Ocean Now Report Card

[57eric]

Some time back I was seeing repeated comments about the unreliability of Ocean Now.  More recently, I don't recall having seen anything.  If people have experience with this in the last couple of months, I'd love to hear about it.  What should I expect?

[Cruise Raider]

7 minutes ago, 57eric said:

Some time back I was seeing repeated comments about the unreliability of Ocean Now.  More recently, I don't recall having seen anything.  If people have experience with this in the last couple of months, I'd love to hear about it.  What should I expect?

Ocean Now is used for ordering food, drinks or other items or services while onboard.  It’s worked fine for me right from the start.  I’ve used it on every cruise we’ve been on with the old app and recently on the new app.  No problems to report.  

[SargassoPirate]

I've been using it some in the world cruise and it's been working great.  I've used it to order a burger and fries in the solarium pool area, several cans of soda for delivery to may cabin to replenish my mini bar, and a few drinks when the Great Spirits bar was jammed but I had a seat across the Plaza from them.  

 

Hope this helps.

[cr01s13r3]

It's worked reliably for me, but it's not instantaneous. Just budget for a 30 minute delivery time and be pleasantly surprised if things arrive earlier.

[Rick&Jeannie]

Yep...it is *relatively* reliable but I've had a few occasions where I'd wait for quite some time and then all of a sudden it would say "Delivered".  Aggravating... I just ordered again *or* went to the bar myself (if it was a drink order.)

[IndyKid]

We did our first Princess cruise in December, and it worked very well. We had drinks delivered to our room, to the fantail area, and the buffet, all within a reasonable time. Looking forward to using it on our next cruise in October.

[Paula_MacFan]

We used it several times last week on our Regal cruise.  For the most part it worked as designed.  There were a couple times our drinks said 'delivered' but they hadn't been.  Twice we went to the bar to retrieve our drinks that we could see had been sitting there awhile.  But otherwise it worked pretty well.  

 

One afternoon we got Dirty Bananas and were just about finished, when a server comes over with another one and sets it on our table.  We laughed and said we already each have one and he said 'oh well, now you have another one' and said sometimes the system isn't perfect.  We took one for the team and split the second one 🙂 

 

Not related to Ocean Now, but I did try to use Crew Chat twice and never got a response either time.  That was disappointing as we had used it a few months ago on the Island and got very prompt and courteous responses.  

[Rick&Jeannie]

I use crew call chat anytime that I want to pass a message or ask a question that is relatively low priority and I don't want to stand in line at GS. So far, whatever the issue was that I was reporting has been handled and they responded as such...but you don't get any type of "active" alert when they respond...you have to go and look.

[57eric]

Thanks for the replies.

[Steelers36]

My understanding is that the Ocean Now menu choices in the food section are reduced from what they used to be say 6mths or more ago???  Perhaps it was them increasing the choices during and exiting the pandemic and since they added charges for Casual Dining and the new CD menus, it appears to me that the ON food choices have been cut back.  This is gleaned from various posts and such.

[Jimmys Chippy]

Was on the Enchanted last week, we had numerous “delivered” drinks that never showed up and numerous drinks that showed up after what you’d consider to be an unacceptable delay so, in the end, we either went to the bar and ordered or just flagged down passing crew members. I was in Princess Live to watch a football game, ordered a drink via Ocean Now at kick off, at half time it still hadn’t arrived, so I went to the bar and picked one up, ten minutes into the second half my order showed up and she looked bemused that I already had a drink, it really is a complete waste of everyone’s time.

[Seabird1000]

This is good information, thanks to everyone for sharing. I wonder what happens when you don't have a package and a drink that you ordered doesn't show up? Will they still charge you? (We're going on our first Princess cruise soon and are still figuring out some of the details 🙂)

[Jimmys Chippy]

1 hour ago, Seabird1000 said:

This is good information, thanks to everyone for sharing. I wonder what happens when you don't have a package and a drink that you ordered doesn't show up? Will they still charge you? (We're going on our first Princess cruise soon and are still figuring out some of the details 🙂)

You have to get them removed by visiting guest services. We were on a drinks package and we don’t use anywhere near our 15 drinks a day allowance so if they didn’t show up we weren’t duly concerned, but if you’re paying as you go I reckon having to keep track of lost drinks and then reporting them missing in action to avoid a $15 plus tip charge I figure it would become very tiresome, very quickly.

[cynbar]

Should we plan to tip the delivery person in cash, like we do for room service ? For drinks, where a tip is included? How about food items with no additional charge? And if so, about how much? I have sailed Princess before but OceanNow is all new to me.

