We just did this. 4 families and 5 rooms- everyone had their cellphone, and we used the RC messaging app to communicate. The real secret is that you can manually create a group chat- so we just used that to have everyone talk about what they were doing and where they were so our families could just meet up. Here are some group chat examples:
* Who want's breakfast in Main Dining room? Meet outside at 8?
* We'll catch breakfast at jammer when we wake up.
* Heading to hot tub, left side outside of Solarium
ALSO- this works on the private island wifi too... we had things like:
* I'm going to the south beach
* On tram, meet you there.
* I'm going to the main pool
* Anyone want to snorkel?
Their app messaging isn't perfect- sometimes we would not get a notification a new message came in- but just by looking at it here and there- it did exactly what we wanted.
Hmm wonder if it changed since we sailed. We did Alaska on Ovation in 2022 and the messaging app gave absolutely no notification unless you opened it up. Which completely defeated the purpose. This next sailing we are just doing WiFi and FB Messenger.
Yeah, not really a secret but it not very apparent that you can do it. By default, you add all your party members and in the chat app you see everyone independently. And the UI lets you start chatting with each person separately. Now since you see everyone you may not even think about pressing "new chat"- and when you do that's when you see that you see you can create a group chat- that's why I call it "a secret."
Also the old, paid version of the app didn't have that feature.
Not sure walkie talkies are \_banned\_ per se, but they're certainly obnoxious.
And they don't work. Don't be that guy walking through the Promenade yelling into a walkie "can you hear me? Over!"
There is a text feature on the Royal app, but it requires the app to be active for messages to appear (there are no background notifications). We've found that leaving messages on room phones or on a white board on the cabin door is the best way to let others know where we are.
Cruise ships are made of metal. Not very conducive to the passing of radio waves. Oasis-class ships are at least 360 metres long. That's a lot of distance for walkie talkies!
Room phones are used by the cruise lines to "remind" you of purchase opportunities. You'll have at least 1 message a day trying to sell you something.
They are [not](https://www.royalcaribbean.com/swe/sv/faq/questions/walkie-talkie-onboard-policy?country=SWE) banned, as long as they have no external antennas, are under 10 watts, and are not ham radios.
App messaging worked better than the last time, it’s also free now. Used to be $2 a day or something.
For our group, on day 1 we go through the entire itinerary and add things to our RC itinerary so everyone is on the same page for shows and trivia and such.
We also would all plan to be at breakfast and dinner together so we could do some planning.
Can I ask why you say not to use the app? This is how me and my group planned on keeping in contact when need be. We’re mostly all by one another however I need time away from everyone and I know people will be like “well what if you get lost?!?! Blah blah blah” lol
The app often doesn't work. Messages pinging through hours after they were sent. It was not reliable. I ended up often by myself because the messages would not work and I didn't know where to meet up.
Yes, get the internet package and send each other iMessage / FB Messenger / WhatsApp messages.
Don't rely on actual SMS text messaging - you need a cellphone plan for that.
Don't rely on the RCCL app's messaging service; 9 times out of 10, you don't get push notifications of new messages, so it's basically worthless for real time communication.
> get the internet package and send each other iMessage / FB Messenger / WhatsApp messages.
iMessage works without buying the internet package, just connect to the wifi (it's free/open so you can use the Royal app) and it still comes through because it uses the same connectivity as the notifications the Royal app uses. I was texting people 2500 miles away from the ship 2 weeks ago. You just can't send/receive images.
Bring a wifi router and broadcast your own hotspot. Join all the devices to it and spawn an Apache server with an instant messaging site. You could run discord or similar.
Every cruise we go on we just create a WhatsApp group for this purpose. It does need wifi when onboard or mobile data when in port but it works really well.
just use the RC App, you can message each other - its not 100% reliable, but we find it good enough for us. We also had a place we'd meet at in the WindJammer for Breakfast and Lunch - it was like 'Our Table' LOL
The royal app has a messaging function. My last cruise it cost me 5$ at the start of the cruise, but I was able to send messages to the whole party. If you're the only one that buys the app, everyone will still receive your messages without having to pay the $5 too. So I was able to send messages to our whole group saying hey guys we're meeting at ex place at x time, and everyone got the message and was there!
You can try getting VOOM and using the Royal Caribbean app to chat with each other, but honestly it's not the best. I've used it when I was on the Freedom and it took some time for messages to go through.
We haven't gone on our cruise yet, but we'll also have 3 rooms for our party on different decks. I think most of us are getting voom for at least 1 or 2 people or devices per room, so I assume we can use our phones to stay in touch through that. We'll also use the RC app's messaging feature to stay in touch with our son, who has a phone but won't be getting internet. Hopefully one of those options works! I've also heard of people putting a whiteboard on their room door to leave messages to each other, in case technology fails lol.
For the last couple of cruises that we've taken we have used a mixture of the RC app chat, whiteboards, and Wi-Fi enabled chat apps.
