different browser that's on them.

I think you may have just explained the whole issue, Thrak.  I have a very cheap phone (by choice, I don't need anything else), so what you're saying makes sense.  I know that I boarded with a chip on my shoulder after all the angst getting checked in from home when the system just wouldn't work.  Previously, I knew how to talk and text, and thought the medallion app would be a fun challenge.  To top off the experience, the man who checked us in on the pier put the wrong cabin number on our documents.  That added an hour to the process because nobody seemed to know what to do about it.  Plus, I have no patience for swiping and tapping on a phone screen.  Half our pre-made dinner plans and shore excursions got changed and cancelled several times along the way.  When you travel with someone who has mobility challenges, being told that you need to traipse half the length of the ship to dine at a different restaurant than the one you booked and rebooked makes you quite cranky.  I'm glad so many of you have few problems with Princess.  But I'm glad I'll never have to worry about it again.

[kamelia]

I am glad to know that based on the experiences most of you are sharing it is improving.  It leads me to believe that the issues I’m continuing to experience pre-boarding as well as onboard are still related to corrupted profile data within SOLAR.

[Steelers36]

51 minutes ago, kamelia said:

I am glad to know that based on the experiences most of you are sharing it is improving.  It leads me to believe that the issues I’m continuing to experience pre-boarding as well as onboard are still related to corrupted profile data within SOLAR.

I believe that a great deal of the issues around the former MC App (now Princess App) were data integrity issues and not necessarily application programming (coding) issues.  I also believe that were the facts to be public that significant initial data integrity issues were related to whatever the integration or conversion process is between the POLAR (legacy reservations system) and the MC App system.  As we all know - at least regular participants in this forum - data integrity issues persist to this day. 

 

We are now less than five months from the second anniversary of MC App launch and it boggles the mind how some of the basic issues continue after that much time.  It would be an interesting case study of an IT project were that ever to be allowed.

 

[memoak]

My problem is that I have 6 future cruises. 2 are b2b. on my one in June no problem but on my September one only the 2nd one shows so I am missing the first portion of the cruise.  

[Thrak]

4 hours ago, jsn55 said:

When you travel with someone who has mobility challenges, being told that you need to traipse half the length of the ship to dine at a different restaurant than the one you booked and rebooked makes you quite cranky. 

 

The problem with dining is that they keep closing the Michelangelo Dining Room. When the ship isn't full they close that dining room and everybody who has booked their dining there (myself included) gets moved elsewhere. Since the Da Vinci Dining Room was pretty much booked by the time they closed the Michelangelo everybody got moved to the Botticelli Dining Room which is all the way aft. Annoying to be sure and it happened to us in May and again in December. That is not a problem with the app. It's a problem with the Princess idiots who don't plan properly. If they know they will be closing  a dining room they need to not make it available to book.

[Thrak]

1 hour ago, memoak said:

My problem is that I have 6 future cruises. 2 are b2b. on my one in June no problem but on my September one only the 2nd one shows so I am missing the first portion of the cruise.  

 

I have a B2B2B booked for this fall. Trying to make dining reservations for all segments wasn't working. I could only make reservations for the first segment. Finally I had a thought (dangerous, I know) and logged out of the app. I normally log in with a user name and password but this time I logged in with the booking number of the second segment of the cruise. Voila! All segments were now available to book dining.

 

If you are logging in with a user name and password try logging out and then logging in using the booking number of your first segment. It may not work but it's definitely worth a try.

[jsn55]

9 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

The problem with dining is that they keep closing the Michelangelo Dining Room. When the ship isn't full they close that dining room and everybody who has booked their dining there (myself included) gets moved elsewhere. Since the Da Vinci Dining Room was pretty much booked by the time they closed the Michelangelo everybody got moved to the Botticelli Dining Room which is all the way aft. Annoying to be sure and it happened to us in May and again in December. That is not a problem with the app. It's a problem with the Princess idiots who don't plan properly. If they know they will be closing  a dining room they need to not make it available to book.

