My experience with Medallion technology on the Royal

[Bollycats]

I just got off the Royal from their Dec 5-9th Coastal California cruise and wanted to share my thoughts about the Medallion technology as I encountered it. 

 

I was curious, but hesitant to use the medallion. Didn't want to deal with tech issues on my vacation (and I did) but wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I got the medallion at my home and took it to San Pedro.

 

The Good

The medallion worked great! Check in was super fast. I held it up to the scanner, they looked at my passport, and off I went to board. Opening and locking my cabin door worked well each and every time. Sometimes a little slow to unlock or lock, but mostly it was quick. I always made sure it showed locked before I walked away. No erroneous charges made to my account, I checked every day!

 

The Bad

Medallion net wifi didn't work well for me. I am Platinum so I was just using my free minutes. Steaming a 30 minute show took about 45 minutes because of all the buffering and freezing. Missed a lot of what was being said because words were chopped off. I asked the guy in the internet café if there was a better place to get a signal than my cabin and he said no. Didn't try it again.

 

The Ugly

The Medallion app never worked for me. Embarkation day I tried to log in to get my free drink from Ocean Now. I could sign in, but then the screen would just say "loading" and never stopped. I closed out the app and restarted my phone. Still nothing. My mom's phone worked just fine and she was able to order her drink. I went to the Ocean Front location to get some help and there was a line of about 10 people waiting so I gave up. Don't know if they were having problems, asking for help, or ordering accessories, but at least the person in front of me was having issues too. Every time I opened the app it made me sign in again which was a pain. Later that day I went back and neither of the techs could get it to work either. Dan, the main tech guy, wrote my phone info (make, model, version, etc) in a book that was pretty thick. I noticed other entries so I'm guessing it was the "problem" book. I have an android phone and the other entries were iPhones so I guess neither platform is immune. He said they would work on it, not sure if he meant right away or someone would in the future, and to try again the next day. The next day, still nothing. I went back to Dan and he verified again that it wasn't working for some reason and that it's not supposed to have you sign in every time. So something was definitely wrong. He said a lot of people were having issues and they have found that when you're signed into the internet, it works great. I told him I wasn't wasting my free internet minutes  just to play with an app. I just wanted my free drink from Ocean Now and I didn't care about anything else. (I was very frustrated and here I was dealing with tech issues on my vacation like I said I didn't want!!!) He told me to sign into my minutes, order the drink, and after I got the drink to log out. It took all of about 5 minutes and he promised to reimburse me 30 minutes for all my hassle. And he did! I saw them on my account the next day. Getting the drink wasn't easy. I went up to the bar to order a drink for my mother and saw my order/photo on their tablet. I said to the guy "that's mine". He proceeded to walk in the other direction searching for me. I had to chase him down to get it. 

 

All in all, I like the idea of the medallion, but for me it's not there yet. They were unable to market to me since I couldn't access the app and got no money from me for using Ocean Now to order drinks and maybe other things. If I could order drinks from wherever and have them delivered it would have been fun to play with and I would drink far more than I normally would. 

 

I'm hoping my next Medallion cruise goes smoother and they work the kinks out with the app. 

 

 

[I object 2]

Thanks for sharing.  We board the Royal in a few weeks and are looking forward to trying the Medallion.  Hope the bugs are worked out by then.  If not, no big deal.....after all....we're on a cruise and away from cold weather for a while.  🙂

 

[Rick&Jeannie]

Very similar experience for me... I was having issues with the "auxiliary" apps.  I had already downloaded the main Medallion app but either I totally overlooked it or there is NO notification that you must download 2 or 3 other apps for the full medallion experience.  I made probably 5 or 6 trips to the Internet cafe before all was finally explained and I had everything I needed.

 

Like I said...I may have missed the extra requirements but I was getting all of this set up (I thought!) prior to embarkation and was paying very close attention to the process.

[24639]

I was on the same cruise and had a similar experience. I never did get my free drink.  I found it mildly irritating to have to sign in every time to the app.  It did work better than when we were on board in September. FWIW  Crossing my fingers that it keeps improving for my February sailings.

