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Status of Ocean Medallion?

denamo

By denamo,
in Princess Cruises

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted

OK... There are two different "initiatives" that are getting conflated: "Ocean Medallion" and "MedallionNet".

 

Ocean Medallion seems hung up on sensors not properly tracking where the medallion (and you) are.

Princess isn't going to roll ***** out any farther until the hardware stops reporting that it's not time to

unlock your stateroom door because you're not there yet, even when you are. Oops! Reports are that

the ***** folks have moved over to the Caribbean Princess while the Regal is in Europe.

 

MedallionNet works astoundingly well (1500 simultaneous video streams 24/7, to be shared by 3600

passengers), but only while in range of the "O3b" satellites in Medium Earth Orbit over the equator.

Last month, Regal sailed north of 48ºN (Seattle / Southampton) and out of range. Double Oops!

 

 

---

For what it's worth, Eurodam was running it's onboard WiFi at 72Mbps just fine two weeks ago, so WiFi-

in-a-steel-can isn't the technical nightmare it was only a few years ago. (Didn't help much since it was an

Alaska cruise and she was starved for upstream satellite connectivity. Wonder why? :confused:)

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
Currently what per cent of the Regal passengers are getting the medallion? Is that percentage been increasing the past several cruises?

 

 

Simple answer: Not one single stateroom beyond the initial tranche of ***** staterooms.

 

The ***** implementation folk moved from Regal onto Caribbean when Regal sailed for the Baltic last April.

They are still fighting the "Where's Waldo" issues between the medallions and the sensors, so don't

expect any more staterooms to be "medallion'ed" until that's sorted -- either in a new medallion design,

new sensors, and/or new software. (Since they have marching orders from CCL to get it done, I think it's

more likely that they persevere than declare it a lost cause).

 

If/when they get that issue fixed, the initial plan was to roll ***** out at 1 ship per 2 months.

 

MedallionNet is a different issue, and relates to the scarcity of satellite bandwidth north of Seattle/Southampton.

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bobby3334

bobby3334

Posted
Posted
Currently what per cent of the Regal passengers are getting the medallion? Is that percentage been increasing the past several cruises?

 

 

 

I am guessing about 1/8 since they were allocated to 1 muster station in January and the same n April when I was on it again for the TA to

Europe. I believe I counted 8 muster stations and if each has similar numbers (an assumption) I would guess 1/8. No increase until return of the Regal in the Fall

Even then uncertain. Mike

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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Pierlesscruisers

Pierlesscruisers

Posted
Posted (edited)
Currently what per cent of the Regal passengers are getting the medallion? Is that percentage been increasing the past several cruises?

 

There are suposedly 1780 cabins on the Regal Princess and there are 110 Medallion cabinson the ship so that gives just over 6% of the cabins being Medallion equipped. The number has not changed since the first cruise with the medallion.

 

Tom

Edited by Pierlesscruisers
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MTNestr

MTNestr

Posted
Posted

We have a Regal cruise planned for Oct 20, 2018. It is marked as a Ocean Medallion Cruise and not an Ocean Medallion Preview.

 

Doesn’t sound like they’re going to make it happen by then. At least we’ll have free unlimited internet if the don’t.

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
We have a Regal cruise planned for Oct 20, 2018. It is marked as a Ocean Medallion Cruise and not an Ocean Medallion Preview.

 

Doesn’t sound like they’re going to make it happen by then. At least we’ll have free unlimited internet if the don’t.

 

Don't count any chickens. :( Regal's Apr '19 T/A is marked "MedallionNet", but there are zero internet plans

of any sort on offer. Just a webpage blank other than "In-Cabin Calling to Shore" for $49.50. :o

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Hlitner "Live from...." Rare

Hlitner

Posted
Posted
Just off Caribbean Princess yesterday. Lots of people walking around with shirts saying Ocean Technologies.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Forums mobile app

And lots have been walking around the Regal for nearly a year. But the bottom line is that it still does not function as advertised. What a complete fiasco.

 

Hank

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MTNestr

MTNestr

Posted
Posted
Don't count any chickens. :( Regal's Apr '19 T/A is marked "MedallionNet", but there are zero internet plans

of any sort on offer. Just a webpage blank other than "In-Cabin Calling to Shore" for $49.50. :o

 

 

All of my Oct/Nov 2018 Cruises are US based so that should not be an issue???

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
All of my Oct/Nov 2018 Cruises are US based so that should not be an issue???

 

I take having no internet on offer to mean they're re-thinking Regal's contract with the "O3b" satellites.

