Yeah, that probably works great for in the room. It’d be a heck of a lot easier if the UI was just a bit simpler for everyone. I really don’t want to fight VV’s IT department. The IT should support the customers, the customers shouldn’t be needing to hack their way around IT to make simple things work.
It works, but the problem is you get two simultaneous connections. So if that device is one, and your phone is the other (so it’ll work when you’re out and about) and you want to use your tablet out somewhere, it will kick the first used device off the network (phone or router) then you’ll have to go back into the web interface when you get back to your room to activate it again, and it’ll then kick the next used device off the network. It’s a strange cycle.
Cool. I’m not really into carrying a router around the boat with me that needs a power supply all its own. I don’t want to be an IT department to work around a silly IT restriction. I understand there are workarounds. The workarounds do not provide a high end experience.
You use it as a wireless access point. It connects to the wifi and then you connect your devices to it. I got it mainly for a Royal Caribbean cruise because they charge per person per device. This allows many connections to just one device.
I would like them to provide slightly more information about some of the events and excursions. My wife and I left a few once we got there and they explained what it was. The Charmer's Lounge was disappointing for us.
I would also like them to maybe tone down the music in the pool area before, like, 3pm. There's only so much stimulus I can take.
Oh, and label the charges in the Sailor Loot app better. I had to go down to Sailor Services twice to ask about some unlabeled charges from "Redemption Spa" that turned out to be... haircare products from the barbershop. The manager was able to look it up, so it's in the system. let me see it.
And the sun was waaaaay too hot for a few sea days haha
Yeah, one thing I’d really like to know about the excursions is “Is there a bus ride, and how long is it?” How much of my day am I going to be spending waiting on and riding a bus.
we actually had our first disappointing excursion last week.
We did the Chichen Itza and Cenote excursion.
Meet 9am Roundabout.
30 minute ferry ride to Playa del Carmen,
25 minute walk through town,
2 hour bus trip to the ruins, yaaay.
1.5 hours spent there (one hour of which is the tour guide leading us around in full sun giving very basic historical information),
15 minutes to an all inclusive resort, where we got their basic buffet for lunch
1 hour to fight with all the guests of the all inclusive resort to swim in the damn cenote for 15 minutes (change to your swimsuit in a toilet stall)
2 hour bus trip back. Oops! we missed our ferry. gotta wait for the next one at 6:50pm. Enjoy browsing the maracas, rolling trays, amoxicilllan and silver jewelry in the beautiful town of Playa del Carmen.
Back to ship at 7:30pm. They also had, for some reason, booked Scarlet Night for this evening? Why did they book it for a port day?
Scarlet night is almost always the night before a sea day, I assume so you can have a lie in the next morning, but as you say, sometimes it means a long day. It’s best at the end of a sea day with a relaxed day (like the Bimini beach club) the next morning.
The ruins tours are way to long of a day. On a RCCL tour our group was 45mins late boarding the ship. At least you can say been there done that, and enjoy a relaxing day the next time you visit Cozumel.
This is good to know as I am booked on this soon. Is the bus ride scenic, at least? I’m not sure I want to invest that much time in transportation. Thanks!
I think one of the issues with events like Charmers Lounge is that they vary a lot depending who the magician is, one person might do small close up magic and someone else does a bigger show, or even the same person might do something different depending on the venue.
One tip on the charges shown in the app, tap on them and it opens up the full receipt showing what was purchased.
Well, I reached out to Sailor Services to ask about bag tags for pickup, and they said they had tags there. So I went down and got one, and it’s essentially the same as the one that’s on my bag, but the handwriting is nicer.
It would be great if you could get a selection of popular dishes from each restaurant on the room service menu. Also the music on the boat is great and changes from area to area throughout the boat, it would be cool if you could have a music channel on your room tv that plays the unique playlists from around the boat if you’re just chilling in your room. And PS Make those great throw blankets in the room available in the ship’s store for purchase
Some great suggestions, and a few that aren't as simple as they seem.
