Carnival Corporation Honored with Skift Design Award for Best Cruise Experience

OceanCompass™ innovation - now available on select Princess Cruises ships - recognized for inspiring transformative moments and reducing friction

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Carnival Corporation & plc

Sep 19, 2019, 12:43 ET

MIAMI, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), the world's largest leisure travel company, has been selected as a Skift Design Award winner for Best Cruise Experience for its OceanCompass™ within the Princess MedallionClass Experience.

The Skift Design Awards celebrate the businesses and designers driving positive change and innovation across sectors, and recognize excellence in holistic, human-centered design in all its forms that inspire transformative moments and reduce friction across travel. Winners are selected by a panel of world-renowned designers and business leaders.

Available exclusively on Princess Cruises, the fastest-growing international premium cruise line, OceanCompass is a convenient digital experience that helps guests on board MedallionClass ships to easily locate travel companions, chat with friends and family, and access location-based ship information. Similar to GPS but on a 17-deck steel ship that is constantly in motion, OceanCompass leverages the OceanMedallion in combination with thousands of embedded onboard sensors – resulting in real-time intelligent navigation assistance enabling an industry-first dynamic guest-to-guest wayfinding experience.

"We are honored to have the OceanCompass innovation recognized by Skift for making these cruise ships feel easily accessible and instantly comfortable by removing one of the most vexing challenges on board – finding your way around the ship and locating your shipmates," said John Padgett, chief experience and innovation officer for Carnival Corporation. "It is one of the core ingredients that allows us to deliver the travel industry's most personalized and effortless vacation experience on a large scale for guests sailing on board Princess MedallionClass ships."

The Skift Design Award is the ninth innovation award for Carnival Corporation's patented IoT innovations. Last November, CES recognized the company as a CES 2019 Innovations Award Honoree for the OceanMedallion. In December, the company received a 2018 Gold New York Design Award for Digital IoT for its Ocean Guest Experience Platform. Earlier this year, the OceanMedallion was awarded the 2019 IoT Wearables Innovation of the Year by IoT Breakthrough, in addition to being named a 2019 Edison Awards Winner and Red Dot Award Winner for Product Design. And this spring, both the OceanMedallion and OceanCompass were recipients of Gold Stevies from the American Business Awards, while the MedallionClass Experience was recognized as the Best Hospitality ICX by the ICX Association.

MedallionClass vacations enabled by the innovative OceanMedallion are currently available for all guests sailing on four ships from Princess Cruises – Caribbean Princess, Regal Princess, Royal Princess and Crown Princess. The Sky Princess will launch the OceanMedallion next month. And in 2020, MedallionClass vacations will expand to six additional ships – Ruby Princess, Grand Princess, Enchanted Princess, Emerald Princess, Coral Princess and Island Princess.

About Carnival Corporation & plc
Carnival Corporation & plc is the world's largest leisure travel company and among the most profitable and financially strong in the cruise and vacation industries, with a portfolio of nine of the world's leading cruise lines. With operations in North America, Australia, Europe and Asia, its portfolio features Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises (Australia), Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard.

Together, the corporation's cruise lines operate 102 ships with 241,000 lower berths visiting over 700 ports around the world, with 19 new ships scheduled to be delivered through 2025. Carnival Corporation & plc also operates Holland America Princess Alaska Tours, the leading tour company in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. Traded on both the New York and London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc is the only group in the world to be included in both the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices.

With a long history of innovation and providing guests with extraordinary vacation experiences, Carnival Corporation has received thousands of industry awards – including recognition by the Consumer Technology Association™ as a CES® 2019 Innovation Awards Honoree for the OceanMedallion™. A revolutionary wearable device that contains a proprietary blend of communication technologies, the OceanMedallion enables the world's first interactive guest experience platform transforming vacation travel on a large scale into a highly personalized level of customized service. The prestigious CES Innovation Awards honor outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products.

Additional information can be found on www.carnival.com, www.princess.com, www.hollandamerica.com, www.seabourn.com, www.pocruises.com.au, www.costacruise.com, www.aida.de, www.pocruises.com and www.cunard.com.

About Princess Cruises
One of the best-known names in cruising, Princess Cruises is the fastest growing international premium cruise line and tour company operating a fleet of 17 modern cruise ships, carrying two million guests each year to 380 destinations around the globe, including the Caribbean, Alaska, Panama Canal, Mexican Riviera, Europe, South America, Australia/New Zealand, the South Pacific, Hawaii, Asia, Canada/New England, Antarctica and World Cruises. A team of professional destination experts have curated 170 itineraries, ranging in length from three to 111 days and Princess Cruises is continuously recognized as "Best Cruise Line for Itineraries."

In 2017 Princess Cruises, with parent company Carnival Corporation, introduced MedallionClass Vacations enabled by the OceanMedallion, the vacation industry's most advanced wearable device, provided free to each guest sailing on a MedallionClass ship. The award-winning innovation offers the fastest way to a hassle-free, personalized vacation giving guests more time to do the things they love most. MedallionClass Vacations will be activated on five ships by the end of 2019. An activation plan will continue across the global fleet in 2020 and beyond.

Princess Cruises continues its multi-year, "Come Back New Promise" – a $450 million-dollar product innovation and cruise ship renovation campaign that will continue to enhance the line's onboard guest experience. These enhancements result in more moments of awe, lifetime memories and meaningful stories for guests to share from their cruise vacation. The product innovations include partnerships with award-winning Chef Curtis Stone; engaging entertainment inspired shows with Broadway-legend Stephen Schwartz; immersive activities for the whole family from Discovery and Animal Planet that include exclusive shore excursions to onboard activities; the ultimate sleep at sea with the award-winning Princess Luxury Bed and more.

Three new Royal-class ships are currently on order with the next new ship under construction, Sky Princess, scheduled for delivery in October 2019, followed by Enchanted Princess in June 2020. Princess previously announced that two new (LNG) ships which will be the largest ships in the Princess fleet, accommodating approximately 4,300 guests are planned for delivery in 2023 and 2025. Princess now has five ships arriving over the next six years between 2019 and 2025. The company is part of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE:CUK).

SOURCE Carnival Corporation & plc