Paper Navigators?

[cruisenews411]

Tethered to a phone, tethered to a paper sheet - don't see any difference there. But your MIL's case is a genuine issue. Whether that warrants maintaining an energy-intensive printer with reams of paper fed into it every night, is a good question. Maybe the front desk can print one on demand?

I asked in the wish at guest services for some type of printed navigator-only rude interaction with CM of the whole cruise-told me DCL is trying to help the environment and also to embrace technology because it’s the future

 

[Keyser]

Tethered to a phone, tethered to a paper sheet - don't see any difference there.

Really? I hear (not just on here, but in several other contexts) enough people talking about "unplugging" to relax that I don't think this is true for many people.

But your MIL's case is a genuine issue. Whether that warrants maintaining an energy-intensive printer with reams of paper fed into it every night, is a good question. Maybe the front desk can print one on demand?

OK, there are quite a few reasons they are probably wanting to have people use the app rather than having paper navigators. But, paper and energy use are not significant factors: they are barely noise in the expense, waste, and energy that DCL generates. Just did some quick math - you could print a navigator for every stateroom on all 5 ships, every night for a year, and the total amount of paper would be less than 10 pallets. That might seem like a lot at first, but this is for the entire cruise line for the entire year, and would cost under $25K. And, the energy taken to run the printer is probably less than the energy used for charging everyone's phones and running the needed wifi over the ship (just guessing, there).

There are other reasons that make much more sense for wanting to do away with the paper navigator and switch to the app:

• Ability to update the schedule on-the-fly
• Making sure to tie people into the whole app "ecosystem" for a single point of interacting for all ship-based stuff (schedule, discussions/texting, menus, reservations, tipping/payment, bill review, notifications, etc.)
• Providing more information (activity details, restrictions/warnings/notices, etc.) than could be done on paper
• Ability to track people through the ship or use the app for location-based interaction (possibly not much of this now, but it could happen with the app.

Money-wise, there's also some savings beyond the relatively insignificant paper/energy parts:

• The labor (not sure how much this is automated based on other processes) needed to actually lay out and proofread the navigator each day.
• The labor effort to print off and distribute all of the paper navigators
• The hardware maintenance issues (printers/copiers tend to break more frequently, and having dedicated ship-based staff to keep a critical thing going is expensive)
• The cost of ink/toner

Each of those is probably much more significant than the paper/energy cost. But, in the big picture, the cost for software development/maintenance and so forth probably more than eats up any savings - I doubt they are coming out ahead at all in terms of $. It's likely the other aspects that make them decide it's worth it overall.

That said, the app really is poorly designed for displaying time-based information - they could improve it significantly if they allowed other (more navigator-like) views. Part of what frustrates me is that the app doesn't have to be as bad as it is for the schedule display - they developed a relatively poor substitute, and then forced people to switch to it; it really feels like they should have put a lot more work into the development of the app before forcing people to fully switch over to it.

 

[Kwami]

The labor (not sure how much this is automated based on other processes) needed to actually lay out and proofread the navigator each day.

At least this part still happens, though. Someone is still making a navigator for the TV.

 

[Intr3pid]

Really? I hear (not just on here, but in several other contexts) enough people talking about "unplugging" to relax that I don't think this is true for many people.

Yup. If my connected life was so stressful that I needed to "unplug" to enjoy my vacation, you'd hear it from me too!

But, paper and energy use are not significant factors: they are barely noise in the expense, waste, and energy that DCL generates. Just did some quick math - you could print a navigator for every stateroom on all 5 ships, every night for a year, and the total amount of paper would be less than 10 pallets. That might seem like a lot at first, but this is for the entire cruise line for the entire year, and would cost under $25K. And, the energy taken to run the printer is probably less than the energy used for charging everyone's phones and running the needed wifi over the ship (just guessing, there).

I doubt anyone loses sleep over the $ cost of paper. Or of plastics, for that matter. The issue here is environmental. One of cutting down trees and forests - you know.

As a reference, one tree gives you about 8,000 sheets of copy paper.
https://www.cattlv.wnyric.org/cms/lib/NY19000422/Centricity/Domain/13/GREEN FACTS.pdf

These navigators, on the other hand, use high-quality paper with 2x-4x density. On average, that would mean no more than 3,000 sheets per tree.

So, in 2019, one Disney ship was going through almost a tree every night. That's 350 trees per ship per year - roughly. For the 300 or so cruise ships in the world, that's more than 100,000 trees per year just for these navigators. Or about 260 acres of forest. Enough to take out a national park in Arkansas in 7-8 years. Well, maybe a bit longer if recycling was at hand.

ps. I should note that 'trees' and 'environment' may well be gospel to you. On a cruise ship, no less. In which case you can safely ignore me.

And, the energy taken to run the printer is probably less than the energy used for charging everyone's phones and running the needed wifi over the ship (just guessing, there).