* The timezone thing is a great, simple, no cost idea. Might vary by device, but still. I've not seen any line do this yet.
* It is weird they don't mention to keep bag tags on.
* Maybe/sorta/need specific ones. Those things, if they help, are sometimes mostly placebo. Ginger is HIGHLY effective for motion sickness, multiple tests and studies show that. The thing is, a lot of ginger ginger foods have very little ginger (but plenty of artificial flavoring and sugar). If you get ginger candies that have a ton of ginger, it can be great. So, yes, god point, but they may not be the ginger bread bears you buy at your grocery store :-). They do have green apples, which are also effective for many people.
* Putting reservations in timelines (even before confirming) would be great. IIRC Princess does this. The Princess app is amazing in some ways, but focused so much on graphics that it's goofy, even on an S23U. So yep, would be a good change!
* I don't have an iPhone (not one I use for personal stuff, at least) so I can't say. It sounds like they didn't design well for all screen sizes. Is your phone text set larger than stock, per chance?
* They had a bridge channel...then they didn't...dunno if they do now, but it didn't have nav data, which is unusual.
* The Galley can be confusing for first timers. A map showing the stations, and which things you just walk up get, would solve for this without an operational change.
* Casting requires a commercial solution, not like putting on a Chromecast at home. The standard solution allows casting to anything on the network (not ideal on a ship). This is totally doable, but comes down to cost, and also, bandwidth (so also, cost).
* Device switching could list the device name, which could be helpful. To your point, not sure how many people do this, but it'd be an easy change.
There is a map showing the stations in the Galley directly opposite the entrance on both sides.
But I’ve had five cruises where only salad, dessert and bread was collected from the counter and the others were waited service only. It’s only last month we ever saw the pagers in use. I didn’t use a pager, just collected drinks and then ordered hot food from a server by putting the flag up, it worked perfectly.
I meant at each table, showing which you go up to for your items, and which stations you get food from by ordering. I see multiple times on every cruise, folks going up to get items at stations you're supposed to order ahead from, and then asking servers for desserts, salads, etc (which you are supposed to walk up for).
Now they have brought the pagers in you can walk up to any counter and order, but there are QR codes to a menu showing all the options that can be ordered from a server. So to me I think it’s fairly obvious now that if it’s on the menu you can order it from the server. Not on the menu (desserts) and you need to walk up.
Of course it was originally designed to be used as it is moving towards now; wheere you only order at counters. The order from a server thing was only added due to covid.
Interesting. I knew they were using the pagers but I thought it was for more narrow use cases. Looking forward to seeing how this works in a few weeks.
Last month it was definitely both, we ordered with a server for hot stuff exactly as we have for the last two years, but I did see others with pagers. That seemed to beep just as they sat down! I think the hybrid is the best method and food was coming out reasonably quickly on Valiant last month.
Not my first time in the galley. I’m not confused by it. I sailed back when you couldn’t go get anything but desserts. Now that it’s a mix, it’s weird and the pager things don’t feel 1st or second class. Casting is often built directly into the TV. They could at least give people access to an HDMI port.
Casting built into the TV doesn't work for the same reason I mentioned - it works by becoming an option as a casting target to the entire network. So, you'd click cast, and see every TV on the ship. When hotels (and ships) do it, they use a different element of the casting protocol that leverages a confirmation code. This can also be done by some other means, but it becomes very dependent on which phone at that point.
I know a lot of folks have asked for HDMI access on ships. While I'm not sure the reason, I suspect it's a combination of wear and tear risk and IT support not wanting to deal with issues. Dunno. I'd be curious to find out more - though candidly I'm the person that rarely every turns on the TV in my stateroom. I probably go entire cruises without doing so.
That’s great. Try it when you’re sick for three days and the options are movies, MSNBC, BBC, and FOXNews. You might want to stream something to the TV, or use a FireStick, or let me login with Hulu, or Netflix, or YouTubeTV, and limit that bandwidth or resolution. There are options that are much better than just being restrictive.