[hatchda]

On our Jan 13th Mexican Riviera Cruise, I used OceanNow a minimum of 4-5x a day and upwards of 8x in a day to order drinks and Coffee. I used it on the pool deck, buffet and a few other areas. I always received what I ordered and in most cases all deliveries came in a timely manner. I think there was only one day, where it took a bit longer to deliver the Coffee's we ordered. 

 

I would also advise being on the lookout for your order because sometimes they could have a difficult time finding you; especially, when it is crowded. Overall, I thought OceanNow was an awesome service and looking forward to using it again on our next cruise. 

[New2cruise2022]

On 1/31/2024 at 12:24 PM, SargassoPirate said:

I've been using it some in the world cruise and it's been working great.  I've used it to order a burger and fries in the solarium pool area, several cans of soda for delivery to may cabin to replenish my mini bar, and a few drinks when the Great Spirits bar was jammed but I had a seat across the Plaza from them.  

 

Hope this helps.

What a great suggestion for filling the fridge. 

[New2cruise2022]

On 1/31/2024 at 5:13 PM, Paula_MacFan said:

We used it several times last week on our Regal cruise.  For the most part it worked as designed.  There were a couple times our drinks said 'delivered' but they hadn't been.  Twice we went to the bar to retrieve our drinks that we could see had been sitting there awhile.  But otherwise it worked pretty well.  

 

One afternoon we got Dirty Bananas and were just about finished, when a server comes over with another one and sets it on our table.  We laughed and said we already each have one and he said 'oh well, now you have another one' and said sometimes the system isn't perfect.  We took one for the team and split the second one 🙂 

 

Not related to Ocean Now, but I did try to use Crew Chat twice and never got a response either time.  That was disappointing as we had used it a few months ago on the Island and got very prompt and courteous responses.  

Happy glitches that end with an extra cold drink sounds amazing. 

[New2cruise2022]

22 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

My understanding is that the Ocean Now menu choices in the food section are reduced from what they used to be say 6mths or more ago???  Perhaps it was them increasing the choices during and exiting the pandemic and since they added charges for Casual Dining and the new CD menus, it appears to me that the ON food choices have been cut back.  This is gleaned from various posts and such.

I know there is a strong push for Plus and Premier upsell. Less options across the ship, including OceanNow, might persuade passengers to choose Plus or Premier. 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, New2cruise2022 said:

I know there is a strong push for Plus and Premier upsell. Less options across the ship, including OceanNow, might persuade passengers to choose Plus or Premier. 

Not sure I see the correlation as reduced choices via Ocean Now affects all guests.

[New2cruise2022]

52 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Not sure I see the correlation as reduced choices via Ocean Now affects all guests.

It does, but Plus and Premier create additional options for anyone that purchases. Additional option the create extra revenue

[tulok]

On 2/1/2024 at 3:24 AM, Jimmys Chippy said:

time it still hadn’t arrived, so I went to the bar and picked one up, ten minutes into the second half my order showed up

Does that mean you now had 2 of your 15 allowed? The 15 total number of drinks will be quickly used if you have to double order them. I thought 15 was more than enough and now I am thinking they offer 15 to make up for the Ocean Now app

[Jimmys Chippy]

11 minutes ago, tulok said:

Does that mean you now had 2 of your 15 allowed? The 15 total number of drinks will be quickly used if you have to double order them. I thought 15 was more than enough and now I am thinking they offer 15 to make up for the Ocean Now app

These were sodas so they don’t count towards the 15. You may be right though about the seemingly high daily limit.

[cruisequeen4ever]

Most of the time, it’s wonderfully helpful and convenient. Sometimes it fails when it can’t detect your accurate location or when it cancels after a while. 

[Cruisintimer]

On 2/1/2024 at 4:03 PM, cynbar said:

Should we plan to tip the delivery person in cash, like we do for room service ? For drinks, where a tip is included? How about food items with no additional charge? And if so, about how much? I have sailed Princess before but OceanNow is all new 

Strictly personal choice, we tip servers but many don't as tips are included with the package.  People argue about this all the time on this site, my suggestion would be do what feels right to you.  Happy Sailing!

[New2cruise2022]

13 minutes ago, Cruisintimer said:

Strictly personal choice, we tip servers but many don't as tips are included with the package.  People argue about this all the time on this site, my suggestion would be do what feels right to you.  Happy Sailing!

Well said!