Princess Cruises reports OceanMedallion activation milestone

Details

Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä

Category: More News More News

Published: 30 September 2018 30 September 2018

For guests sailing on Caribbean Princess since early September, satisfaction scores indicate they thoroughly enjoy using their OceanMedallion to discover how a personalized vacation can elevate their experience to a higher level by removing friction points, delivering enhanced levels of personalization and guest service all while staying connected with land-like internet streaming speeds.

OceanMedallion, the wearable device guests use to access enhanced experiences, continues to roll out as part of a phased activation plan that since early September has been used by all of the 3,100 guests on Caribbean Princess. OceanMedallion features leading-edge technology that enhances guest-crew interactions, enables interactive entertainment, and delivers personalized service.

MedallionClass vacations offer guests an extensive portfolio of OceanMedallion-enabled features specifically designed to enhance the vacation experience. They currently include:

– Keyless Stateroom Access: Stateroom entry is a seamless experience where each guest is securely validated and the door automatically unlocks, with personalized greetings launching soon.

– MedallionPay: All guests use an easy and hassle-free, payment experience enabling crew members to focus on guest service interactions.

– OceanCasino: On smart devices and select portals, guests can wager real money on a portfolio of games, including slots, poker, bingo, roulette, keno and lottery from anywhere on board.

– OceanCompass featuring OceanNav and ShipMates: On select portals guests can use OceanNav for point-to-point wayfinding throughout the ship via an intelligent navigation assistant, and utilize ShipMates to easily locate friends, family and kids.

– JourneyView: On portals throughout the ship, guests can access a real-time look at their itinerary, along with events and activities taking place during their cruise.

– OceanView: Guests can stream more than 100 hours of award-winning Ocean Original travel content – which airs nationally on weekends on ABC and NBC - to their smart device anywhere on the ship at no cost.

– PlayOcean: On portals located shipwide, guests are able to play family games, including trivia, word jumble, a matching game, and Ocean Treks Adventure – an interactive, shipwide digital scavenger hunt.

Caribbean Princess now also features Carnival Corporations’ MedallionNet, offering guests Wi-Fi connectivity that is fast, reliable, unlimited and affordable with an access point in every stateroom. Guests on MedallionClass ships experience land-like connectivity for streaming sports, movies, music and videos, communicating on video phone calls from anywhere on the ship, and sharing their vacation experiences in real time with friends and family back home on social media platforms – another factor contributing to higher guest satisfaction scores.

“Having 100 percent of our guests using OceanMedallions on every sailing of Caribbean Princess is a significant milestone that we are celebrating on the path to fleet-wide implementation,” said Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruises, the world’s largest international premium cruise line. “It is very validating to have our guests tell us that OceanMedallion is turning an already extraordinary experience on Princess Cruises into an even more spectacular vacation, making sailing on Caribbean Princess the ultimate Caribbean cruise vacation.”

OceanMedallion activates a travel industry first with an Experience Internet of Things (xIoTTM) platform using a guest-centric approach that helps maximize a cruise vacation in real-time based on guests’ choices and preferences. The result delivers enhanced personalization on a large scale across every aspect of a cruise vacation.

OceanMedallion was first unveiled by Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald at CES 2017 and was a key factor in Fast Company recognizing the corporation with two Innovation as Design Awards that same year. The company’s guest experience platform actively learns an individual guest’s needs, wants and desires in real time. The guest experience intelligence then flows into a tool used by crew members called GuestView, which provides them with relevant insights, such as a display of a guests' names and where they are from, and information about their loyalty level or assigned dining. When that guest visits another bar or restaurant on board, the staff has visibility into that guest’s preferences, enabling them to anticipate ways to provide an even higher level of personalized service.

In addition to current Medallion-enabled features on Caribbean Princess, Princess Cruises will continue rolling out additional advanced offerings for guests this fall while also continuing to refine the enhanced experience based on guest and crew feedback.

Costa Cruises and AISM: Tours now also accessible to guests with disabilities for the first time

Details

Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä

Category: More News More News

Published: 28 September 2018 28 September 2018

Costa Cruises, AISM (Italian Multiple Sclerosis Association) and the Costa Crociere Foundation present the results of a joint project aimed at making vacations increasingly accessible to people with impaired mobility. For the first time in the world in the cruise sector, guests with disabilities will be able to participate in group shore excursions, at no extra cost, with accessibility verified by AISM, in accordance with the most advanced international good practices.