 

[Beave8920]

Just my 2cents......We just did the Royal (Nov 30th) and in full disclosure - I'm a flip phone guy.  But my DW has an iphone and she did all the pre trip stuff. 

 

Upon arrival, no issues.  Stuck the mediallion in my pocket and away we went.  I did take my ipad which did come in handy in the cabin.  As a basic user, no issues.  Door opened, used in the casino with no problems and paid for beverages - again no issues.   Kinda played with it at different stations and it always worked.  They have an educational class right after boarding if you feel you need some additional info. 

 

We have free Platium minutes, so logged on in my cabin and downloaded app to ipad.  It was easy to do (Princess has videos on the TV that explains everything) I used my ipad for checking my bill daily and ordering daily cabin breakfast coffee - no problems.  You can do a bunch of other stuff i.e room service etc, but I didn't use it for that.   Internet was excellent.  The only issue I had was I forgot on the 3rd day to log off the internet and I used up all my minutes without knowing it!

 

So my experience as a flip phone guy was it was easy to understand and relatively easy to use.  But my gripe (as always) was everyone was walking around with their heads down and using there phones.....even in the resturants........ just like being on land - Not my way of spending a vacation.

[Lucky TGO]

Thanks for sharing. 
Tony

[jangor]

I was on the Regal last week and have posted a thread about my problems.  Some minor hiccups with the Medallion itself, but major problems with the apps.  It took until the evening of day 3 with multiple trips to Ocean Now and the Internet Cafe before I was able to access the apps.

[DrivesLikeMario]

I noticed a big improvement over our May cruise on the Royal.  I signed into Medallion Net on my phone and computer very easily and often times, it worked faster on my phone.  I didn't try ordering anything from it though and I understand that's where a lot of people are experiencing problems.  Maybe it'll get better with time as they work out the problems.

[polmcs]

I was on the Royal over Thanksgiving and the MedallionNet WiFi was unusable for streaming, or any kind of downloads. I was getting less than 1 meg on speed tests. Even browsing stuttered at times.

 

I was able to use the app to order several drinks. I even got my first one free even though I had the PBP. That free one never showed up on my daily allowance. 😉 

[seattlestan]

I would guess that if the WiFi is unusable for streaming or downloading, it would also be unreliable for WiFi calling which is the main reason I plan to buy a package.  For those of you buying a MedallionNet package, if the WiFi is not living up to expectations, is Princess offering any refund, partial or full?

[tellis90245]

We were on the Royal for a Calif. Coastal cruise in early Nov. Experience with the Medallion was similar. It got us onboard the ship blindingly fast, and it unlocked the cabin door every time. The part showing the activities also worked pretty well. 

 

The ordering part was very hit-and-miss. Would work sometimes and then stop working ten minutes later. We got our free drinks (wife and I) but I had a few experiences where I ordered the drink and the waiter with it could not find me. And we're still waiting for one drink we ordered by the pool.

 

The worst part was the map function. Never did get it to work on my wife phone, and on mine it worked maybe 25% of the time. When it worked it was great, but we never got any sort of info as to why it wasn't working. 

[CulverCityCruisers]

For those on Royal, if you bought the wifi package on board how much was it??

[GottaLuvCruising]

On 12/10/2019 at 7:17 PM, jangor said:

I was on the Regal last week and have posted a thread about my problems.  Some minor hiccups with the Medallion itself, but major problems with the apps.  It took until the evening of day 3 with multiple trips to Ocean Now and the Internet Cafe before I was able to access the apps.

We were on the Sky last week and the apps would not work on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 8.)  I could log in, but if I tried to do anything, I'd get a blank screen with an X on it, but it would not close.  I had to reboot my phone every time.   

 

Why do we need so many apps in the first place?  I gave up and left my phone in the stateroom. 

 

Medallion for our stateroom door and purchases worked great.  