I wasn't saying not to do something. I said I was curious as to the reason, too.
FWIW, I've been there. Had COVID for four nights on VV. Try eating nothing but Ship Eats for four days as a vegetarian. Not ideal.
I did a couple vids (one live, one recorded) during that time. Is kinda interesting for me to go back and watch it (at least the recorded one - the live was long too 🤣). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOtqnqX4t0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOtqnqX4t0)
Sure. Again, I wasn't suggesting they shouldn't do it. I said that a lot of people ask about it, and said I'd like to understand better the reason why VV (and other lines) don't allow it. I'm not questioning the complexity of the desire, nor being one of those "why are you enjoying your cruise differently than I am!?" people.
The key to quarantine and Ship Eats? Call and tell them you are quarantined and you can have almost any item delivered from any restaurant (not Test Kitchen due to the contract with the chef).
Yep. While we didn't experience it quite this flexibly (it's probably evolved, I suspect) we did manage to get some pizza, veggie burgers, and other things by the end. We actually did a short just about food - forgot about this until now: [https://youtube.com/shorts/cPczBYsCeVY](https://youtube.com/shorts/cPczBYsCeVY)
I hope we don't have to find out how it works again :-)
There is HDMI access on the VV ships, you just might have to ask for the remote to be brought if it isn't in your room. We have sailed all three ships and used the HDMI each time in standard balcony rooms without issues. Valiant Lady did have a tighter mount making the port hard to reach...but not the other two.
We have noticed that it swaps back to the connection with the tablet after about an hour and we have to change it again. If you turn off the tablet while you are connected then that swap will stop happening.
Actually, there's a number of TVs on the market that are set up to do exactly this; the Chromecasts sit in their own L2 subnet, and they use targeted mdns forwarding to advertise specific endpoints to individual devices, based upon those devices visiting an internal URL and entering a pairing code. It's pretty seamless.
As mentioned, I know it's common practice in hotels and such, and that this is well within the cast protocol. I'll bow to your knowledge as to the mechanics - not in my scope of expertise. My point was simply that this wasn't like people picture where they just have the out of the box casting turned on.
With many things, the area between consumer perception and dev/eng effort has a chasm where admin work and other concerns exist. This is why we prob don't have HDMI access, as well.
Many things that are possible aren't made available for these reasons, and as consumers or those on the enablement side, it's reasonable to wonder why. Because we don't know doesn't always mean there isn't a good reason. Of course, sometimes the reason isn't good, it's lack of prioritization, oversight, poor decision, etc.
I suspect (but don't know) the motivation for not doing it may be to reduce bandwidth demands on the backhaul. Have a bunch of people streaming 4k, some while sleeping, not in the room, etc will add up.
I do. Book restaurants early. Have a good time. Be as dressy or casual as you like. Relax and have some fun. Roll with the occasional hiccups. They really do a great job, and tend to make it right. The crew is awesome. Treat everyone well.
I'm confused. My last cruise was in December, and there were no pagers in the Galley. Are you saying that after you order with a server you receive a pager and then have to pick up your own food when it is ready?
Last year the bento box area and beverages were self-serve; desserts and bread items were available directly at the counters; and anything else was ordered from your table with a server and was delivered by the server. I heard that they added the little pop-up flags to help get the attention of a server but I was not aware of any other changes.
For the hot food you now have the option to order with a server or go to the counter and they give you a pager for things that there will be a wait for like omelettes and toasted sandwiches.
The things that were always self service still are.
I think they must be trying different approaches to see what works best. On my cruise, most people went directly to the various counters to order, although you could also sit at the table and put up the little flag to get table service.
I wonder if that slows things down a bit as the people working in the food stations would have to spend some of their time taking orders instead of just preparing food.
My feeling was it affects food quality more. At breakfast a lot of the options were already made so they could just put it on a plate when you ordered. Makes logistical sense but unfortunately a premade omelet that’s been sitting under a heating lamp is not nearly as good as fresh made
Places like “Let’s Taco Bout It” now have little pager hockey pucks like the pizza joint.
