Disney Dreaming

We just got back from a vacation on a Disney cruise ship, the Disney Dream. It was a very good vacation. Disney does cruise ships like they do everything, which is to say very, very well.

Of course there were princesses and other characters which my daughters loved. Disney has a private island in the Bahamas which was very nice.

The kids clubs are very well done, and there was a super cool water tube right at the very top of the ship. The shows were very well done.

Speaking of kids clubs, they have a great system for checking young kids in and out. The kids wear a wrist band with a tracker. The tracker is associated with our account and the people working the kids club can see a picture of the two people (me and my wife) who are authorized to pick up Victoria. And as an added precaution, prior to the cruise, I had to set up a “secret word” to be used to pick her up. So they would see my picture and ask for the secret word, then Victoria swipes her band to leave.

Nice.

Contrast this with the system to buy a drink. I hand the person my key card (which has all my info stored). They hand me a paper receipt with the total and 15% tip already added and require me to write five things on this piece of paper:

1. Additional tip (optional)
2. Final total
3. Room number
4. Print last name
5. Sign

What a pain. Can we apply some technology to make this frictionless? Give me one of those wrist bands, bump the automatic tip to 18% and let me just swipe my band.

That, of course, is a tiny quibble over the entire cruise, which was excellent.