[Carnevale]

On 12/10/2019 at 11:25 AM, Rick&Jeannie said:

Very similar experience for me... I was having issues with the "auxiliary" apps.  I had already downloaded the main Medallion app but either I totally overlooked it or there is NO notification that you must download 2 or 3 other apps for the full medallion experience.  I made probably 5 or 6 trips to the Internet cafe before all was finally explained and I had everything I needed.

 

Like I said...I may have missed the extra requirements but I was getting all of this set up (I thought!) prior to embarkation and was paying very close attention to the process.

interesting!  We are on the Ruby in April which will be first experience with the medallion.  Can you please let me know what apps you needed?  It would be nice to load them at home in advance to hopefully avoid some of the problems you experienced.

[JWUC]

We were on the Royal at the beginning of November. One quirk we noticed - if the door is locking after someone walks into the stateroom, it briefly locks out the medallion from opening the door.

[Rick&Jeannie]

19 hours ago, Carnevale said:

interesting!  We are on the Ruby in April which will be first experience with the medallion.  Can you please let me know what apps you needed?  It would be nice to load them at home in advance to hopefully avoid some of the problems you experienced.

Not sure this is all, but I have OceanReady and OceanCompass installed on my phone. 

[CruiseVA]

You only need the new MedallionClass App  now, delete all the others.

[Rick&Jeannie]

Well, I had the MedallionClass app and all functions did not work. This was 2 months ago.

[Thrak]

We have never sailed on the Royal or even any Royal-class ship. However, we recently did a Trans Atlantic from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale on Emerald Princess which had MedallionNet Internet access. Total crap We were supposedly "in the zone" for good access. Not! Some of the worst Internet access we have ever had. Actually, there was only one other time we had this kind of incredibly poor Internet access and it was also on Emerald Princess a few years ago. Long before MedallionNet was available. I have to wonder why the two, absolutely worst Internet expediences we have had with Princess were both on Emerald Princess. Weird...

[Bollycats]

11 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Well, I had the MedallionClass app and all functions did not work. This was 2 months ago.

Same here, I had just the newest one called Medallion Class. I had deleted all the old ones.

[Jnsplace1]

There was an update to the app this week.  I'll be very curious if that helps some folks now.

[Rick&Jeannie]

 

On 12/20/2019 at 11:32 AM, Jnsplace1 said:

There was an update to the app this week.  I'll be very curious if that helps some folks now.

 

Good to know!  Hopefully the "main app" is now all you need.  It was very confusing and (in my opinion) not well communicated AT ALL that other apps were needed.

[shealea]

For some reason I'm just not getting the workings of the Medallion. I understand that I use it to get in and out of my cabin and for purchases onboard and for getting off and on the ship. 

This is where I'm confused. I understand that I can download the app to my iPhone. I DO NOT want to buy wifi minutes and I'm really worried about getting any charges for use of my phone on the ship. I don't want to accidentally be hit with charges from my phone tapping into the ships phone services. 

How do I avoid this? Please, if you would be so kind, explain to me how it works. Do I put my phone on airplane mode? Does that keep me from my phone tapping into the ship's phone services? 

And if I don't plan on buying wifi minutes, how would this app benefit us?

I feel kind of silly that I'm just not 'getting' it!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for any help!  We have never sailed on Princess and we're excited to try this line. We are doing the Mexican Riviera out of LA. 

[rollingjay]

On 12/10/2019 at 12:02 PM, Bollycats said:

I just got off the Royal from their Dec 5-9th Coastal California cruise and wanted to share my thoughts about the Medallion technology as I encountered it. 

 

I was curious, but hesitant to use the medallion. Didn't want to deal with tech issues on my vacation (and I did) but wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I got the medallion at my home and took it to San Pedro.

 

The Good

The medallion worked great! Check in was super fast. I held it up to the scanner, they looked at my passport, and off I went to board. Opening and locking my cabin door worked well each and every time. Sometimes a little slow to unlock or lock, but mostly it was quick. I always made sure it showed locked before I walked away. No erroneous charges made to my account, I checked every day!