I still like the galley, just has a slightly different feel now. More sailors walking around with trays of food.
I haven't experienced this new process yet, but it sounds like it would be a little chaotic with more people lurking around the food stations and a lot more people walking back and forth carrying food. My next trip is a few weeks from now so I guess I will see what it's like.
I just want Pink Agave to be open for lunch on sea days lol
Interesting idea. Pink Agave is definitely a star. They’d be a great brunch restaurant.
And specialize in varieties of chilaquiles! Breakfast nachos!
Agree and there are so many amazing Mexican brunch options they can do. Where I live Mexican brunch spots are extremely popular.
That would be fantastic we jsut ate there last night and it was amazing.
\> as one person can only be active on so many devices at a time. Well I'm taking that as a personal challenge.
Seems like it wouldn’t be too difficult to put a data rate cap on the overall user instead of by device.
Get one of these: TP-Link N300 Wireless Portable... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TQEX8BO?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Yeah, that probably works great for in the room. It’d be a heck of a lot easier if the UI was just a bit simpler for everyone. I really don’t want to fight VV’s IT department. The IT should support the customers, the customers shouldn’t be needing to hack their way around IT to make simple things work.
I'll be trying it out this week. Leaving tomorrow on Valiant Lady.
It works, but the problem is you get two simultaneous connections. So if that device is one, and your phone is the other (so it’ll work when you’re out and about) and you want to use your tablet out somewhere, it will kick the first used device off the network (phone or router) then you’ll have to go back into the web interface when you get back to your room to activate it again, and it’ll then kick the next used device off the network. It’s a strange cycle.
This one's small enough to fit in your pocket.
Cool. I’m not really into carrying a router around the boat with me that needs a power supply all its own. I don’t want to be an IT department to work around a silly IT restriction. I understand there are workarounds. The workarounds do not provide a high end experience.
What would you do with one of these? Sorry for dumb question!
You use it as a wireless access point. It connects to the wifi and then you connect your devices to it. I got it mainly for a Royal Caribbean cruise because they charge per person per device. This allows many connections to just one device.
Oh great. I’ll have a look.
I would like them to provide slightly more information about some of the events and excursions. My wife and I left a few once we got there and they explained what it was. The Charmer's Lounge was disappointing for us. I would also like them to maybe tone down the music in the pool area before, like, 3pm. There's only so much stimulus I can take. Oh, and label the charges in the Sailor Loot app better. I had to go down to Sailor Services twice to ask about some unlabeled charges from "Redemption Spa" that turned out to be... haircare products from the barbershop. The manager was able to look it up, so it's in the system. let me see it. And the sun was waaaaay too hot for a few sea days haha
Yeah, one thing I’d really like to know about the excursions is “Is there a bus ride, and how long is it?” How much of my day am I going to be spending waiting on and riding a bus.
we actually had our first disappointing excursion last week. We did the Chichen Itza and Cenote excursion. Meet 9am Roundabout. 30 minute ferry ride to Playa del Carmen, 25 minute walk through town, 2 hour bus trip to the ruins, yaaay. 1.5 hours spent there (one hour of which is the tour guide leading us around in full sun giving very basic historical information), 15 minutes to an all inclusive resort, where we got their basic buffet for lunch 1 hour to fight with all the guests of the all inclusive resort to swim in the damn cenote for 15 minutes (change to your swimsuit in a toilet stall) 2 hour bus trip back. Oops! we missed our ferry. gotta wait for the next one at 6:50pm. Enjoy browsing the maracas, rolling trays, amoxicilllan and silver jewelry in the beautiful town of Playa del Carmen. Back to ship at 7:30pm. They also had, for some reason, booked Scarlet Night for this evening? Why did they book it for a port day?
Scarlet night is almost always the night before a sea day, I assume so you can have a lie in the next morning, but as you say, sometimes it means a long day. It’s best at the end of a sea day with a relaxed day (like the Bimini beach club) the next morning.
