OCEAN MEDALLION

[GoLaLaKers]

Just off the regal princess. No medallion given, but all room door locks have been changed while I was on board.  Now use cruise card and tap the display to open door.  They were using both systems to track when you enetered and exited the ship. From what I heard, this was to be the final test and if the data from both systems matched then those sailing today wil only be using the new system. 

 

Only a handful of people had medallion, and from the looks of it most of them were all first time cruisers as their keycards were all blue. If I had to guess I am thinking princess decided to roll out the medallions to first time cruisers to see if they can figure out the system. 

[GoLaLaKers]

Just now, CaliforniaDon said:

ANYHOW , how do the medallions work in the casino?  Do we still create a PIN, or can we try to sit close to someone who hits a jackpot (right!) and hope it ends up in our account? 

 

Did not have a medallion, but you simply waved cruise card if front of reader and it prompts you for a pin. I imagine that is how the medallion will work,you have to make contact with reader in order to play or get paid out. 

[qiqibian]

Hi,

I just got off phone with Princess. They told me my cabin B65X will be OM ready for our 12/16 trip on Regal. Is this true? I thought only 110 rooms have OM on the Regal. Anyone has any update on the Regal' progress? Thanks!

Edited December 9, 2018 by qiqibian

[Ep010835]

1 hour ago, floridalover5623 said:

 the cards will be eliminated sometime in the future unless specifically requested. 

 

 

Absolutely but let’s not hold our collective breath. 

 

“Future” is one of the most ambiguous and ill defined words in the English language. 

[caribill]

16 hours ago, qiqibian said:

Anyone has any update on the Regal' progress? Thanks!

 

See this press release

http://www.carnivalcorp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=200767&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2379085

[Omega1]

Despite keeping her ship card away from cell phone and other devices that could corrupt it, my wife regularly had to go to guest services to have her card ‘re-calibrated’. No such difficulties with the OM on the CB recently.

[floridalover5623]

3 hours ago, Omega1 said:

Despite keeping her ship card away from cell phone and other devices that could corrupt it, my wife regularly had to go to guest services to have her card ‘re-calibrated’. No such difficulties with the OM on the CB recently.

Thankfully the new cruise cards don't have the same problems with being demagnetized like the old ones.

[PrincessLuver]

21 hours ago, CaliforniaDon said:

It sounds like the medallions will be the biggest source of entertainment and amusement on our March Regal cruise. The elevator procedure may match that time the elevators went demonic and were making their own decisions. Floor lights turned off off by themselves, the cars went up when you pushed a down floor.

 

ANYHOW , how do the medallions work in the casino?  Do we still create a PIN, or can we try to sit close to someone who hits a jackpot (right!) and hope it ends up in our account? 

 

Medallions were a non - event on our cruise and they worked very well....as for the casino, instead of inserting your room key to set-up an account in the machine you just touch you medallion to a certain spot on the machine and it recognizes you....then you have to log in with password as usual......they really are no big deal......

[floridalover5623]

8 hours ago, PrincessLuver said:

 

Medallions were a non - event on our cruise and they worked very well....as for the casino, instead of inserting your room key to set-up an account in the machine you just touch you medallion to a certain spot on the machine and it recognizes you....then you have to log in with password as usual......they really are no big deal......

Other then unlocking my door, the Medallions serve no extra advantage for me. It appears that their just a big hype for advertising Princess ships to sell more cruises. 

[Ep010835]

2 hours ago, floridalover5623 said:

Other then unlocking my door, the Medallions serve no extra advantage for me. It appears that their just a big hype for advertising Princess ships to sell more cruises. 

 

You are completely free to decline to participate. 

[Cruzin Grandma]

Thanks to Ep010835 for all the time you took to provide us with information.  I am excited to try the new ocean medallion concept!  

[Ep010835]

1 hour ago, Cruzin Grandma said:

Thanks to Ep010835 for all the time you took to provide us with information.  I am excited to try the new ocean medallion concept!  

 

It's a really fun and useful system. Hope I was able to share a little bit of useful "hands on". 

Check out the "Shipmates" feature. When wife and got separated a time or two, it was a snap to locate one another 

 

Happy sailing!!

[floridalover5623]

13 hours ago, Ep010835 said:

 

It's a really fun and useful system. Hope I was able to share a little bit of useful "hands on". 

Check out the "Shipmates" feature. When wife and got separated a time or two, it was a snap to locate one another 

 

Happy sailing!!

The shipmate feature was nice but just don't lose your Medallion or anyone can get into your cabin & help themselves to anything laying around. 

[Ep010835]

24 minutes ago, floridalover5623 said:

The shipmate feature was nice but just don't lose your Medallion or anyone can get into your cabin & help themselves to anything laying around. 

 

I discussed this at great length earlier in this thread after much discussion on the subject with the Lead Medallion Supervisor on the boat. This as well as PCL being acutely aware of the problem and working toward a solution. 

Again, if you're fearful of it or just plain don't want an OM device, Just Say No and remain in the plastic card world. 

Edited December 11, 2018 by Ep010835

[OCruisers]

On 12/10/2018 at 3:31 AM, Omega1 said:

Despite keeping her ship card away from cell phone and other devices that could corrupt it, my wife regularly had to go to guest services to have her card ‘re-calibrated’. No such difficulties with the OM on the CB recently.

 

On 12/10/2018 at 6:44 AM, floridalover5623 said:

Thankfully the new cruise cards don't have the same problems with being demagnetized like the old ones.

 

It's great to know the OM won't have problems being demagnetized!!!!

[satxdiver]

1 hour ago, floridalover5623 said:

The shipmate feature was nice but just don't lose your Medallion or anyone can get into your cabin & help themselves to anything laying around. 

