Regal Princess: Ocean Ready

This Christmas, I will be sailing onboard Regal Princess, one of the Princess Cruises ships currently featuring the new Medallion Class technology. Throughout the lead-up to my cruise and during the voyage, I’ll be sharing photos, videos, and blogs to talk more about this cool new system and all its features. Today, an introduction to #MedallionClass.

So what exactly is Medallion Class? Simply put, it is most likely the future of cruising from a technology standpoint. Walt Disney World introduced similar technology in Florida a few years ago with the “Magic Bands” and now Carnival Corporation is set to essentially offer the same services across its fleet. Throughout my series of posts from the cruise, I’ll highlight specific functions of the medallions and how they interact throughout the ship. Today, we’ll focus on getting “ocean ready” and things that occur prior to boarding the ship.

Princess Cruises was chosen to be the first of their brands to implement the new tech. To be fair, the roll-out did have its share of hiccups, as any new system is likely to experience. Those issues now apparently solved, the roll-out is expected to continue across the Princess fleet over the coming months until all their ships are online with Ocean Medallion. Once this is complete, the system will then begin appearing on other ships in the Carnival family of brands.

BOOKING AN OCEAN MEDALLION VOYAGE

When Premier Custom Travel customers book an Ocean Medallion voyage, they will immediately begin the Ocean Ready experience. Naturally, we are here to help along the way and answer questions. Here is how my booking went for this upcoming Christmas cruise on Regal Princess:

First, I made my cruise booking and placed the required deposit. Since my cruise was less than 90 days away, I actually had to pay my full balance so everything opened up at the same time. For those who book further out, this process might not all occur right away but this is the basic process. Once I made my payment, the Ocean Ready process started. Ocean Ready is basically everything you do prior to boarding the ship to ‘get ready’ for your voyage.

Next, I downloaded the MedallionClass and OceanCompass apps on my iPhone. These two apps will help me make the most of the system during my cruise.

The first thing I did was get “OceanReady” by registering myself in the app. This is, in essence, your check-in. It works mostly the same as online check-in for any other cruise, except that this process is entirely digital, down to even being able to scan you documents instead of having to type them in. You’ll also take two photos – one for security and one that will be your “profile” photo. The security one must be straightforward – no hats, sunglasses, etc. and the reasons for this are completely logical. The profile photo, on the other hand, is what will display across the ship as you interact with the system. So there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun here or looking less like a mugshot photo. More on how this photo is used in future posts.

Once I was deemed “Ocean Ready” by the app, it took me to the screen to order my Medallions. These quarter-sized discs are free and are shipped to your home about 2-3 weeks prior to your cruise. Don’t worry – if they don’t arrive they will have extras for you at the terminal. My sailing date is December 22nd and the medallions arrived on December 9th.

In my shipment, there were two boxes. The one with the iconic Princess Sea Witch logo contains the actual medallions and the free of charge lanyards to hold them. Every passenger receives these items and you do not pay for the medallions, the lanyards, or the shipping. 100% free. The second box above is our optional holders for the medallions. They have a nice variety of items, most of them very inexpensive. We opted for the clip-on and watch band holders, each of which were $6. There is also more fancy jewelry if you wish, plus they sell a variety of other holders once onboard. However, if you don’t want to wear a lanyard or a watch, you can just put the medallion in your pocket if you wish. It just needs to be with you in some form.

This is the first thing you see when you open the Medallion Class box. The center color of the medallion represents your loyalty level in the Captain’s Circle on Princess Cruises.

Pictured above are the watch band in use, the free of charge lanyard, the belt/clip-on holder, and the empty watch band.

After the medallions and accessories were ordered, it was time to check out the app and what it has to offer. After getting Ocean Ready, there really wasn’t much to do in advance except watch the countdown to the sailing date of the cruise. But about a week or so later (roughly two months to the sailing date) some activities started appearing in the daily schedule. I enjoy being able to see what our ship will have to offer daily and mark some of the activities I’d like to check out. One improvement to this system would be the ability to see the dining room menus in advance. Hopefully that will be added in a future update.

Most of the functionality of the Medallion Class experience will kick in once we arrive at the terminal in Fort Lauderdale. Until then, there’s not much more to share. However, I did want to address one question that seems to come up regarding these devices: privacy and the requirements of using them. I’ve heard one or two people say that they don’t like this system because it tracks them or they’re afraid that their personal info will be at risk. I’ve been told by Princess Cruises that you can opt out of the system, but I’m not sure why you would. You still have to give them all of the same info that this system requires just to get on the ship. If you lose your Medallion, it does not put your info at risk any more than it would be in their regular system or that of any other cruise line. And while I haven’t experienced it personally yet, I would think the benefits of this system would greatly outweigh the perceived intrusiveness of the technology.

If this device helps Princess or any other cruise line deliver a better vacation experience to me (and especially to our customers at Premier Custom Travel) then I’m all for it.

Keep an eye out for more blogs about this cruise and this exciting tech as my voyage gets closer. Have questions or want me to feature specific things about the tech or the ship? Let me know in the comments or on our contact us page.