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Pierlesscruisers

Pierlesscruisers

Posted
Posted
I take having no internet on offer to mean they're re-thinking Regal's contract with the "O3b" satellites.

 

I believe that the statement was made earlier that on that part of the cruise, the Regal is too far north of those satellites to be able to access them. I may be confusing that with another route, however.

 

Tom

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
I believe that the statement was made earlier that on that part of the cruise, the Regal is too far north of those satellites to be able to access them. I may be confusing that with another route, however.

 

Tom

 

Nope. You've got it right. The question is whether O3b does less than annual contracts at a reasonable

price or whether Princess will do an annual contract for a ship who is out of range for half the year.

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Pierlesscruisers

Pierlesscruisers

Posted
Posted
Nope. You've got it right. The question is whether O3b does less than annual contracts at a reasonable

price or whether Princess will do an annual contract for a ship who is out of range for half the year.

 

Oh, okay, Haboob. Thanks for the info. Appreciate it!

 

 

Tom

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MTNestr

MTNestr

Posted
Posted
our November, 2018 on the Regal shows as a Ocean Medallion "Vacation" and offers a Medallion.Net 'unlimited' internet package for $ 59.99 pre-purchase for our 7 day cruise.

 

I wonder why the Oct 2018 5 day cruises don’t show a Medallion.net unlimited plan. The 7 & 10 day do.

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Fire-EMT

Fire-EMT

Posted
Posted

I am glad that I Finally found this conversation. I was on the Regal in February this year. Our stateroom was 6 away from the lucky ones. Booked on the Regal for the 10 day Nov 1st cruise and I am wondering if I will have the ***** this time. I think I won't hold my breath. The free internet was great in Feb on our B2B East/West Caribbean cruise. Love the Regal!

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
I am glad that I Finally found this conversation. I was on the Regal in February this year. Our stateroom was 6 away from the lucky ones. Booked on the Regal for the 10 day Nov 1st cruise and I am wondering if I will have the ***** this time. I think I won't hold my breath. The free internet was great in Feb on our B2B East/West Caribbean cruise. Love the Regal!

 

To summarize:

 

• The only thing that OceanMedallion and MedallionNet have in common is they are happening at the

same time on the same ship. Neither relies on or helps the other.

 

• OceanMedallion is for the benefit of ship operations, with a few toys thrown in so folks will wear the

medallions. It's not as if having to swipe your card to open your cabin door is can't-live-without-it tech,

and I'm not sure I'm wild about having my name on a screen outside Crown Grill because I'm eating

inside.

 

• MedallionNet relies on equatorial MEO satellites that drop below the horizon if you go north of Seattle /

Southamption. Regal spends half the year out of range of those satellites, so it's not sure Princess won't

move the equipment and satellite contract to a ship that stays in range. FWIW, about two weeks ago,

Princess stopped offering any internet plans for my Apr '19 Regal voyage, and I've heard 1 report that

all internet offers have also disappeared from some Regal voyages that do stay in range of those satellites.

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Married15

Married15

Posted
Posted

All internet plans have been removed from my Regal July cruise as well. However I just asked someone that just got off Regal about their internet in The Baltic and they said for the most part it worked fine.

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
All internet plans have been removed from my Regal July cruise as well. However I just asked someone that just got off Regal about their internet in The Baltic and they said for the most part it worked fine.

 

::nods::

 

The problem is that gathering the upstream bandwidth that MedallionNet requires when north of those

MEO equatorial satellites' coverage area has a significant lead time (which is why internet on Regal's

T/A was a fiasco) and costs a bunch more (which is why I'm probably not going to get offered

MedallionNet on next spring's T/A).

 

Props, BTW, to Princess for working hard in order to take the financial loss that getting those folks their

promised internet meant.

 

The whole thing was a question of not knowing the questions to ask. "Whaddya mean satellites north

of Southamption cost more and give you less?!?"

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MTNestr

MTNestr

Posted
Posted
I am glad that I Finally found this conversation. I was on the Regal in February this year. Our stateroom was 6 away from the lucky ones. Booked on the Regal for the 10 day Nov 1st cruise and I am wondering if I will have the ***** this time. I think I won't hold my breath. The free internet was great in Feb on our B2B East/West Caribbean cruise. Love the Regal!

 

Which block of rooms were given Medallions? Is it always the same rooms?

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Haboob

Haboob

Posted
Posted
Which block of rooms were given Medallions? Is it always the same rooms?

 

Yes, because there is hardware (locks, message screen instead of corridor mailbox, etc) involved.

 

The staterooms are in Muster 'B'. I don't know if all of Muster 'B', though. There is a post in some

thread somewhere that details the specific stateroom numbers, but good luck finding it.

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