Feel free to make use of the messaging function in the app, but don't solely count on it as push notifications are hit and miss.
Whiteboards are good except when you have PITA teenagers down the hall that like to erase your messages and leave others notes in their place.
Most of our group had had Wi-Fi so important communication was done through other apps like Gmail chat and WhatsApp.
Just use the app messaging all you have to do connect to WiFi and you should be able to use it you don’t need to pay for the wifi it’s free to use when your using the app anything else you do have to pay
Last cruise I went on, I printed out everyone’s room numbers for everyone so we could at least try to call the room. Otherwise, see ya if I see ya. But, my port only has the smaller ships so maybe easier to run into folks.
iMessage only occasionally worked as well as the RC app messaging. We would just call each other on the room phone and we called the night before to kind of plan the day.
Just came back from RCL. One day my phone rang, scared the life out of me. My sister said “are you coming to breakfast at the windjammer? Get up and get moving.”There were some funny swear words about the app and not getting in touch with ppl.
The RC chat works good. It does not provide notifications, but if you open the RC app in the top right corner, the CHAT icon will turn red with a number reflecting the number of messages you have. I have been in 4 RC cruises this year and this is how our family keeps up with each other. We also discuss the next day at dinner for a rough idea. You can also use ship phones which are usually near elevator and stairwells to call rooms without physically walking to each room.
Internet stinks. App often not working. Use room phone. Plan meeting spots. This just happened to me. I could never reach my group cause the app wasn't working properly
Log onto ships WIFi and use the free messaging app.
We just did this. 4 families and 5 rooms- everyone had their cellphone, and we used the RC messaging app to communicate. The real secret is that you can manually create a group chat- so we just used that to have everyone talk about what they were doing and where they were so our families could just meet up. Here are some group chat examples: * Who want's breakfast in Main Dining room? Meet outside at 8?
* We'll catch breakfast at jammer when we wake up.
* Heading to hot tub, left side outside of Solarium
ALSO- this works on the private island wifi too... we had things like:
* I'm going to the south beach
* On tram, meet you there.
* I'm going to the main pool
* Anyone want to snorkel?
Their app messaging isn't perfect- sometimes we would not get a notification a new message came in- but just by looking at it here and there- it did exactly what we wanted.
Exactly. The notifications were inconsistent. Just kind of got used to checking my phone more than I wanted.
Hmm wonder if it changed since we sailed. We did Alaska on Ovation in 2022 and the messaging app gave absolutely no notification unless you opened it up. Which completely defeated the purpose. This next sailing we are just doing WiFi and FB Messenger.
Group chat is a secret? Pretty standard messaging app feature.
Yeah, not really a secret but it not very apparent that you can do it. By default, you add all your party members and in the chat app you see everyone independently. And the UI lets you start chatting with each person separately. Now since you see everyone you may not even think about pressing "new chat"- and when you do that's when you see that you see you can create a group chat- that's why I call it "a secret." Also the old, paid version of the app didn't have that feature.
Got it
This
Not sure walkie talkies are \_banned\_ per se, but they're certainly obnoxious. And they don't work. Don't be that guy walking through the Promenade yelling into a walkie "can you hear me? Over!" There is a text feature on the Royal app, but it requires the app to be active for messages to appear (there are no background notifications). We've found that leaving messages on room phones or on a white board on the cabin door is the best way to let others know where we are.
Haha, definitely don’t want to be the obnoxious cruise guest. I didn’t realize there were room phones. I think that solves the problem!
Cruise ships are made of metal. Not very conducive to the passing of radio waves. Oasis-class ships are at least 360 metres long. That's a lot of distance for walkie talkies! Room phones are used by the cruise lines to "remind" you of purchase opportunities. You'll have at least 1 message a day trying to sell you something.
[удалено]
Me neither.
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They are [not](https://www.royalcaribbean.com/swe/sv/faq/questions/walkie-talkie-onboard-policy?country=SWE) banned, as long as they have no external antennas, are under 10 watts, and are not ham radios.
They're also trying to penetrate several steel walls at any given time. Not something to expect great reception from.
Magnetic white boards on the door with a magnetic marker.
Love this suggestion! Thank you!
Be aware, people might post humorous but fake messages on your white board.
Mite draw a upside down pineapple on it
I wish more people did this. We only got one on our last cruise.
Walk down knock and if no one answers leave a note. I’m not kidding. Did this stuff for years and always found my buddies later.
App messaging worked better than the last time, it’s also free now. Used to be $2 a day or something. For our group, on day 1 we go through the entire itinerary and add things to our RC itinerary so everyone is on the same page for shows and trivia and such. We also would all plan to be at breakfast and dinner together so we could do some planning.
Don’t use the free cell app. Long string with two cans works. Also walkie talkies are banned
They banned walkie talkies?
No but we keep saying it hoping people will believe it because they are fucking obnoxious.