 

One could certainly pick up a lost OM and enter your cabin with it.  The problem is that there are 1500 cabins or so on multiple decks so which cabin does it open.  All one has to do is walk up and down all the decks with cabins until it works.  Have a lot of time to do that?

[satxdiver]

31 minutes ago, OCruisers said:

 

 

It's great to know the OM won't have problems being demagnetized!!!!

 

The OM is a RFD device that only responds to a signal from a sensor placed all over the ship.  No magnetic strips are employed.  It is sealed in plastic so that it is waterproof.  The OM responds with an ID that has to then be used to index into the ship database to see who owns that OM.    

[mthomp5]

52 minutes ago, satxdiver said:

 

One could certainly pick up a lost OM and enter your cabin with it.  The problem is that there are 1500 cabins or so on multiple decks so which cabin does it open.  All one has to do is walk up and down all the decks with cabins until it works.  Have a lot of time to do that?

Currently, there is a window of time of vulnerability...the time between losing the OM and reporting it’s lost.  Refer to post #42 regarding the “Stateroom” function which gives the OM holder directions to the cabin.  Someone posted that they pointed this out to Princess.  

[XBGuy]

3 hours ago, floridalover5623 said:

The shipmate feature was nice but just don't lose your Medallion or anyone can get into your cabin & help themselves to anything laying around. 

 

3 hours ago, Ep010835 said:

 

I discussed this at great length earlier in this thread after much discussion on the subject with the Lead Medallion Supervisor on the boat. This as well as PCL being acutely aware of the problem and working toward a solution. 

Again, if you're fearful of it or just plain don't want an OM device, Just Say No and remain in the plastic card world. 

 

My recent experience on the Ruby Princess indicates that opting for the card key is no protection in case of loss.  On the Ruby Princess, last week, we did not have the medallion.  However, the medallion readers on the newly installed public screens and kiosks sure seemed to be able to recognize the card key.  I have agreed with those who have viewed with alarm that anybody who found a medallion could go to one of the public screens and find the cabin number associated with that lost medallion.  I am of the opinion that somebody who found a card key would have the same capability.

 

The fix is to require that a person who requests the cabin associated with a medallion or a card key provide additional identifying information before the cabin number is displayed.  In the meantime, I would think that it would be a fairly easy software modification to disable the "Give me directions to my cabin" feature on the public devices.  Even if my suggestion of disabling the feature more difficult to implement than I am thinking, Princess is leaving themselves open to some serious liability if they do not address it.

[Ep010835]

2 hours ago, mthomp5 said:

Currently, there is a window of time of vulnerability...the time between losing the OM and reporting it’s lost.  Refer to post #42 regarding the “Stateroom” function which gives the OM holder directions to the cabin.  Someone posted that they pointed this out to Princess.  

 

As the OM “Lead Navigator” (Supervisor) explained to me last week, they are acutely aware of the potential security problem and are trying to nail down a solution. 

Without user input of a password, facial recognition or other challenge method after presenting the OM device to the reader, the bad guy does NOT have to walk randomly up and down the hallways looking for the room that matches the OM device. The nice, helpful system will not only tell him your room number, it will present him with a glowing green path to your room complete with moving arrows. 

The take away for now is don’t lose your OM device and if you do, report the loss immediately. 

[floridalover5623]

4 hours ago, Ep010835 said:

 

I discussed this at great length earlier in this thread after much discussion on the subject with the Lead Medallion Supervisor on the boat. This as well as PCL being acutely aware of the problem and working toward a solution. 

Again, if you're fearful of it or just plain don't want an OM device, Just Say No and remain in the plastic card world. 

Glad to hear that they're addressing the problem.  

I live with the Medallion & I'm sure that unless someone really doesn't want a Medallion they'll be eliminated in the near future.

[OCruisers]

Another question please ....

Will we need to carry around both our OM and our cruise card at all times? 

(We will be on Caribbean Princess in January.) 

[Ep010835]

3 minutes ago, OCruisers said:

Another question please ....

Will we need to carry around both our OM and our cruise card at all times? 

(We will be on Caribbean Princess in January.) 

 

One or the other. Our cruise cards stayed in the safe for the entire duration of our time on board. 

One caveat. At one of the Caribbean ports (can’t remember which one) the shoreside security guy insisted on the cruise card. He wouldn’t accept the OM device. We took them ashore each time we went. Glad we did. 

Although I really believe this guy’s position was just an aberration. Thinking he just wasn’t familiar with the funny looking little round things.  

 

[floridalover5623]

9 hours ago, OCruisers said:

Another question please ....

Will we need to carry around both our OM and our cruise card at all times? 

(We will be on Caribbean Princess in January.) 

For access to the ship- While the security person at the entrance to the gangway still requests the card and those inside the ship will accept either, if you only have the Medallion with you it will work but the outside security person really has no way of checking the Medallion at this point. 

I asked & they told me it is possible to only use the Medallion but they really would prefer the card at this time to enter the ship gangway. 

Once on the ship, either the card or Medallion will work for everything. 

[satxdiver]

We were on the CB last month.  We used the OM to board and exit the ship but they would take the cruise card reluctantly.  It was so much quicker to use the OM.  The crew member standing on the pier near the gangplank however wanted to see the cruise card so we never tried to only use the OM.  On many ports when we entered the secure port area the local authorities did want to see the cruise card and some also wanted a photo ID.  They gave us a lanyard with both a holder for the OM and one for the cruise card.  The lanyard had a quick disconnect which I used and kept the two in my pocket.  For me so much easier and I really do not like the lanyards.