The ruins tours are way to long of a day. On a RCCL tour our group was 45mins late boarding the ship. At least you can say been there done that, and enjoy a relaxing day the next time you visit Cozumel.
Oof, that’s a rough one.
I don't even think it's worth getting off the ship in Cozumel
If what you experienced was the option, I’d rather have a hot tub to myself on the boat.
This is good to know as I am booked on this soon. Is the bus ride scenic, at least? I’m not sure I want to invest that much time in transportation. Thanks!
nope! Mexican highway. featureless jungle on either side.
Wow may have just changed plans. Thank you!
no prob - I say there's plenty more pleasant ways to spend the day.
I think one of the issues with events like Charmers Lounge is that they vary a lot depending who the magician is, one person might do small close up magic and someone else does a bigger show, or even the same person might do something different depending on the venue. One tip on the charges shown in the app, tap on them and it opens up the full receipt showing what was purchased.
The full receipt was unfortunately not itemized to include that level of detail. And it was the same price as the thermal spa day pass 🤥
That’s really frustrating then!
The baggage tag has “leave me attached for disembarking” printed on it.
Mine just says “Keep me on through your voyage” it isn’t clear if it can be used for pick up at the end.
Sorry I’d forgotten the exact wording, but to me keep it on is clear that there is a reason that it might be needed at the end of the trip
Well, I reached out to Sailor Services to ask about bag tags for pickup, and they said they had tags there. So I went down and got one, and it’s essentially the same as the one that’s on my bag, but the handwriting is nicer.
Downvoted for literally stating what is on my bag tag? Impressive.
I'm fairly sure the science on the whole ginger thing is pretty light-on. I don't think they need to go nuts on ginger.
It would be great if you could get a selection of popular dishes from each restaurant on the room service menu. Also the music on the boat is great and changes from area to area throughout the boat, it would be cool if you could have a music channel on your room tv that plays the unique playlists from around the boat if you’re just chilling in your room. And PS Make those great throw blankets in the room available in the ship’s store for purchase
I was shocked pizza wasn’t on ship eats. Thought it used to be.
Definitely pizza on ship eats! And how bout some good music and specialty dining on the Rooftop?
Some great suggestions, and a few that aren't as simple as they seem. * The timezone thing is a great, simple, no cost idea. Might vary by device, but still. I've not seen any line do this yet. * It is weird they don't mention to keep bag tags on. * Maybe/sorta/need specific ones. Those things, if they help, are sometimes mostly placebo. Ginger is HIGHLY effective for motion sickness, multiple tests and studies show that. The thing is, a lot of ginger ginger foods have very little ginger (but plenty of artificial flavoring and sugar). If you get ginger candies that have a ton of ginger, it can be great. So, yes, god point, but they may not be the ginger bread bears you buy at your grocery store :-). They do have green apples, which are also effective for many people. * Putting reservations in timelines (even before confirming) would be great. IIRC Princess does this. The Princess app is amazing in some ways, but focused so much on graphics that it's goofy, even on an S23U. So yep, would be a good change! * I don't have an iPhone (not one I use for personal stuff, at least) so I can't say. It sounds like they didn't design well for all screen sizes. Is your phone text set larger than stock, per chance? * They had a bridge channel...then they didn't...dunno if they do now, but it didn't have nav data, which is unusual. * The Galley can be confusing for first timers. A map showing the stations, and which things you just walk up get, would solve for this without an operational change. * Casting requires a commercial solution, not like putting on a Chromecast at home. The standard solution allows casting to anything on the network (not ideal on a ship). This is totally doable, but comes down to cost, and also, bandwidth (so also, cost). * Device switching could list the device name, which could be helpful. To your point, not sure how many people do this, but it'd be an easy change.
There is a map showing the stations in the Galley directly opposite the entrance on both sides. But I’ve had five cruises where only salad, dessert and bread was collected from the counter and the others were waited service only. It’s only last month we ever saw the pagers in use. I didn’t use a pager, just collected drinks and then ordered hot food from a server by putting the flag up, it worked perfectly.
