Princess Cruises is to host a series of events this year to demonstrate its global connectivity.
The company will become the first cruise ship fleet with early access to SES’ O3b mPOWER network augmenting the proprietary Princess MedallionClass experience as rolls out across the fleet.
SES is enabling what is claimed to be high-performance connectivity to Princess Cruises using its hybrid medium earth orbit (MEO) and geostationary (GEO) network.
The combination of the Princess MedallionClass ships, the guest experience ‘Cloud Connected’ platform and SES’ multi-constellations satellite network not only creates global Wi-Fi service levels, but also ensures seamless land/sea digital experience enablement, including OceanView TV (OTT, Mobile and VOD).
As the innovation partner for Princess MedallionClass, Carnival Corp’s Global Experience and Innovation unit is strengthening the SES partner relationship through 2023.
The Premier Innovation Partner status makes SES a fully-integrated development partner of Carnival Corp’s unit, spanning design, creation and delivery for connected guest experience innovations, technical platform development, intelligence and hybrid cloud and edge compute enablement.
As a result, Princess MedallionClass, which is enabled by OceanMedallion and powered by SES, will be the first cruise ships to access the communication company’s O3b mPOWER satcoms system. The SES brand will also be incorporated into the OceanMedallion, further symbolising the integrated relationship.
To date, the most significant development of the partnership has been MedallionNet. Since 2017, MedallionNet has been offering what is claimed to be fast, unlimited, reliable and affordable guest connectivity exclusively to the Princess fleet.
In addition, dynamic bandwidth deployment on demand through a fully-managed, high-performance ship access point to a shoreside end-point holistically ensures unique ship itineraries and specialised guest events always meet the highest service levels possible.
Whether a guest is streaming original content via OceanView, placing a wager on a big game with Ocean SportsBook, playing a huge multi-player video game, streaming videos from favourite streaming service or checking home security cameras, SES’s O3b mPOWER provides the bandwidth to give Princess guests the land-like online performance they expect.
This year, Princess Cruises will host a series of events outlining MedallionNet powered by SES to demonstrate that guests no longer need to worry about slow internet speeds and unreasonable connectivity costs.
Planned events include:
• A record-breaking Vow Renewal on board ‘Regal Princess , ‘Royal Princess’ and ‘Crown Princess’ on 11th February was shared with loved ones worldwide during a large pre-Valentine’s Day ceremony.
•29th March – ‘Grand Princess’ will become the first Princess MedallionClass ship to sail on exclusive Hawaiian itineraries.
•15th June – ‘Enchanted Princess’ will join the MedallionClass fleet.
•16th August – ‘Emerald Princess’ will become the first to transform into a MedallionClass ship while sailing on Alaskan itineraries.
• 20th October- a ‘Coral Princess’ launch event from Los Angeles.
• 20th December – ‘Island Princess’ transforms into a MedallionClass ship and will be the first fully connected cruise ship to sail in the Middle East in early 2021.
“The future is now with real solutions and proven technology delivering real experiences to floating smart cities around the globe powering a coveted experience. SES integration into the Global Experience and Innovation team not only provides world-leading connectivity technology and fuelling OceanMedallion capabilities, but most importantly provides expertise that is passionate about creating amazing experiences through the fusion of creativity, story, connectivity and media across the world,” said John Padgett, chief experience and innovation officer for Carnival Corp.
“The relentless focus of the Princess Cruises and Carnival Corp’s Global Experience and Innovation teams to create personalised, simplified and connected guest experiences inspired us to push the boundaries of the connectivity norm at sea, and set a higher benchmark for connected guest experiences,” said JP Hemingway, SES Networks CEO, the data-centric business unit of SES.
“With MedallionNet, we helped deliver a new and holistic model that sets an entirely new standard for cruise ship connectivity around the world. By extending and expanding our Premier Innovation Partner relationship, we are leveraging our unprecedented position in multi-constellation satellite networks and consistently focusing on delivering high performance and pushing the envelope of what’s possible,” he said.
Carnival Corp’s proprietary Ocean Guest Experience Platform is powered by the OceanMedallion and enabled by SES. The MedallionClass experience utilising the OceanMedallion and the Ocean Guest Experience Platform is exclusive to Princess Cruises and being leveraged to enhance guest-crew interactions and deliver a high level of service personalisation on an unprecedented scale, the cruise company claimed.
Medallion enables keyless stateroom entry, hassle-free payment, turn-by-turn shipboard wayfinding, shipmate locator and personalised itineraries; speeds up embarkation; facilitates on-demand services, such as ordering food, drinks and merchandise; powers anywhere wagering; and more.