A Xerox multi-function printer prints 50 pages per minute (though nearly not as much if full color). Our 3,000 sheets will take no less than one hour. The printer is rated at 700 watts for continuous use, so in one hour you will use 42,000 watts - roughly.
https://www.support.xerox.com/en-us/article/en/x_vlc400_en-O1332

An average iPhone battery stores about 12 watt-hour of energy. Looking up, scrolling, and moving around the app would take no more than a single watt out of that. If.
https://9to5mac.com/2022/07/22/iphone-battery-mah-capacity-list/

So, perspective. Printing single-page navigators every night on a cruise ship takes the same amount of energy as using the app to do it on at least 42,000 iPhones. That's 10 mega-ships of iPhones at the very least.

But, in the big picture, the cost for software development/maintenance and so forth probably more than eats up any savings - I doubt they are coming out ahead at all in terms of $. It's likely the other aspects that make them decide it's worth it overall.

That said, the app really is poorly designed for displaying time-based information - they could improve it significantly if they allowed other (more navigator-like) views. Part of what frustrates me is that the app doesn't have to be as bad as it is for the schedule display - they developed a relatively poor substitute, and then forced people to switch to it; it really feels like they should have put a lot more work into the development of the app before forcing people to fully switch over to it.

Software development is a one-time cost. Maintenance is minimal for an app - which is just an interface for the data that already exists on the servers.

As for the design of the app, it's all personal. You might find it poorly designed - others may not. It's far from perfect (yup) and can be improved (most definitely) - but it shares that honor with every other Disney app out there.

I do agree they have many more reasons to make us use the app than just printing. I'd be disappointed if they didn't.

 

[hrhdhd]

The paper companies don't run around harvesting random trees. They also . . . plant trees.

 

[Travel60]

Are referring to printed Navigators or menus?

Menus. We had a woman at our table who did not have a phone. They provided her a printed menu on request but it was always a production and late so her daughter just let her use her phone.

 

[Bonnie1222]

Tethered to a phone, tethered to a paper sheet - don't see any difference there. But your MIL's case is a genuine issue. Whether that warrants maintaining an energy-intensive printer with reams of paper fed into it every night, is a good question. Maybe the front desk can print one on demand?

The paper fits in my pocket or my lanyard - hands free. my phone doesn't fit in my pocket .

 

[Jsoenning]

Man this thread just made me want to vent a bit.

In our experience, the app has not been great (on Disney & RCCL), and we preferred the printed schedule. I find it's hard to really see all the potential activities to plan as it'll be sub-divided into mini categories versus here is everything available by time. On the flip side of my own argument being able to heart something and have it in your planned activities is nice. Going back to my argument we've seen where changes were made on fly that caused no one to know when things are happening. On our last Disney cruise I for some reason had the wrong restaurant compared to the rest of my family. So not great.

My job is such that I get calls and email pings at all hours that I'm expected to respond to in short order so miss the days where I could put my phone in the safe on day one of the cruise. I firmly believe it was cost cutting in the name of "being green". I know this is likely an unpopular opinion to some. I always thought it was interesting that the sales stuff could still be printed and that was more apt to be thrown out with no use versus the navigators.

I also early on saved the navigators in cruise trip memory folders but no longer an option.

Same with the soaps in the room. I don't trust that folks haven't tampered (intentionally or not) with the big pump bottles. The tamper proof seals are not really very tamper proof. In fact on a recent vacation (hotel but same principle) it was evident they had filled both bottles with shampoo instead of the second having conditioner. So we pack our own now which was likely the real intent, saves money; more to profit margin.

Same with forcing you to purchase a bag in the gift shop. I just spent $150-200 and now I have to purchase a bag? Given the shirts are $30 I'd think you could throw the re-useable bag in as your profit margin is already sky high.

I saw mention that RCCL had gone to giving a QR code that when you scan allows you to pull up a one stop shop "Navigator of old" page that is easy to plan your day off of. That seems like it would be a good compromise as could more easily plan the day.

 

[Bonnie1222]

Man this thread just made me want to vent a bit.

In our experience, the app has not been great (on Disney & RCCL), and we preferred the printed schedule. I find it's hard to really see all the potential activities to plan as it'll be sub-divided into mini categories versus here is everything available by time. On the flip side of my own argument being able to heart something and have it in your planned activities is nice. Going back to my argument we've seen where changes were made on fly that caused no one to know when things are happening. On our last Disney cruise I for some reason had the wrong restaurant compared to the rest of my family. So not great. my issue is last 3 cruises before the shut down we carried 1 phone and the app logs us out after 15 minutes and we missed half our reminders or couldn't hear them no matter how loud we turned the phone. I was constanly having to log in - the app needs a lot of improvement still.

