Was it just us?

[Amaroo Andrew]

I have just recently completed an Alaskan cruise on Crown Princess and a Queensland Coastal on Majestic Princess. Both these ships are Medallion Class and these were the first cruises using the Medallion Ap. As the Crown was our first venture we didn't know too much and thought any problems we encountered we would get around through experience but this didn't turn out that way on the Majestic.

I have found the Medallion is a mighty fine door opener but there seems to be problems with it at the MDR and the bars. The staff writing details on scraps of paper when the system overloads seems to be the go to fix for staff around the ship.

Long queues getting into the MDR at the requested booking time seemed to be the norm with lots of frustrated passengers with flustered and clearly overloaded staff. I even witnessed the Head of Restaurants in one MDR trying to sort out one evening's mess.

Is this the new Medallion Ap norm? 

[MMDown Under]

23 minutes ago, Amaroo Andrew said:

I have just recently completed an Alaskan cruise on Crown Princess and a Queensland Coastal on Majestic Princess. Both these ships are Medallion Class and these were the first cruises using the Medallion Ap. As the Crown was our first venture we didn't know too much and thought any problems we encountered we would get around through experience but this didn't turn out that way on the Majestic.

I have found the Medallion is a mighty fine door opener but there seems to be problems with it at the MDR and the bars. The staff writing details on scraps of paper when the system overloads seems to be the go to fix for staff around the ship.

Long queues getting into the MDR at the requested booking time seemed to be the norm with lots of frustrated passengers with flustered and clearly overloaded staff. I even witnessed the Head of Restaurants in one MDR trying to sort out one evening's mess.

Is this the new Medallion Ap norm? 

Teething troubles?

[Relaxing Robbies]

2 hours ago, Amaroo Andrew said:

I have just recently completed an Alaskan cruise on Crown Princess and a Queensland Coastal on Majestic Princess. Both these ships are Medallion Class and these were the first cruises using the Medallion Ap. As the Crown was our first venture we didn't know too much and thought any problems we encountered we would get around through experience but this didn't turn out that way on the Majestic.

I have found the Medallion is a mighty fine door opener but there seems to be problems with it at the MDR and the bars. The staff writing details on scraps of paper when the system overloads seems to be the go to fix for staff around the ship.

Long queues getting into the MDR at the requested booking time seemed to be the norm with lots of frustrated passengers with flustered and clearly overloaded staff. I even witnessed the Head of Restaurants in one MDR trying to sort out one evening's mess.

Is this the new Medallion Ap norm? 

We boarded Grand Princess on Friday and have also had problems. Our specialty dining booking for the first day worked ok. We have a booking via Medallion App for   a shared table in one of the restaurants at 6.20 pm each night  The last two nights we have arrived at the booked time to find long queues and no regard to any bookings made. We have managed to be seated around 7pm. Why take bookings and then completely ignore them?

 

Staff have been struggling to use the app correctly. When you order drinks at a bar or in the dining room they ask for your cabin number and seem to ignore the medallion. We have a drink package and have already made 3 trips to guest services to remove charges for drinks that should have been covered by the package. It is very frustrating.

 

I did 2 cruises on Coral in August and September and did not have any issues.  When the staff are well trained the Medallion App works well onboard.

 

 

[bretts173]

Lots of new staff, times we have been living in. As soon as I feel frustrated about things look out the window and see where I am.

Rather be where you are having to wait 5 minutes then sitting at my desk at work.

[MMDown Under]

11 minutes ago, bretts173 said:

Lots of new staff, times we have been living in. As soon as I feel frustrated about things look out the window and see where I am.

Rather be where you are having to wait 5 minutes then sitting at my desk at work.

Good attitude!

[sayaguru]

We never had a problem on Coral in July. One person said they were  charged wine they didn't order so check your bill. 

I liked the fact that you could just sit anywhere and order and not have to wait for a waiter or go to the bar. 

We did have a few charges go on for coffee even though we had the card. Easily fixed though. 

Edited November 7, 2022 by sayaguru

[arxcards]

Medallion is intentionally designed not to work in the dining room, as they have dedicated junior waiters for each station and still do it all the old fashioned way. Same for all ships. Also designed not to work in the theatre on Coral, but didn't try on Majestic.

 

We had a few random charges, but just used the crewchat feature to have them removed. We found ordering drinks on the open decks to be hit and miss (both Majestic and Coral), so went to those bars or grabbed a waiter to order.

 

We beat the queues for our booked dining by showing up fashionably early. Reservations are set in 20 minute blocks, so there is always a fair number arriving at these common times. The reservation system did purge all of the bookings on one of the days, which opened those tables up again for everyone to book. Those who originally reserved and those that reserved during the day were both showing-up for the same tables, so it would indeed have been a mess.

 

After our first taste of medallion on Coral, well when paired with the plus package, we returned home to book 3 more Princess cruises. Not perfect for sure, but an enhancement as far as we are concerned. More than happy with the new norm.

[Amaroo Andrew]

17 hours ago, arxcards said:

Medallion is intentionally designed not to work in the dining room, as they have dedicated junior waiters for each station and still do it all the old fashioned way. Same for all ships. Also designed not to work in the theatre on Coral, but didn't try on Majestic.

 

We had a few random charges, but just used the crewchat feature to have them removed. We found ordering drinks on the open decks to be hit and miss (both Majestic and Coral), so went to those bars or grabbed a waiter to order.

 

We beat the queues for our booked dining by showing up fashionably early. Reservations are set in 20 minute blocks, so there is always a fair number arriving at these common times. The reservation system did purge all of the bookings on one of the days, which opened those tables up again for everyone to book. Those who originally reserved and those that reserved during the day were both showing-up for the same tables, so it would indeed have been a mess.

