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Communicating on the boat


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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/23/2022 at 9:00 PM, BonnieBlue said:

We just returned from the Mariner and purchased 2 Voom packages for my husband and I, then the $1.99 chat package for all of the kids (I refuse to pay for internet for 4 kids without jobs, lol). We also had to purchase the $1.99 chat package for ourselves, as it’s not included with Voom. The chat notification popped up on my Home Screen and occasionally on my Apple Watch. Not sure if that’s because I almost always had the RC app open, or if they’re making improvements to the feature. 

For the $1.99 chat feature:

Did all the kids need separate Royal Caribbean accounts to login to the app with or could the just login with your RCL login and select themselves from your cruise party?

We've got all or family of four under our family RCL login. Trying to determine if we install the app on each other family members device but they all need their own email logins for this to work.

Any chat descriptions seem to have towards looking with other families rather than linking with your own.

Thanks advance

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Being seniors and traveling alone, we can't wait to be away from the Internet since we can't seem to get away from it at home. The first few times that we cruised, texting did not even exist and somehow we survived. If there is an emergency at home, our loved ones know what ship we're on and how to contact us. Looking forward to being "independent" on the Independence!

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On 3/27/2022 at 2:09 PM, Hharris1997 said:

That is the best deal I've seen. How close to your cruise date was that offer. I'm seeing 20% off for $536. I'm wondering if I should wait closer to our cruise date of 6/2/22 to buy?

Some thoughts about communicating on our cruise on Allure, just back on Saturday from a 6-night. My husband needed internet for work on the ship. I originally bought a one person, two-device package (months before, around $170), thinking he would use one and the teens & I could split the other (teens would be together and one of them logged in for communication when they were not in the room). Then as the cruise got closer, I went back and forth about adding the app texting package (I could see potential communication problems with the current system) for all of us (because the app is useless unless you pay for everyone who wants to chat or check in). And I also read that you don't get notifications, so it seemed like a lot of wasted money ($8/day for 4 people) to spend on something that was just to text each other. So I looked into adding one more Voom package and since we were about 2 weeks out from the cruise, I wasn't happy with the prices to add even a single Surf line - it was about as much as the original, two-device package of Stream! But then I saw that a 4-device Stream package was 40% off, and was around $270 total, and booked that, cancelled the first. It was $100 more than the first package I booked, but it felt like a steal since the text alone would have been $48 more. 

For us, it was really worth it. Anyone in our family could communicate with anyone else in the family without worrying about going back to the room or who is logged on and will they see the text. One of my teens would communicate with other teens on the boat about meeting up, etc. They uploaded pictures to the album. Once, my 12 year old son forgot his card in the room and got locked out - we were able to help him quickly to get back in (connecting rooms). They were each able to have some down time in the room watching a movie or checking in with friends at home (my oldest got very sunburned one day and couldn't handle being outside). They weren't glued to their phones and did a lot of other stuff on the ship and during excursions but it was really nice for them to have.

We only had a problem one night with the logging on/kicking off issue. I was going back and forth between tablet and phone, and I thought I logged off of my tablet but it hadn't worked fully so it cascaded into other devices being kicked off, but it was a minor thing and we got it figured out pretty quickly.

And we found WhatsApp to be the best way to communicate. There were delays with regular texting (for us) but WhatsApp was really, really fast. It was worth it for us to all download and use it, even though I was the only one who had used it before. You can always just delete it after the cruise.

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7 hours ago, Matt said:

When I tested out the chat feature on Oasis of the Seas earlier this month, everyone needs their own login so you can differentiate between messaging person 1 versus person 2.

I don't know how that works with young children exactly. I only tried it out between me and my wife.

Thanks Matt.

I went about this by creating an account for my wife and my 15 year old using their emails and it's actually kinda nifty over you enter all the data in the amount creation. It figured out by the name and birth date of the account that it was the same guest from our cruise and automatically added the cruise to their accounts. This was the part that was a little unclear to me (how the cruise party gets linked to them) but it was pretty seamless.

Only downside is my 12 year old cannot have an account created (since RCCL account age minimum is 13) so I just logged her into my account on her device so she'll still be in the loop of things. They can just say their name at the start of a message and we'll know who it's from.

We plan less on using less like a chat/messenger and more like a mobile whiteboard as to where in the ship people are. Saves having to go all the way back to the stateroom to make the changes to locations/plans or to know where other family members are.

Thanks!

Mark

 

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On 4/20/2022 at 2:00 PM, jbrinkm said:

Some thoughts about communicating on our cruise on Allure, just back on Saturday from a 6-night. My husband needed internet for work on the ship. I originally bought a one person, two-device package (months before, around $170), thinking he would use one and the teens & I could split the other (teens would be together and one of them logged in for communication when they were not in the room). Then as the cruise got closer, I went back and forth about adding the app texting package (I could see potential communication problems with the current system) for all of us (because the app is useless unless you pay for everyone who wants to chat or check in). And I also read that you don't get notifications, so it seemed like a lot of wasted money ($8/day for 4 people) to spend on something that was just to text each other. So I looked into adding one more Voom package and since we were about 2 weeks out from the cruise, I wasn't happy with the prices to add even a single Surf line - it was about as much as the original, two-device package of Stream! But then I saw that a 4-device Stream package was 40% off, and was around $270 total, and booked that, cancelled the first. It was $100 more than the first package I booked, but it felt like a steal since the text alone would have been $48 more. 

For us, it was really worth it. Anyone in our family could communicate with anyone else in the family without worrying about going back to the room or who is logged on and will they see the text. One of my teens would communicate with other teens on the boat about meeting up, etc. They uploaded pictures to the album. Once, my 12 year old son forgot his card in the room and got locked out - we were able to help him quickly to get back in (connecting rooms). They were each able to have some down time in the room watching a movie or checking in with friends at home (my oldest got very sunburned one day and couldn't handle being outside). They weren't glued to their phones and did a lot of other stuff on the ship and during excursions but it was really nice for them to have.

We only had a problem one night with the logging on/kicking off issue. I was going back and forth between tablet and phone, and I thought I logged off of my tablet but it hadn't worked fully so it cascaded into other devices being kicked off, but it was a minor thing and we got it figured out pretty quickly.

And we found WhatsApp to be the best way to communicate. There were delays with regular texting (for us) but WhatsApp was really, really fast. It was worth it for us to all download and use it, even though I was the only one who had used it before. You can always just delete it after the cruise.

I'm cruising out of Rome on 6/2. It was a deal that came up about.. 2weeks ago week of 4/1. I originally bought ours at $536. Then saw on the blog there was a decrease for that week I got it. I was able to cancel my $536 rate and change to the $335. I would check weekly for the deal or even daily. 

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