Cruise and Ferry Review - Summer/Spring 2020

9 3 Guests can wear the OceanMedallion to benefit from personalised services and experiences while sailing on Sky Princess INTERV IEW Royal flush Sky, Enchanted and Discovery Princess are bolstering Princess Cruises’ Royal class of ships. Anthony Pearce asks Rai Caluori how they’re helping the line to break new ground W ith Sky Princess having joined the fleet in 2019, Enchanted Princess launching in 2020, Discovery Princess in 2021 and two yet-to-be-named LNG ships on the way before 2025, Princess Cruises is undergoing a period of massive expansion. The line, which is part of Carnival Corporation, has also recently rolled out its innovative OceanMedallion experience, which uses a small device to connect guests to an onboard ecosystem and allows them to find friends and family, navigate their way around the ship, book themselves into classes and order drinks – using what Princess Cruises claims is the best wi-fi at sea. Although four ships have all been retrofitted with the OceanMedallion technology, Sky Princess was the first to launch with the technology already in place, notes Rai Caluori, Princess Cruises’ executive vice president of guest experience and product development. In comparison, it was relatively straightforward. “That’s not to detract from the sheer scale of the project,” he says. “It involved fitting four million feet of cables, 8,000 sensors, 4,000 interactive portals and 650 readers. We’re lucky enough to have a great OceanMedallion team with lots of experience – by the time of the first cruise almost everything was in place and working seamlessly which is huge credit to everyone involved.” Caluori has been “thrilled with the reaction to the ship” and describes her as an evolution of her sister ships, which “Feedback across the board has been phenomenal”