My job is such that I get calls and email pings at all hours that I'm expected to respond to in short order so miss the days where I could put my phone in the safe on day one of the cruise. I firmly believe it was cost cutting in the name of "being green". I know this is likely an unpopular opinion to some. I always thought it was interesting that the sales stuff could still be printed and that was more apt to be thrown out with no use versus the navigators. Oh that stink... I usually get by with the free wifi just to check emails. Only time I ever paid was after my Mom passed and I got online every night to check on my dad. And I am sure ethey toss paper by the dumster load.

I also early on saved the navigators in cruise trip memory folders but no longer an option. We have every navagator from every trip. I even have menus from a cruise back on the Magic in early 2000.

Same with the soaps in the room. I don't trust that folks haven't tampered (intentionally or not) with the big pump bottles. The tamper proof seals are not really very tamper proof. In fact on a recent vacation (hotel but same principle) it was evident they had filled both bottles with shampoo instead of the second having conditioner. So we pack our own now which was likely the real intent, saves money; more to profit margin. 100% on this

Same with forcing you to purchase a bag in the gift shop. I just spent $150-200 and now I have to purchase a bag? Given the shirts are $30 I'd think you could throw the re-useable bag in as your profit margin is already sky high. Don't get me started on the bags

I saw mention that RCCL had gone to giving a QR code that when you scan allows you to pull up a one stop shop "Navigator of old" page that is easy to plan your day off of. That seems like it would be a good compromise as could more easily plan the day. Again - they need to make the app much better and that is a great option RCCL has.

 

[Geomom]

Menus. We had a woman at our table who did not have a phone. They provided her a printed menu on request but it was always a production and late so her daughter just let her use her phone.

That's so odd that it's inconsistent. Our June Fantasy cruise, our server handed us the real menus every night (not paper ones) without us even asking for them. We were very happy to use the real ones!

 

[tinkerjo]

I haven’t cruised in about 6-7 years but no more paper navigators???? That’s awful. I saved ours and used them to make a huge collage with pictures and frames it for my parents. I love looking at those

 

[Kwami]

I haven’t cruised in about 6-7 years but no more paper navigators???? That’s awful. I saved ours and used them to make a huge collage with pictures and frames it for my parents. I love looking at those

They started to go away shortly before the shutdown. You had to pick them up at Guest Services or else put in a request to have them delivered to your room each night.

After the shutdown ended, DCL stopped handing out paper of any kind as a Covid-19 precaution, which meant no navigators. Their excuse these days is that they're concerned about the environment. In reality, it seems like a cost-cutting measure and they're just making excuses.

 

[tinkerjo]

They started to go away shortly before the shutdown. You had to pick them up at Guest Services or else put in a request to have them delivered to your room each night.

After the shutdown ended, DCL stopped handing out paper of any kind as a Covid-19 precaution, which meant no navigators. Their excuse these days is that they're concerned about the environment. In reality, it seems like a cost-cutting measure and they're just making excuses.

Very sad. Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed getting the daily navigators

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I think we need another email campaign (much like when the cheese plate started having a charge), telling DCL we would like to have the paper navigators back.

 

[Drfate102]

Does any cruise line still give paper schedules or have they all moved to an app?

 

[71 Truck]

Tethered to a phone, tethered to a paper sheet - don't see any difference there. But your MIL's case is a genuine issue. Whether that warrants maintaining an energy-intensive printer with reams of paper fed into it every night, is a good question. Maybe the front desk can print one on demand?

If you phone battery dies half way through the day because you forgot to charge it you are out of luck.
At least if they offered paper Navigators at guest services or if you ask to get one printed you do not have to rely on your phone all the time.

When my wife and I went on our last Disney cruise we used an old smart phone that did not have cell service anymore but did have WiFi. We did not want to take a chance our current phones would get lost or pick up a cell signal from somewhere then come home to a strange cell phone bill.

With that said it was still a pain to carry a phone around with us all the time. When I go on vacation I want to turn all that stuff off and not have to worry about "did you remember the cell phone". A paper navigator folds up and fits in my pocket nicely.

With the amount of paper Disney wastes, and trust me I know I do not think it is a big deal to have few printed Navigators or printed on demand at guest services for people that want them.

 

[Kennywood]

I guess I'm behind the times, but are people saying that you no longer get physical menus in the dining rooms? You have to use your phone?

 

[Disneygirlxo91]

I really can’t understand the hate of the app vs paper navigators. I prefer the app you can look ahead at each day plan things out, it’s easy to navigate, they can add things, and make changes.

 

[Stitch'sCousin]

I guess I'm behind the times, but are people saying that you no longer get physical menus in the dining rooms? You have to use your phone?

You can use your phone or request a physical menu.

 

[Geomom]

I guess I'm behind the times, but are people saying that you no longer get physical menus in the dining rooms? You have to use your phone?

Post Covid, it started out as mostly phones as part of the safety protocols with some paper menus for those that needed them. By the time we went on the Fantasy in June, there were fewer covid safety protocols and we were given the real menus every night without having to ask for them.