The new tours, called "Adagio Tours", will be available for booking from Jan. 1, 2019, for Mediterranean cruises on the flagship Costa Diadema. At every port of call, at least one group excursion will be offered that is accessible to everyone, including guests with impaired mobility, and this is available at no extra cost. The list of tours currently includes visits to the cities of Genoa, Marseilles, Barcelona, Palermo, Rome, Palma de Mallorca and Cagliari. "Adagio Tours" have been developed considering the needs of all our guests who want to enjoy their chosen destinations at a slower pace, with more time to discover or rediscover them. They are therefore particularly suited to parents with strollers, elderly guests or people with permanent or temporary mobility impairments.

The programmes for these excursions have been devised, tested and checked with the contribution of 15 women with multiple sclerosis, trained and selected by AISM thanks to the "WAT! Women Accessibility Tourism” program funded by the Costa Crociere Foundation. These women – some with no permanent job, others who are students, recent graduates or part-time workers, all passionate about travel and tourism – attended a specific 160-hour training course on land and on board Costa ships, benefiting from the experience of AISM and a team of excursion experts from Costa Cruises. Following this training, starting with a few excursions already included in the Costa offer, they contributed to planning the tours, testing them first hand and taking into consideration every detail relating to accessibility, route mapping, tourism experiences, making the most of local attractions. The skills gained will also help the 15 women find employment in the field of sustainable tourism.

"AISM has been about people, rights and research for 50 years. Our aim of achieving a world free of multiple sclerosis also means ensuring full inclusion and the opportunity for everyone to live their life beyond multiple sclerosis. This is why the priorities in our Agenda for 2020 include access to stable employment and the right to inclusion, which also means accessible tourism. AISM is working to achieve change with a real impact on people's lives. The social value of our actions, as an Association, lies in achieving changes that benefit everyone with a mobility impairment and everyone in the community with similar problems. Change has to be contagious and applied to civil society as a whole", explains Mario Alberto Battaglia, President of AISM.

“With the cooperation of AISM and the contribution of our Foundation, we have tackled the subject of accessible tourism in a responsible way, with the aim of making significant changes to people's lives. This project, which is a real innovation in the world of cruises, is an important step forward towards including people with disabilities and ensuring that there are no more differences and that everyone can share the same experiences when on vacation. I hope our initiative can be extended to the whole sector in future. We certainly undertake to extend it to the other ships in our fleet.” - says Neil Palomba, President of Costa Cruises.

The Adagio Tours supplement the other services Costa already offers guests with disabilities on board its fleet. All company ships include appropriately fitted cabins with all the comforts required and free of any architectural barriers. Guests who need special assistance can also benefit from free travel for an accompanying person staying in the cabin with them. Priority boarding and landing services and reserved seats at the theatre, on the pool decks and in the buffet restaurants are also guaranteed.

AISM is the only organization in Italy dedicated to all aspects of multiple sclerosis. It takes an overall approach to its work that encompasses the rights of people with MS, social services and health care and the promotion, guidance and funding of scientific research. It has been operating since 1968. It is a not-for-profit social promotion association with local branches and volunteering activities across Italy. For the last 50 years, it has been the most authoritative and closest point of reference for all MS sufferers, their families, healthcare staff and social workers, operating across the country thanks to a network structure with 98 provincial sections, regional coordination offices, more than 60 operating groups and over 13,000 volunteers. Since 1998, AISM has been working with FISM, the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, which promotes and supports innovative basic and applied research aimed at improving quality of life and treatments and, in the long term, identifying a definite cure for multiple sclerosis. FISM is the third biggest private funding organization for research into MS in the world, second only to the US and Canadian associations, and on an equal footing with the British one.

Lindblad says National Geographic Endurance to feature hydrophones, underwater camera and ‘open bridge’

Details

Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen

Category: More News More News

Published: 28 September 2018 28 September 2018

National Geographic Endurance, which will enter service with US based Lindblad Expeditions, will offer a number of features aimed at enhancing the experience of passengers of their cruise in the Arctic regions.

A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that is capable of reaching depth of 1,000 feet, far beyond the range of any Scuba diver, allows passengers to view parts of the undersea that are as unexplored as the moon. “Chances are you, like many of our guests, will be struck by how surprisingly colorful undersea life is in these unlikely places. And this glimpse may fundamentally change how you view the ocean.’ The company said in a presentation of the vessel on its website.

