Cabin service: Changed to once a day on RCI ?

[doghog]

4 hours ago, pilot said:

If you have purchased one of their packages they mail medallions to your home no charge. If you haven’t purchased a package there is a $10 charge to mail. 
 

If you don’t want to pay, just pick up at the pier, no charge. 

You also have to be in the green lane in order to have the medallions mailed to you.  

[pilot]

9 minutes ago, doghog said:

We received our Princess Medallions on 13 March for our 27 March cruise. No charge. About the size of a half dollar coin. Verdict is still out as this will be our first time using them. Still leaning towards the slim Seapass cards. They also came with a lanyard. 😂 Those immediately went in the trash. 

You must have purchased the Plus or Premier‘Package. 

[pilot]

3 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

It has nothing to do with like, or dislike, of technology.

Sorry I must have misunderstood when you said “I would prefer RCI not do such a thing”. 
 

I took it that you hoped RCI would keep their old technology and not update to something newer. 

[island lady]

17 minutes ago, doghog said:

We received our Princess Medallions on 13 March for our 27 March cruise. No charge. About the size of a half dollar coin. Verdict is still out as this will be our first time using them. Still leaning towards the slim Seapass cards. They also came with a lanyard. 😂 Those immediately went in the trash. 

 

Hey does that medallion look like the one that Captain Jack Sparrow had? 

[pilot]

15 minutes ago, doghog said:

You also have to be in the green lane in order to have the medallions mailed to you.  

Almost…you must have your medallion beforehand to use the Green Lane. 

[doghog]

7 minutes ago, pilot said:

You must have purchased the Plus or Premier‘Package. 

We have the plus package but there is also 7 pre cruise required steps that needs to completed that puts you in the green lane in ordered to get the medallions mailed to you. 

[doghog]

11 minutes ago, island lady said:

 

Hey does that medallion look like the one that Captain Jack Sparrow had? 

Nothing that cool. Just the SeaWitch profile and the color is determined by your Captain Circle tier level. 

Edited March 20 by doghog

[doghog]

5 minutes ago, pilot said:

Almost…you must have your medallion beforehand to use the Green Lane. 

Swing and a miss. You can't get your medallion until you complete the 7 pre cruise required steps. That's what puts you in the green lane on the app and then your medallions are mailed out. Then when you show up at the embarkation center you go to the green lane vs blue lane. 

Edited March 20 by doghog

[Ocean Boy]

1 hour ago, pilot said:

Sorry I must have misunderstood when you said “I would prefer RCI not do such a thing”. 
 

I took it that you hoped RCI would keep their old technology and not update to something newer. 

No, I just enjoy relative anonymity when on a cruise as I am pretty well known at home. Being near an elevator bank and having some screen announce to every one around who I am and what we might be celebrating does not excite me.

[snaefell]

5 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

No, I just enjoy relative anonymity when on a cruise as I am pretty well known at home. Being near an elevator bank and having some screen announce to every one around who I am and what we might be celebrating does not excite me.

Almost sounds like an invasion of your privacy,do you have any choice/input into what appears on the screen?

[pilot]

On the several cruises I have been on I have never just seen my info pop up. They have a place that you can tap your medallion and your picture comes up, but never had it show just by walking by. 
 

I did have something interesting happen on my 2 week Sky Princess cruise. We had a group of 4 that had standing reservations at dinner. One formal night we decided to skip dinner and stay in the bar. Thirty minutes after our reservation our restaurant manager walked up to us and asked if he needed to hold our table longer. We apologized for not canceling and told him no.  He was able to track us with our medallions. 
 

Some may not like this, but it doesn’t bother me. It’s a great way to keep track of your traveling group. Overall Princess has done a good service with the medallion. 

[pilot]

14 minutes ago, snaefell said:

Almost sounds like an invasion of your privacy,do you have any choice/input into what appears on the screen?

I’m guessing somewhere in their cruise contract, that you have to agree to, in order to sail, the cruise lines can do just about anything they want. 
 

Hopefully your cabin is your private space. Anywhere else on the ship, who knows. 

[Ocean Boy]

32 minutes ago, snaefell said:

Almost sounds like an invasion of your privacy,do you have any choice/input into what appears on the screen?

I agree and I have no idea what kind of control you have over it. I have not sailed with Princess yet.

[Russ Lomas]

13 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

We are doing our first Princess cruise in August, the medallion thing sounds really neat, you can even find others in your party on the screens in the hallway, or you can have food delivered right to your pool side seat....if it works the way it's supposed to, it's definitely a great idea. 

