Texting With Family Onboard

[Seattleite]

We are traveling on our first Royal Caribbean cruise this August and wanted to know how most cruisers stay connected between family members onboard.  We have my whole extended family traveling so we have a total of 5 rooms on 3 different decks (2, 6, and 9).  Our teens are on Deck 2 and we are on Deck 9.  I am guessing the only way to text each other to coordinate meeting places and times is by buying the internet packages - is this correct?  I was hoping to have my teens off their social media and not have wifi but then we won't be able to connect with each other onboard.  How do other families handle this?

[Guest toodle68]

You can purchase the short range radio's, but they may not work between deck 2 and 9..  there are phones in every room.  The best way is to just set a meeting time and let them loose. Say, meet at WJ at 7am for breakfast and 6pm for dinner..

 

[FLGooner]

Traveled with the in-laws who are just as bad as teenagers!!!

Agree with the above, use the phones in the rooms and have pre-agreed meeting places - Solarium bar at 10am :)

[rjac]

You can also use yellow post it notes and stick your message on their doors. It's not high tech, inexpensive and it works.

[Orange Crush]

2 hours ago, Seattleite said:

We are traveling on our first Royal Caribbean cruise this August and wanted to know how most cruisers stay connected between family members onboard.  We have my whole extended family traveling so we have a total of 5 rooms on 3 different decks (2, 6, and 9).  Our teens are on Deck 2 and we are on Deck 9.  I am guessing the only way to text each other to coordinate meeting places and times is by buying the internet packages - is this correct?  I was hoping to have my teens off their social media and not have wifi but then we won't be able to connect with each other onboard.  How do other families handle this?

There's an $8/person plan on Quantum, Anthem, Ovation & Harmony that lets you call and text other people on the ship through their app, but it's only on those four ships.  There's a "new app" of some kind in the works that might be rolling out to more ships later this year, so who knows, but for now it's just those 4 ships.

[whitsmom]

16 minutes ago, rjac said:

You can also use yellow post it notes and stick your message on their doors. It's not high tech, inexpensive and it works.

I'm taking some this trip for the same reason!

[Matt]

Check out this blog post about how to stay in touch while onboard a Royal Caribbean cruise.

[Seattleite]

Thank you all for the great suggestions.  We will be on the Liberty so it will have to be Post Its.  Also, my husband wants to know how strict are they for bringing alcohol on board.  We will be leaving Galveston for a Cozumel/Grand Cayman/Jamaica 7 day cruise.

[mom2mybugs]

27 minutes ago, Seattleite said:

Thank you all for the great suggestions.  We will be on the Liberty so it will have to be Post Its.  Also, my husband wants to know how strict are they for bringing alcohol on board.  We will be leaving Galveston for a Cozumel/Grand Cayman/Jamaica 7 day cruise.

They are very strict on alcohol,  other than the 2 bottles of wine per stateroom.   They are not strict about bottled water and canned pop.  Jane

[FManke]

2 hours ago, rjac said:

You can also use yellow post it notes and stick your message on their doors. It's not high tech, inexpensive and it works.

Man, you are old!

[Matt]

1 hour ago, Seattleite said:

Also, my husband wants to know how strict are they for bringing alcohol on board.  

Very strict. Don't do it.

[Brando95]

In my experience most people in a group fall into a routine and can usually be found in certain places during the cruise. My family knows if they're looking for me I'm either in the Solarium in the shade reading, in a bar or the casino. Otherwise they can count on me being at the table in the dining room when they get there.

You can also set up meet up times through a day and check in with everyone and make plans from there.

[rjac]

2 hours ago, FManke said:

Man, you are old!

You're only as old as you feel and when you can't feel anymore, then you're old!

[FManke]

20 minutes ago, rjac said:

You're only as old as you feel and when you can't feel anymore, then you're old!

True

[jticarruthers]

You can also look at magnetic whiteboards (We have a couple that are about the size of a standard sheet of paper) they stick to doors/walls (only on ships, not so much in the real world) and depending on where your cabins are located you can designate a central one as the "notice board".

We use them when travelling with a group and will just leave notes on it like "headed to breakfast at Windjammer 9am" for example to give others an idea of where to look for us.

I think my wife got them at the dollar store, so dirt cheap.

Be aware you will probably receive creative messages from wandering drunks overnight ... so you probably want to wipe it off each morning or bring it in to the room when you are calling it a night.

[DocLC]

If Royal would simply develop an app with this feature . . .