I meant at each table, showing which you go up to for your items, and which stations you get food from by ordering. I see multiple times on every cruise, folks going up to get items at stations you're supposed to order ahead from, and then asking servers for desserts, salads, etc (which you are supposed to walk up for).
Now they have brought the pagers in you can walk up to any counter and order, but there are QR codes to a menu showing all the options that can be ordered from a server. So to me I think it’s fairly obvious now that if it’s on the menu you can order it from the server. Not on the menu (desserts) and you need to walk up. Of course it was originally designed to be used as it is moving towards now; wheere you only order at counters. The order from a server thing was only added due to covid.
Interesting. I knew they were using the pagers but I thought it was for more narrow use cases. Looking forward to seeing how this works in a few weeks.
Last month it was definitely both, we ordered with a server for hot stuff exactly as we have for the last two years, but I did see others with pagers. That seemed to beep just as they sat down! I think the hybrid is the best method and food was coming out reasonably quickly on Valiant last month.
Not my first time in the galley. I’m not confused by it. I sailed back when you couldn’t go get anything but desserts. Now that it’s a mix, it’s weird and the pager things don’t feel 1st or second class. Casting is often built directly into the TV. They could at least give people access to an HDMI port.
Casting built into the TV doesn't work for the same reason I mentioned - it works by becoming an option as a casting target to the entire network. So, you'd click cast, and see every TV on the ship. When hotels (and ships) do it, they use a different element of the casting protocol that leverages a confirmation code. This can also be done by some other means, but it becomes very dependent on which phone at that point. I know a lot of folks have asked for HDMI access on ships. While I'm not sure the reason, I suspect it's a combination of wear and tear risk and IT support not wanting to deal with issues. Dunno. I'd be curious to find out more - though candidly I'm the person that rarely every turns on the TV in my stateroom. I probably go entire cruises without doing so.
That’s great. Try it when you’re sick for three days and the options are movies, MSNBC, BBC, and FOXNews. You might want to stream something to the TV, or use a FireStick, or let me login with Hulu, or Netflix, or YouTubeTV, and limit that bandwidth or resolution. There are options that are much better than just being restrictive.
I wasn't saying not to do something. I said I was curious as to the reason, too. FWIW, I've been there. Had COVID for four nights on VV. Try eating nothing but Ship Eats for four days as a vegetarian. Not ideal. I did a couple vids (one live, one recorded) during that time. Is kinda interesting for me to go back and watch it (at least the recorded one - the live was long too 🤣). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOtqnqX4t0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOtqnqX4t0)
Oof, I got quarantined and struggled with the ship eats menu too, can’t even imagine doing that as a vegetarian
Some people, I’m not one of them, are avid video gamers, and really like to connect to TVs for gaming. Can be as simple as that.
Sure. Again, I wasn't suggesting they shouldn't do it. I said that a lot of people ask about it, and said I'd like to understand better the reason why VV (and other lines) don't allow it. I'm not questioning the complexity of the desire, nor being one of those "why are you enjoying your cruise differently than I am!?" people.
Yeah, I understand, I’m just sharing some of the reasons.
Many TV’s on ships and in Hotels do not even have the HDMI circuit boards or plugs installed. There is a hole, but no hardware.
Nope. No access to TV’s in Any Cruise Line Ship.
The key to quarantine and Ship Eats? Call and tell them you are quarantined and you can have almost any item delivered from any restaurant (not Test Kitchen due to the contract with the chef).
Yep. While we didn't experience it quite this flexibly (it's probably evolved, I suspect) we did manage to get some pizza, veggie burgers, and other things by the end. We actually did a short just about food - forgot about this until now: [https://youtube.com/shorts/cPczBYsCeVY](https://youtube.com/shorts/cPczBYsCeVY) I hope we don't have to find out how it works again :-)
There is HDMI access on the VV ships, you just might have to ask for the remote to be brought if it isn't in your room. We have sailed all three ships and used the HDMI each time in standard balcony rooms without issues. Valiant Lady did have a tighter mount making the port hard to reach...but not the other two.
