"New" cruise card readers

[Astro Flyer]

In May on the Sapphire we experienced for the 1st time portable handheld cruise card readers at the gangway. They appear to be the same ones they've been testing for the muster drill but they were using it all of the time when we departed & returned to the ship. They worked very well to expedite the process at the gangway so wondering if this has been implemented on any other Princess ship or if it's just an expansion of the testing for these handheld portable card readers? :confused:

 

If they haven't been implemented fleetwide, hopefully they will be soon because based on our experiences they worked great without any problems & they made for a smoother, more expeditious process. :D

[Vexorg]

They were using them at the gangways on the Ruby Princess in March, so I'm guessing they're probably fleetwide by now. They still had the old readers, but they were not in use at any time during that trip.

[Pam in CA]

Interesting. On my last two HAL cruises, they've used handheld scanners for disembarkation in port and re-embarkation. It makes exiting and returning to the ship a lot faster. I was wondering when Princess would implement this as the system is obviously mature and usable.

[paul929207]

We did not have it on the Ocean Princess in April and May

[fnewman]

For sure it is just an interim step. I suspect you will soon see cruise cards with RFI chips embedded. With those you will just be able to walk by a detector with the card in your pocket!

[katisdale]

Hand held was used on the Emerald in May.

[robgvic]

Hand held used on the Crown on the TA in MAy even to take the photo. I saw the old machines close by and wondered if it was just a wifi connection to them where everything was stored.

Good idea

[lovevacadays]

I thought the process was very smooth and fast with the hand-helds on our cruise in April on the Sapphire. I'm sure it will happen fleetwide.

[nml]

They were NOT used on the Caribbean in June.

[Hulagirl]

I liked the new way they took the pictures with them when we boarded the Crown in May. You can look straight ahead when they take your picture which certainly helps to eliminate the double chin look. It did make it so much quicker getting back on the ship.

[Seabreeze8]

The handheld scanners were used on our Baltic cruise in May and it worked great. Glad that they finally implemented it.

[Princess Cruiser27]

The hand held scaners were in use on the Ruby Princess back in November.

[4cats4me]

These were in use in March when we were on the Sapphire. I reported back about it after writing my review, and at that time they were not running very efficiently. In fact, it held us up for a while on the gangway before embarking in San Pedro. We thought the other machines had broken and that these hand-held things were the substitute system.

It was also problematic while disembarking in PV

 

Glad to hear the system is working well now.

[itzmered]

they did not use them on the Golden a couple of weeks ago. Sounds like it would have been nice. Very very long lines to get back on the ships at port

[Essiesmom]

I can't remember what ship/line it was on last year, but they were using them to 'take roll' at the muster drill...EM

[Astro Flyer]

I can't remember what ship/line it was on last year, but they were using them to 'take roll' at the muster drill...EM

They did a few at the muster drill on the Golden last November but did everyone on May's Sapphire cruise.

 

You posted on the thread about a Ruby Med cruise about Rick Steves' Med Ports book which was news to me so I ordered it for our future cruise...thanks for the info! :)

[captainron]

...were used for boarding and disembarking from Star Princess on our SYD/LAX voyage in Oct 09, so this is not something new here, and yes it was also used for muster drill, but not for a final count... only for a randon sampling of passengers who had attended.

 

Yes they do indeed expedite the process and rather than have six people standing around at the top of the gangway only two of which are "beeping" or "dinging" your card for you, it would cut the pax processing time in almost 1/4 of the time.

 

Ciao for now!!!

[caribill]

Very very long lines to get back on the ships at port

 

Usually the lines are slow moving due to passengers getting ready for the security x-ray of their belongings and then going through the metal detector, not the couple of seconds it takes to ding the cruise card.

[Sea Day Cruiser]

Just got off the Grand a week ago and there was no sign of anyone using hand held scanners anywhere.

[KruzPrincess]

Are you all saying that they now take attendance at muster?

[ONT-CA]

Are you all saying that they now take attendance at muster?

 

Hope not! We're so well trained we could give the presentation. But then we would have to be there to do that...

 

We wonder if these scanners are a prelude to the bars and dining rooms using them in taking and processing orders. No line-ups at the Purser's desk waiting for someone to have a $3.99 drink deleted from their account. If it's on your account it's because your card was used to purchase it.

[1 HappyCruiser]

Are you all saying that they now take attendance at muster?

 

Not yet since it didn't matter if they scanned you or not, but that was just in the past. Who knows what they might do latter this year. We might even have to go to another muster. ;)

[Loonbeam]

Before I left they were talking about doing this as apparently there is a rarely enforced coast guard rule (or some agency) that all passengers and crew must be documented as attending one muster per embarkation. I didn't hear for sure whether they actually decided to down the road.

 

I could see why they would, in the event of an incident and inevitable lawsuits they would have an active defense.

 

Hope not! We're so well trained we could give the presentation. But then we would have to be there to do that...

 

We wonder if these scanners are a prelude to the bars and dining rooms using them in taking and processing orders. No line-ups at the Purser's desk waiting for someone to have a $3.99 drink deleted from their account. If it's on your account it's because your card was used to purchase it.

[robgvic]

They were scanning cruise cards at the drill on the Crown in May

[paul929207]

Hope not! We're so well trained we could give the presentation. But then we would have to be there to do that...

 

We wonder if these scanners are a prelude to the bars and dining rooms using them in taking and processing orders. No line-ups at the Purser's desk waiting for someone to have a $3.99 drink deleted from their account. If it's on your account it's because your card was used to purchase it.

Someone said that they used them for the muster drill on our last cruise, but no one questioned the fact that we did not hear the announcement, so did not attend. :)