jtown

Don't know what carrier you use but Verizon is $0.05 per received text and $0.50 per sent text on most ships and most international locations if you activate international service and if your phones can connect to the ship's service and the cellular system in the countries you visit. Chat with their reps at verizonwireless.com - contact us (top right) - live chat (bottom left) - Traveling abroad. They can tell you if the ship is covered and give rates and dialing instructions for the ship and ports and email you a spreadsheet with the info. Something to keep in mind is you may not be able to connect to some networks even if you have a global phone and activate global service. Ports were hit and miss with my old phone even tho it was supposed to work with GSM networks. Since you're not worried about communicating off-ship, that shouldn't be an issue. Also, if you don't want to pay for data usage, make sure it's shut off. Seriously. Verizon charges somewhere north of $20/megabyte if you don't have a global data plan active. The data plan is $25/month to activate and $25 per 100 megs of data. They make it sound like $25 gets you a 100 meg block of data but that's not how it's billed. Having the service active costs a flat $25/month whether you move data or not. Data usage is billed in very small increments, not 100 meg blocks. So having it active for a billing period and moving 83.000 megs of data (in a ship or country covered by the plan) will cost $45.75. That's for a single line. I don't know how they handle family plans.

Local WiFi wouldn't be of much use without local services. None of your networked services are local to the ship. No email, no facebook, no skype, no IM. Devices don't communicate with each other directly. RC would have to set up message board and chat services on the ship. And probably add a "how to" program on the welcome aboard channel along with a seminar in the theater.

Cruise Carnyvale. I took three 7-day cruises on them in December/January to escape the cold and didn't have to pay the "single cruiser" tax on any of them. Granted, they were last-minute bookings and they were running a special but I didn't have to ask for special treatment and was even able to book the same cabin back-to-back on one trip. I guess they finally realized it's better to have 1 paying customer in a cabin than 0. I'm sailing on Allure next month only because I want to take a ride on the biggest ship and because they "only" hit me with a 50% markup. I'll do my best to eat that markup in extra food but I'm only 1.5 men.

17.3" laptop loaded with movies off my media server works for me. Also handles light gaming if I feel the urge. Sometimes I can even hook up to the TV but I don't count on it. Depends on the ship and the TV that's in my particular stateroom.

Well, not "guaranteed". They'll wait minutes but not hours. If your tour transportation breaks down hours from the port and alternate transportation isn't able to get you back in a timely manner, they're not going to wait all night and throw off the next port's itineraries for the entire ship. But, as long as your tour is pretty much on time and has no extraordinary delays, you'll be fine. If you're concerned about the "broken down hours from port" scenario, call RC and ask them what the policy is for that situation. Ask if they cover hotel and airfare/transportation to the next port. As for breakfast and getting to the excursion, get up early and eat early. I've never been on a ship that didn't have breakfast available early enough for people to finish eating before the ship is docked. If nothing else, there's always room service. When it comes to getting to your excursion, in my experience on other lines, people with early excursions get priority disembarkation if they're tendering. If you're docked, no worries It's amazing how fast a ship can clear out. The excursion isn't going to depart without you. They know how many tickets were sold, when the ship arrived, how long it will take you to get from the ship to the meeting point, etc. Don't dawdle but don't stress.