 

The Bad

Medallion net wifi didn't work well for me. I am Platinum so I was just using my free minutes. Steaming a 30 minute show took about 45 minutes because of all the buffering and freezing. Missed a lot of what was being said because words were chopped off. I asked the guy in the internet café if there was a better place to get a signal than my cabin and he said no. Didn't try it again.

 

The Ugly

The Medallion app never worked for me. Embarkation day I tried to log in to get my free drink from Ocean Now. I could sign in, but then the screen would just say "loading" and never stopped. I closed out the app and restarted my phone. Still nothing. My mom's phone worked just fine and she was able to order her drink. I went to the Ocean Front location to get some help and there was a line of about 10 people waiting so I gave up. Don't know if they were having problems, asking for help, or ordering accessories, but at least the person in front of me was having issues too. Every time I opened the app it made me sign in again which was a pain. Later that day I went back and neither of the techs could get it to work either. Dan, the main tech guy, wrote my phone info (make, model, version, etc) in a book that was pretty thick. I noticed other entries so I'm guessing it was the "problem" book. I have an android phone and the other entries were iPhones so I guess neither platform is immune. He said they would work on it, not sure if he meant right away or someone would in the future, and to try again the next day. The next day, still nothing. I went back to Dan and he verified again that it wasn't working for some reason and that it's not supposed to have you sign in every time. So something was definitely wrong. He said a lot of people were having issues and they have found that when you're signed into the internet, it works great. I told him I wasn't wasting my free internet minutes  just to play with an app. I just wanted my free drink from Ocean Now and I didn't care about anything else. (I was very frustrated and here I was dealing with tech issues on my vacation like I said I didn't want!!!) He told me to sign into my minutes, order the drink, and after I got the drink to log out. It took all of about 5 minutes and he promised to reimburse me 30 minutes for all my hassle. And he did! I saw them on my account the next day. Getting the drink wasn't easy. I went up to the bar to order a drink for my mother and saw my order/photo on their tablet. I said to the guy "that's mine". He proceeded to walk in the other direction searching for me. I had to chase him down to get it. 

 

All in all, I like the idea of the medallion, but for me it's not there yet. They were unable to market to me since I couldn't access the app and got no money from me for using Ocean Now to order drinks and maybe other things. If I could order drinks from wherever and have them delivered it would have been fun to play with and I would drink far more than I normally would. 

 

I'm hoping my next Medallion cruise goes smoother and they work the kinks out with the app. 

 

 

I agree with everything 

 

On 12/10/2019 at 12:02 PM, Bollycats said:

I just got off the Royal from their Dec 5-9th Coastal California cruise and wanted to share my thoughts about the Medallion technology as I encountered it. 

 

I was curious, but hesitant to use the medallion. Didn't want to deal with tech issues on my vacation (and I did) but wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I got the medallion at my home and took it to San Pedro.

 

The Good

The medallion worked great! Check in was super fast. I held it up to the scanner, they looked at my passport, and off I went to board. Opening and locking my cabin door worked well each and every time. Sometimes a little slow to unlock or lock, but mostly it was quick. I always made sure it showed locked before I walked away. No erroneous charges made to my account, I checked every day!

 

The Bad

Medallion net wifi didn't work well for me. I am Platinum so I was just using my free minutes. Steaming a 30 minute show took about 45 minutes because of all the buffering and freezing. Missed a lot of what was being said because words were chopped off. I asked the guy in the internet café if there was a better place to get a signal than my cabin and he said no. Didn't try it again.