 

After our first taste of medallion on Coral, well when paired with the plus package, we returned home to book 3 more Princess cruises. Not perfect for sure, but an enhancement as far as we are concerned. More than happy with the new norm.

I my work experience I have found that the IT people generally tend to over promise and under deliver and when they say they are improving the system it is time to head for the hills and hide.

From what I can work out, the Ap passively tracks each person around the ship and it knows where you are. That's not a problem until there are large numbers of people at a certain point, like a bar. That passive person will appear on the POS (point of sale) display at the bar just for being near it. When a purchase is made, let's call them active now, the bartender has to find the purchaser on the display  among the passive ones to bill the account. The displays only show about 6 profiles per page so he or she has to scroll about to find the active purchaser. If there isn't time to find that person on the POS display the bar staff resort to writing down the drink and cabin number on a scrap of paper and doing the data entry when things quieten down. That was happening constantly at the Wake View Bar down aft on Deck 16. All it required previously was one swipe of one's Cruise Card and the purchase was completed. A lot of the bar staff could remember a drinker's folio number. It needs a little refinement to work properly.

I'm looking at my last Cruise Card from Sun Princess from early 2020 and I was in the Marquis Dining Room for the 2nd Sitting at Table 53.There was the usual small amount of confusion on the first night when one's table was located but after that everything run smoothly for the next 40 odd nights. Same waiters, same table, no queues or delays and happy days. Is it possible to arrange this with the Medallion Ap?

Between the Crown and Majestic cruises we did a repositioning cruise on Carnival Splendor and as much as it pains me to state this, Carnival are doing it better! One restaurant was set aside for 1st and 2nd Sitting Dining and the other MDR was set aside for Anytime. Book a table using their Ap, sit back and have a drink and when your table is ready there is a bing and message on the mobile stating your table is ready. When one gets to the MDR entrance they take you to the table. Mind you, there wasn't much worth eating in the MDR or anywhere else on that ship!

If Princess devoted a bit more time and energy to improving the Medallion Ap as opposed to pretending it is running smoothly and producing all manner of beads, baubles and bangles to go with it, things might get better for staff and passengers.

 

[arxcards]

3 hours ago, Amaroo Andrew said:

I my work experience I have found that the IT people generally tend to over promise and under deliver and when they say they are improving the system it is time to head for the hills and hide.

From what I can work out, the Ap passively tracks each person around the ship and it knows where you are. That's not a problem until there are large numbers of people at a certain point, like a bar. That passive person will appear on the POS (point of sale) display at the bar just for being near it. When a purchase is made, let's call them active now, the bartender has to find the purchaser on the display  among the passive ones to bill the account. The displays only show about 6 profiles per page so he or she has to scroll about to find the active purchaser. If there isn't time to find that person on the POS display the bar staff resort to writing down the drink and cabin number on a scrap of paper and doing the data entry when things quieten down. That was happening constantly at the Wake View Bar down aft on Deck 16. All it required previously was one swipe of one's Cruise Card and the purchase was completed. A lot of the bar staff could remember a drinker's folio number. It needs a little refinement to work properly.

I'm looking at my last Cruise Card from Sun Princess from early 2020 and I was in the Marquis Dining Room for the 2nd Sitting at Table 53.There was the usual small amount of confusion on the first night when one's table was located but after that everything run smoothly for the next 40 odd nights. Same waiters, same table, no queues or delays and happy days. Is it possible to arrange this with the Medallion Ap?

Between the Crown and Majestic cruises we did a repositioning cruise on Carnival Splendor and as much as it pains me to state this, Carnival are doing it better! One restaurant was set aside for 1st and 2nd Sitting Dining and the other MDR was set aside for Anytime. Book a table using their Ap, sit back and have a drink and when your table is ready there is a bing and message on the mobile stating your table is ready. When one gets to the MDR entrance they take you to the table. Mind you, there wasn't much worth eating in the MDR or anywhere else on that ship!

If Princess devoted a bit more time and energy to improving the Medallion Ap as opposed to pretending it is running smoothly and producing all manner of beads, baubles and bangles to go with it, things might get better for staff and passengers.

 

Fixed dining is indeed easier for a ship to organise than anytime, but sometimes your table companions just aren't your kind of people, or choose to dine in the buffet and leave empty seats at your table on most nights. We have been mostly lucky. Sun Princess was setup for fixed dining for Australia, whereas the overseas Princess ships had one fixed restaurant and anytime in the others.

 

The app alert is a nice improvement for Carnival, although not much different to being given a buzzer as we have had with them and P&O in the past. The experience all depends on whether you only have to wait 10 minutes or 1/2 hour for the alert that a table is ready. We reserved our table/time for each night in Concerto or specialty restaurants, and on each occasion we were seated in less than 5 minutes from arriving outside the venue. I would consider it much more relaxing than arriving with 500 others awaiting the doors to open for fixed dining or open seating.

 

Service at Wake View was ordinary, especially from the waiters, who seemed to be pre-occupied on keeping an all day table of smokers happy on deck 17. Other bars were much better on how they used their POS. The better bars did not use the "passive screen" when it was busy. Instead of having many faces to scroll, they only had to punch in your cabin number to bring up the faces for that cabin, then assign a drink to each for the package. When ordering your first drink, most bar staff/waiters asked for your cabin number - no real difference to when they used to write down your folio number to do the same.

 

I haven't heard they are trying to improve the system itself, only the passenger app interface. The last change was mostly cosmetic. It works for us, and we will get to see how Carnival compares next year.