We were on Royal Princess;  MDRs are Allegro, Concerto and Symphony.  All three were open.

[memoak]

9 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

I have a B2B2B booked for this fall. Trying to make dining reservations for all segments wasn't working. I could only make reservations for the first segment. Finally I had a thought (dangerous, I know) and logged out of the app. I normally log in with a user name and password but this time I logged in with the booking number of the second segment of the cruise. Voila! All segments were now available to book dining.

 

If you are logging in with a user name and password try logging out and then logging in using the booking number of your first segment. It may not work but it's definitely worth a try.

Been there fine that. I will probably wait till after my Panama cruise in March to deal with it. Sometimes it seems that if you have too many future cruises there are extra problems 

[Thrak]

2 hours ago, jsn55 said:

We were on Royal Princess;  MDRs are Allegro, Concerto and Symphony.  All three were open.

 

We sailed Royal Princess last May and Ruby Princess in December. Both times I booked Michelangelo due to it's proximity to Vines. Both times they closed that dining room when the cruise rolled around and moved us to the aft dining room.

[kamelia]

@Steelers36 POLAR, thank you.  (I should have referred to my notes rather than rely on the aging grey cells. 😉)  I have gotten more assistance and education from you and others here on Cruise Critic than I have from the people who are in charge of getting the MC App up and running and reliably functional, and I am beyond frustrated by the lack of help from the Ocean Navigators.  Every time I have presented the latest problem I have encountered to the team that is supposed to be able to fix it, the response I get is either a variation of, “this is not a problem, here’s the workaround…” or, “we have an update coming out soon that should fix the issue, so just wait a few more days.”  I have a basic understanding of troubleshooting and I know it’s not helpful to walk up to the desk and just say, “this app doesn’t work,” so I give specific detailed facts and have actually taken several Ocean Navigators through the steps on my device hoping to shed some light for them.  Every single one has agreed that this was definitely not operator error and then used my device to submit a ticket to the IT department, assuring me that someone would be following up with me “soon” to get it resolved.  It has been at least 16 months since my initial dust-up with the app and I was first told it would be fixed “soon.”  Many issues with the app have been fixed since then, but not the ones I have continued to experience up to and including my most recent Princess cruise that ended two weeks ago.  You suggested some time ago that my issues might stem from corrupt data in my Princess profile, and the more I considered that, the more evidence I find indicating you’re right.  If you could assess that in only a few blurbs on a chat board, how can it be taking more than 16 months for the IT department to get it sorted out?  It would be a very interesting case study, indeed.  For now, I guess I’ll just keep waiting for the workaround that gets me to the front of the “soon” queue.

[Jean C]

Hi, can someone please help me re medallion app? Apologies if this issue has been addressed previously.  I cruised last year and found my way around the app okay.  Since then Princess have done an automatic update of the app and I'm now struggling with some basics.

 

I've made a new booking for November and have gone into the app to order our Medallion and make MDR bookings but the new booking doesn't appear.

 

However, what has me really puzzled is re an existing separate booking for September. I can't for the life of me see where to log out of the app (I logged in with booking number and name), or where to see other bookings (it used to show down the left hand side).  I attach screen shots from my Samsung 12 android phone showing what I see - how do I log out of the app?

 

Any suggestions?

[Jean C]

Found it, thanks. I'd scrolled back about 3 pages of this thread without success but scrolled back another couple of pages and there it was - click on small "profile" pic at bottom of page! Who'd have thought!!

[PacnGoNow]

3 hours ago, Jean C said:

Found it, thanks. I'd scrolled back about 3 pages of this thread without success but scrolled back another couple of pages and there it was - click on small "profile" pic at bottom of page! Who'd have thought!!

Glad you found it Jean.

I like this update the best.  More clarity, if that’s possible..😳  lol

 

[ziggy29]

We just booked a cruise for the end of May (6th cruise with Princess, first with the medallion).  When I try to log into the app, it tells be to go to "Ocean Ready" I need to link the booking. So when I try to link the booking, it says the booking has already been claimed. 

 

Has anyone else here seen that?