I think you will love most aspects of it.  Took a few days to get used to it and figure out how to effectively navigate the app.  Theoretically, it is great.  It worked fantastic to purchase things (or put them on your account if you had the Plus or Premier package).  Couple of times my wife's Medallion would not register at the bars, so they happily just gave me 2 or 3 drinks on my Medallion all at once (against the 15 daily limit for alcoholic drinks), and at no time did they not let us order multiple drinks on a single Medallion.

 

Getting drinks delivered to the pool deck was not good.  They use the Medallions to track you, but they are only so accurate and the server walks around calling your name.  Also, multiple times I ordered and nothing showed up for an hour on the pool deck, sometimes it never showed up though the app said it was delivered.  They need to fine tune this, but it is a great idea.  Much quicker to go to the bar and order your drinks.  As for ordering to your cabin, it works flawlessly. By the way, take a look at the drinks you can order on the app.  There are hundreds of them (great for trying a new drink or 2).  Enjoy your cruise.  We will be returning to Princess in the future for sure.  We also will continue to travel with RCCL, assuming we can find reasonably priced cruises (which have been few we have seen for when we can travel lately).

 

9 hours ago, runner2013 said:

We've also sailed with Princess several times. I agree, the display screen outside the room is a very nice idea. It worked out well for us every time. 

Worked pretty well, flawlessly for us.  Only issue was on day 1 when they set up my wife to open both our cabin and the kids' cabin at guest services.  Went to the cabin and it would not work on either cabin, nor was it even showing her "on the ship" when she tried to charge a drink to it during dinner time.  We were going to go back to guest services the next day to rectify this, but we tried again and it worked flawlessly.  Maybe it just takes time for the system to register changes?

[time4u2go]

1 hour ago, snaefell said:

Almost sounds like an invasion of your privacy,do you have any choice/input into what appears on the screen?

Yes. 

[doghog]

3 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

No, I just enjoy relative anonymity when on a cruise as I am pretty well known at home. Being near an elevator bank and having some screen announce to every one around who I am and what we might be celebrating does not excite me.

I've read (a while ago) on the Princess forum that once onboard you can request at GS the medallion be exchanged for a Seapass card. Our last Princess cruise was 2010. A lot has changed in the last 14 years. 

[pilot]

1 hour ago, doghog said:

I've read (a while ago) on the Princess forum that once onboard you can request at GS the medallion be exchanged for a Seapass card. Our last Princess cruise was 2010. A lot has changed in the last 14 years. 

I have heard that this is possible, but I can’t understand why anyone would want to. 

[sgmn]

On 3/19/2024 at 11:10 AM, Scottdalfonso said:

 I can't think of why they need to be in your room twice. 

It was nice to come back to the curtains pulled, glow light left on, bed straightened,  clean dry towels ready for the morning shower. Necessary no, nice yes.

It was a luxury perk of cruising for everyone, now just for suites.  Now with an increase in gratuities for less service received. 

As far as hotels having a daily service. We rarely stay more than a night, prefer air bnb. But last month our mid price hotel in Singapore had a daily clean.

[Scottdalfonso]

Also, if you want 

12 hours ago, pilot said:

12 hours ago, doghog said:

We received our Princess Medallions on 13 March for our 27 March cruise. No charge. About the size of a half dollar coin. Verdict is still out as this will be our first time using them. Still leaning towards the slim Seapass cards. They also came with a lanyard. 😂 Those immediately went in the trash. 

 

You can go on amazon and search for Apple Air Tag holders- they are the exact same size and you can get the little rubber watch bands or clips for cheaper than Princess sells them. 

[doghog]

16 hours ago, pilot said:

I have heard that this is possible, but I can’t understand why anyone would want to. 

Pacemaker was one of the reasons. Another reason was personal preference. Makes sense to me. 

[doghog]

10 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Also, if you want 

You can go on amazon and search for Apple Air Tag holders- they are the exact same size and you can get the little rubber watch bands or clips for cheaper than Princess sells them. 

I'm not interested in any of that stuff. I'll just stick the medallion in my pocket like I always have with my SeaPass card. 

[pilot]

1 hour ago, doghog said:

I'm not interested in any of that stuff. I'll just stick the medallion in my pocket like I always have with my SeaPass card. 

Why have both medallion and SeaPass card?

[doghog]

4 hours ago, pilot said:

Why have both medallion and SeaPass card?

I never said having both! 

 

Not a fan of RCs one time a day cabin service.