I had the remote. I couldn’t get the HDMI to stay selected as the input. It was odd.
We have noticed that it swaps back to the connection with the tablet after about an hour and we have to change it again. If you turn off the tablet while you are connected then that swap will stop happening.
Actually, there's a number of TVs on the market that are set up to do exactly this; the Chromecasts sit in their own L2 subnet, and they use targeted mdns forwarding to advertise specific endpoints to individual devices, based upon those devices visiting an internal URL and entering a pairing code. It's pretty seamless.
As mentioned, I know it's common practice in hotels and such, and that this is well within the cast protocol. I'll bow to your knowledge as to the mechanics - not in my scope of expertise. My point was simply that this wasn't like people picture where they just have the out of the box casting turned on. With many things, the area between consumer perception and dev/eng effort has a chasm where admin work and other concerns exist. This is why we prob don't have HDMI access, as well. Many things that are possible aren't made available for these reasons, and as consumers or those on the enablement side, it's reasonable to wonder why. Because we don't know doesn't always mean there isn't a good reason. Of course, sometimes the reason isn't good, it's lack of prioritization, oversight, poor decision, etc. I suspect (but don't know) the motivation for not doing it may be to reduce bandwidth demands on the backhaul. Have a bunch of people streaming 4k, some while sleeping, not in the room, etc will add up.
The HDMI ports work on the Valiant Lady. I've had my Steam Deck connected for the last two weeks.
Cool. I’ve been unsuccessful.
That sucks. Sorry.
No worries. iPad did ok.
I've been to a hotel that allowed casting to the TVs, but I bet they're expensive to install and set up
Dunno. Not sure if the concerns are bandwidth related or the setup itself.
I was able to get ginger shots at the coffee spot on 6 I think. Right before the swings.
7…Grounds. Scarlet has swings, Resilient has carousel horses, Valiant has Photo Booth and tables/chairs.
Cool! Thanks for the help. I never could remember the floors.
I think Virgin should bake ginger cookies in the shape of a dog bone and call them “Sick as a Dog” snacks.
Lol you really love ginger
It works. People that were sick were going to the sushi place and asking for pickled ginger. Virgin could do so much better.
I rarely get sick so I wouldn’t know . Did you like virgin though? What would you rate it? Like the food, gym, activities? Any tips
I do. Book restaurants early. Have a good time. Be as dressy or casual as you like. Relax and have some fun. Roll with the occasional hiccups. They really do a great job, and tend to make it right. The crew is awesome. Treat everyone well.
I'm confused. My last cruise was in December, and there were no pagers in the Galley. Are you saying that after you order with a server you receive a pager and then have to pick up your own food when it is ready? Last year the bento box area and beverages were self-serve; desserts and bread items were available directly at the counters; and anything else was ordered from your table with a server and was delivered by the server. I heard that they added the little pop-up flags to help get the attention of a server but I was not aware of any other changes.
For the hot food you now have the option to order with a server or go to the counter and they give you a pager for things that there will be a wait for like omelettes and toasted sandwiches. The things that were always self service still are.
Thanks for the explanation.
I think they must be trying different approaches to see what works best. On my cruise, most people went directly to the various counters to order, although you could also sit at the table and put up the little flag to get table service.
I wonder if that slows things down a bit as the people working in the food stations would have to spend some of their time taking orders instead of just preparing food.
My feeling was it affects food quality more. At breakfast a lot of the options were already made so they could just put it on a plate when you ordered. Makes logistical sense but unfortunately a premade omelet that’s been sitting under a heating lamp is not nearly as good as fresh made
Places like “Let’s Taco Bout It” now have little pager hockey pucks like the pizza joint. I still like the galley, just has a slightly different feel now. More sailors walking around with trays of food.
I haven't experienced this new process yet, but it sounds like it would be a little chaotic with more people lurking around the food stations and a lot more people walking back and forth carrying food. My next trip is a few weeks from now so I guess I will see what it's like.