 

The Ugly

The Medallion app never worked for me. Embarkation day I tried to log in to get my free drink from Ocean Now. I could sign in, but then the screen would just say "loading" and never stopped. I closed out the app and restarted my phone. Still nothing. My mom's phone worked just fine and she was able to order her drink. I went to the Ocean Front location to get some help and there was a line of about 10 people waiting so I gave up. Don't know if they were having problems, asking for help, or ordering accessories, but at least the person in front of me was having issues too. Every time I opened the app it made me sign in again which was a pain. Later that day I went back and neither of the techs could get it to work either. Dan, the main tech guy, wrote my phone info (make, model, version, etc) in a book that was pretty thick. I noticed other entries so I'm guessing it was the "problem" book. I have an android phone and the other entries were iPhones so I guess neither platform is immune. He said they would work on it, not sure if he meant right away or someone would in the future, and to try again the next day. The next day, still nothing. I went back to Dan and he verified again that it wasn't working for some reason and that it's not supposed to have you sign in every time. So something was definitely wrong. He said a lot of people were having issues and they have found that when you're signed into the internet, it works great. I told him I wasn't wasting my free internet minutes  just to play with an app. I just wanted my free drink from Ocean Now and I didn't care about anything else. (I was very frustrated and here I was dealing with tech issues on my vacation like I said I didn't want!!!) He told me to sign into my minutes, order the drink, and after I got the drink to log out. It took all of about 5 minutes and he promised to reimburse me 30 minutes for all my hassle. And he did! I saw them on my account the next day. Getting the drink wasn't easy. I went up to the bar to order a drink for my mother and saw my order/photo on their tablet. I said to the guy "that's mine". He proceeded to walk in the other direction searching for me. I had to chase him down to get it. 

 

All in all, I like the idea of the medallion, but for me it's not there yet. They were unable to market to me since I couldn't access the app and got no money from me for using Ocean Now to order drinks and maybe other things. If I could order drinks from wherever and have them delivered it would have been fun to play with and I would drink far more than I normally would. 

 

I'm hoping my next Medallion cruise goes smoother and they work the kinks out with the app. p

 

I agree with everything the poster said.  I also went to the help desk 3 times and no resolution.  They kept blaming the IPhone 6 for the problems.  When trying to find shipmates it would show the floor and then immediately shut off and I would have to sign on again.  Got tired of always having to sign on and just gave up using it.  It opened the door fine except for one time.  With all the hype and advertising they did I hope they get this app working right or just throw it overboard and go back to the cruise cards.  It's not worth the hassle.  We just got off the Royal on Sat. Dec. 21  

[vampiress]

On 12/23/2019 at 11:33 AM, shealea said:

For some reason I'm just not getting the workings of the Medallion. I understand that I use it to get in and out of my cabin and for purchases onboard and for getting off and on the ship. 

This is where I'm confused. I understand that I can download the app to my iPhone. I DO NOT want to buy wifi minutes and I'm really worried about getting any charges for use of my phone on the ship. I don't want to accidentally be hit with charges from my phone tapping into the ships phone services. 

How do I avoid this? Please, if you would be so kind, explain to me how it works. Do I put my phone on airplane mode? Does that keep me from my phone tapping into the ship's phone services? 

And if I don't plan on buying wifi minutes, how would this app benefit us?

I feel kind of silly that I'm just not 'getting' it!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for any help!  We have never sailed on Princess and we're excited to try this line. We are doing the Mexican Riviera out of LA. 

its like using the wifi on an airplane.  board ship, put phone in airplane mode, and then turn on wifi.  this will allow you to use the ships INTRAnet, intra meaning internal.  this will incur no charges. just using the INTRAnet, you get ships services, electronic patters, checking your portfolio, passenger to passenger messaging, but there are no alerts for it so you only see the messages if you look. 

 

to use the INTERnet, the web outside the ship, that is where you have to pay, and it will be obvious when you click there that you need to pay.  you can safely click ont he itnernet options to see how much they cost with out purchasing them or getting any charges.

 

 

to long didn't read version:

when on board, put phone in airplane mode and then turn on wifi.

 

as for regular phone:

in most ports once the ship is docked you are close enough to receive mobile service, and if you have a plan that will work.  no one he can answer that for you, you will need to work with your mobile provider to see how much the charges are for your different ports.  you might want to look into having an international option added for your cruise.