LAS VEGAS—Cruising, ideally, is like being aristocracy. You get taken care of. You have a social calendar. You attend dances, you lounge, you gossip, and various things get put in your hand on demand. Here at CES, Carnival is taking cruise service to a new level with the Ocean Medallion: a wearable that lets services be delivered to you any time, anywhere.
The medallion, which is about the size of a quarter and can be worn on the wrist or around the neck, constantly identifies you to thousands of shipboard sensors. (You can take it off; this isn't house arrest.) It uses NFC and low-energy Bluetooth to collect data about location and what you order. It doesn't need to be recharged during the cruise.
"From being able to order drinks and have them delivered directly to where you are, or the stateroom door lock experience ... it's very much customer focused," said Vincent Ball, general manager at Nytec, which developed the medallion technology.
The door locks are a cool feature: if you approach your stateroom door with your Medallion, it'll be unlocked. That's it. No tapping, fishing, turning, or twisting.
More of a Starship
The medallions are part of a tech overhaul coming first to the Regal Princess in late 2017, then the rest of Princess Cruises, and then slowly over the next several years to the rest of Carnival's 10 cruise brands, Carnival's Vicki Johnson said.
Along with the medallions, the ships will be equipped with hundreds of touch screens called Ocean Compasses. You'll be able to view and order ship services from your own mobile phone, from the touch-screen TV in your state room, or from screens on the walls in public areas.
It's all very Star Trek, actually: a shipboard computer that accesses your body-worn badge to know you and to offer you, among other things, routes around the ship to your next activity. All that's missing is Majel Barrett's voice.
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"If you have a spa appointment and you're at a pool at the front of the ship, it will give you the most direct and efficient route to follow, factoring in events that are taking place across the ship," Johnson said. "If you're scheduled to walk by a lounge area at the time a show is letting out, it will redirect you."
The medallions will also help staff, of course. They'll be able to tell when you aren't in your stateroom so they can send housekeeping. If there are a lot of people wandering around late in a particular part of a ship, it may keep a restaurant open for them. And as you keep cruising, your profile will build up with your preferences and activities, so the company can suggest more of the kinds of things you'd like.
Honestly, this would all be a little creepy if it were in the outside world. But it isn't. It's the cruise world, where you want the ship to take care of you. The Medallion, it seems, will make the cruise world a little more magic.