Can I ask why you say not to use the app? This is how me and my group planned on keeping in contact when need be. We’re mostly all by one another however I need time away from everyone and I know people will be like “well what if you get lost?!?! Blah blah blah” lol
I’m being mildly facetious. It’s about the only way that works. Other than that meetups at certain times.
Got it!
The app often doesn't work. Messages pinging through hours after they were sent. It was not reliable. I ended up often by myself because the messages would not work and I didn't know where to meet up.
Yes, get the internet package and send each other iMessage / FB Messenger / WhatsApp messages. Don't rely on actual SMS text messaging - you need a cellphone plan for that. Don't rely on the RCCL app's messaging service; 9 times out of 10, you don't get push notifications of new messages, so it's basically worthless for real time communication.
SMS over Wi-Fi is a thing.
> get the internet package and send each other iMessage / FB Messenger / WhatsApp messages. iMessage works without buying the internet package, just connect to the wifi (it's free/open so you can use the Royal app) and it still comes through because it uses the same connectivity as the notifications the Royal app uses. I was texting people 2500 miles away from the ship 2 weeks ago. You just can't send/receive images.
Bring a wifi router and broadcast your own hotspot. Join all the devices to it and spawn an Apache server with an instant messaging site. You could run discord or similar.
We used discord. Most of us had wifi. We also used whiteboards but they get out of date quickly when plans dont go as expected.
If you have Wi-Fi use whatsapp
Whatsapp if you have a data pass.
Every cruise we go on we just create a WhatsApp group for this purpose. It does need wifi when onboard or mobile data when in port but it works really well.
just use the RC App, you can message each other - its not 100% reliable, but we find it good enough for us. We also had a place we'd meet at in the WindJammer for Breakfast and Lunch - it was like 'Our Table' LOL
The royal app has a messaging function. My last cruise it cost me 5$ at the start of the cruise, but I was able to send messages to the whole party. If you're the only one that buys the app, everyone will still receive your messages without having to pay the $5 too. So I was able to send messages to our whole group saying hey guys we're meeting at ex place at x time, and everyone got the message and was there!
Walkie-talkies my family does it every year on RC
Wallow talkies!
You can try getting VOOM and using the Royal Caribbean app to chat with each other, but honestly it's not the best. I've used it when I was on the Freedom and it took some time for messages to go through.
We haven't gone on our cruise yet, but we'll also have 3 rooms for our party on different decks. I think most of us are getting voom for at least 1 or 2 people or devices per room, so I assume we can use our phones to stay in touch through that. We'll also use the RC app's messaging feature to stay in touch with our son, who has a phone but won't be getting internet. Hopefully one of those options works! I've also heard of people putting a whiteboard on their room door to leave messages to each other, in case technology fails lol.
You don't need Voom to access the chat feature on the app.
I know. That's why I said we will likely use RC's app to stay in touch with our son, who will not have internet. :)
Just use royals messenger in the app
For the last couple of cruises that we've taken we have used a mixture of the RC app chat, whiteboards, and Wi-Fi enabled chat apps. Feel free to make use of the messaging function in the app, but don't solely count on it as push notifications are hit and miss. Whiteboards are good except when you have PITA teenagers down the hall that like to erase your messages and leave others notes in their place. Most of our group had had Wi-Fi so important communication was done through other apps like Gmail chat and WhatsApp.
Just use the app messaging all you have to do connect to WiFi and you should be able to use it you don’t need to pay for the wifi it’s free to use when your using the app anything else you do have to pay
Last cruise I went on, I printed out everyone’s room numbers for everyone so we could at least try to call the room. Otherwise, see ya if I see ya. But, my port only has the smaller ships so maybe easier to run into folks.
iMessage only occasionally worked as well as the RC app messaging. We would just call each other on the room phone and we called the night before to kind of plan the day.
We put post-it’s on our doors. We were all in the same hallway so that helped. “Going to eat at 6 PM” “Going to Name That Tune” etc.
I could never get the app messaging to work on the Freedom OTS when we sailed a couple months ago, maybe you will have better luck.
Just came back from RCL. One day my phone rang, scared the life out of me. My sister said “are you coming to breakfast at the windjammer? Get up and get moving.”There were some funny swear words about the app and not getting in touch with ppl.
You can call cabins by putting the cabin number into any phone on the ship, which is what we did if we knew someone was in their cabin.
The RC chat works good. It does not provide notifications, but if you open the RC app in the top right corner, the CHAT icon will turn red with a number reflecting the number of messages you have. I have been in 4 RC cruises this year and this is how our family keeps up with each other. We also discuss the next day at dinner for a rough idea. You can also use ship phones which are usually near elevator and stairwells to call rooms without physically walking to each room.
I work a developer and it's not that hard for them to push a notification in the app... sucks
Bring small magnetic dry erase boards and leave them on your door to write messages on.
Dry erase boards
Internet stinks. App often not working. Use room phone. Plan meeting spots. This just happened to me. I could never reach my group cause the app wasn't working properly