The ship will also feature eight boats, to be housed at two landing stations that allow passengers to go ashore in remote areas. The expedition landing craft are 19 feet long, powered by four-stroke outboard engines, and are capable of comfortably carrying 10-12 people. “They are widely recognised as the safest and most versatile small boats afloat,” Lindblad said..

National Geographic Endurance will be equipped with a fleet of kayaks large enough to ensure everyone who wants to can paddle at every opportunity. Prior kayaking experience is not necessary. Custom-designed floating platform lets Lindblad deploy kayaks from the ship, or any location - including far from shore. “Kayakers are usually free to explore where they want within boundaries set by the undersea specialist and officer of the watch,” Lindblad pointed out.

An undersea specialist will dive often during each expedition cruise, even in Alaska, with cold-water gear, to shoot high-definition footage of the deep..

Naturalists will use the video microscope to help explain all elements of the environment, including tiny organisms that are the building block of the marine ecosystem. “Spellbinding live views of krill at 80x magnification fills the high-definition screens in the lounge with vivid detail, and fills every onlooker with a sense of wonder at the importance of otherwise unobservable creatures,” Lindblad said.

Hydrophone, that is an underwater microphone, is deployed to listen to the vocalisations of marine mammals. Real time transmissions of their eerie, haunting sounds can be broadcast through the ship or recorded for later playback.

An electronic chart showing the ship’s location, course, and speed is almost always on display in the lounge, while passengers will have access to the bridge of the new ship, which features comfortable spaces to sit, enjoy the view, drink your morning coffee, or simply chat with the officers.

On warm weather itineraries where there will be snorkeling. A mask, snorkel, fins, and wetsuit that you have chosen will remain yours for the duration of the expedition.

The new ship will accommodate 126 guests in 69 outside-facing cabins. Cabins are efficiently designed, with sizes range from the 140-square-foot solo cabin to the 430-square-foot category 7 suite. Fifty-three of the 69 cabins, including all 12 of the solo cabins, will feature small balconies with floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that bring in the spectacular views and ample natural light.

Every cabin has two portholes, a large window or balcony, and temperature controls. Bathrooms are modern and stocked with botanically inspired hair products, soap, and shower gel, plus a hairdryer. Cabins are equipped with expedition command centers with tablets and USB/mobile device docking, TVs, Wi-Fi connections, and hair dryers.

The food served onboard is fresh, local, and delicious, and sourced from suppliers who share our values of sustainable use whenever possible, the company continued. “Meals aboard are almost always served in the dining room, located aft of the lounge deck. When weather conditions allow, lighter fare may be served on the observation deck. There is no assigned seating and our dining room accommodates the entire expedition community in a single seating. During meals your expedition leader, naturalists, and any guest speakers aboard will join you,” Lindblad said.

Public areas onboard comprise two restaurants, a Chef’s Table for small group dining, an Observation Lounge with bar, gym, Wellness area, infinity-style outdoor hot tubs, library, main lounge with full service bar, 24-hour beverage, state-of-the-art facilities for films, slideshows and presentations, and a photo workshop area; plus, an expedition base with lockers for expedition gear, and an “open bridge” for access to our captain, officers and the art of navigation.

 

Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven strengthen management with Sippel’s appointment

Details

Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen

Category: More News More News

Published: 28 September 2018 28 September 2018

Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven, the German ship repair and conversion specialist, said it is strengthening its management team by bringing in Carsten Sippel to join Rudiger Pallentin and Carsten J. Haake as the shipyard’s third managing director.

Carsten Sippel has a degree in business administration and will be responsible for the yard’s finance, controlling and IT sectors from October 1^st2018.

He has a lot of experience in the maritime branch having worked in managerial positions with globally active companies in the ship supply industry for the past 25 years. For the last nine years he has been in charge of a similar business portfolio as managing director and CFO of Wärtsilä SAM Electronics GmbH in Hamburg.

"I am looking forward to the new assignment", said Carsten Sippel "and also to being in a position to contribute my own business expertise to Lloyd Werft and play an active role in continuing to advance the company’s success".

Pallentin and  Haake already know Carsten Sippel well from his previous work with Wärtsilä SAM Electronics GmbH. They underscore how important it is for Lloyd Werft to have acquired in him an experienced and highly-qualified specialist with such proven skills in internationally active concerns.

The new appointment follows the departure in June of  Carsten J. Haake, who was named CFO of the management team of MV Werften.