Ryansdaddy

I'm willing to do slacks and a dress shirt on normal MDR nights but was curious if dress shorts with a button down or polo would be acceptable too?

I did the low end voom because it was on sale and much cheaper than the price for the regular slow internet. I only need to check an email or two and use an app for texting so it was a win for me.

Before you go to much trouble price things out to calculate the real savings, it may only be 2/day less for premium package. The 20% may be off of hypothetical future onboard prices, not the current online preh purchase rate you have booked.

 

 

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I did. The savings would be 80 bucks

I tried to talk them into just giving the the difference as credit on board but they couldn't do it. It would make good sense though to offer it. I'd be more likely to spend it if it was a credit as opposed to just getting my money back. They would ultimately win with the credit option.

Our experience with cancelling pre-cruise purchases has been 5-10 business days to see the refund to our credit card.

Thank Bob

In my cruise planner for my upcoming cruise next week.

So I've already purchased my families drink packages but now they are on sale. In order to save the 80 dollars I must cancel my original purchase and repurchase with the new discount. My question is how quickly are they at getting the refunded amount back on my card? I always get a sick feeling when I do something like this and have a refund taking forever to get into my credit card account.

I'm not interested in wiener comparing. I was just pointing out why OP was right. I want Voom really badly too, but I'm being realistic.

 

I was honestly hoping that Liberty has the hardware and it just wasn't active yet (much like the stupid slide). But OP's conversation with the ship's IT Manager throws cold water on that.

 

I'm not optimistic for September, at this point, and I'm not going to pay for that high-orbit crap. I'd rather totally not use my devices like last time than pay to sit there waiting for stuff to load. I'm ok with either decently fast or not at all. The middle, slow ground is a circle of hell to me.

 

Here's hoping something magically changes before September. I'll keep an eye on the LOTS subforum. :)

Oh I know it was all tongue and cheek. Trying to lighen the mood. I will crawl back under my rock now. LOL

All this IT chest thumping, weiner comparing makes me thankful I don't work in this industry.:)

It's like watching chick fights:):D:)

Totally joking with you guys....don't hack me!

Surf vs Surf+Stream is too new for us to know what they're really doing. We don't have enough data points. OP has Surf+Stream, so we know his issue isn't related to Surf.

 

They say VoIP and streaming will only work on Surf+Stream. What we don't know is, are they just throttling to achieve that, or are they actively blocking VoIP/streaming.

 

I suspect the latter, with deep network inspection like a cell carrier would do (like T-Mobile who offers free streaming, etc). The reason I suspect this is that VoIP calls are very-very low bandwidth, even compared to loading a typical media-rich web page.

 

A voice FaceTime call uses next to no bandwidth. We're talking about probably 64-150kb/sec. I think they're actively blocking VoIP to create a reason to "upgrade", but I don't know for sure, since we don't have enough info from informed cruisers yet on the new packages.

 

If you had just Surf though, I'd be interested to know if you could just connect to an un-blocked VPN and use your FaceTime or whatever like normal from there. Probably a pain, but could be worth it.

 

They have said that social networking (including things like WhatsApp) + web browsing + email will work fine as-is on Surf.

Well I have 11 days to find out. I have android where my son and wife both have Iphones. The whats-app application would be used so the 3 of us can text among one another as well as sending texts back home to check on things. You can also make calls on Whats-app which I will test and see if it works. My wife and son have WiFi calling available on their Iphones so we may test it just to see if it works and how spotty it is or if it works flawlessly. Im not hugely tech savvy so a lot of the whole bandwith/ping/UDH/ACKS and whatever else i missed is kind of like reading Chinese:) to me.

Welcome aboard! I'll be on that ship too for that trip.

 

From the way it's all reading the network should work well for that but wifi calls could be dicey.

Hey Very cool! Hopefully if I need to make a call it will work ok.

Thanks Radio Rob. I'm hoping mine works smoothly too if I make a call.

Outer Limits do you have any thoughts on making a call with WI-FI with just the surf package? Like I said this will probably not be needed. Mostly need the surf package for email checking and the Whats-App for texting within the ship

SerialCruiser I'll be on the Liberty the 22nd. I did go ahead and purchase the Voom surf package but my needs were to run a texting app to keep in touch with our kiddo on the ship and to check emails.(Maybe a wifi phone call but doubtful) That's it we need it for nothing else. Should we be good to go??

Yes Sir. Even opted to make a late night drive to Texas City just outside of Galveston instead of leaving early morning. I will end up getting 3 more hours of sleep if we left after my Son's 8th grade graduation dance instead of going home and then waking up early. :)

I'm a Genius!!!

When I printed my Setsail Pass it had all three of our names on it so I only needed to print just the one for all of us I am assuming.

Ok thanks. He has a passport so in the event he needs photo I'd he will be covered.

In an older thread I posed a question about what identification was needed to get back on ship at a port. Sounded like ship card and drivers license would suffice. What about my 13 year old son? Will he be fine with just his ship card or will we need another form of identification for him as well?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Note too that most premium and luxury cruise lines actually require you to surrender your passports at embarkation (both as an efficacious administrative function and a security measure).

Does Royal Caribbean do that? I made copies of our passports and my wife and I will just take our drivers liscenses. Our 13 year old son will not have an ID though unless we take his copy of his Passport.

Thanks! We were intending on taking our passports with us each time we get off ship but if we only need our DL that would be a little easier. I will study the schedule and verify each time. Thanks for the advice on bringing the schedule with us too.

What items do I need to get back on the ship when we port? should you take your passport with you? What other items?

What kind of power strip is it? Is it one that has the extra outlets so you can plug more devices into it? Why would that be banned item? There's never enough plugs in the rooms.

 

I have a question. We are in a balcony room on deck 7. (superior oceanview with balcony). Are there any outlets near the beds? I use my phone as my alarm clock' date=' so I want it near the bed.[/quote']

 

Can you possibly give us an update on the internet there? Supposedly VOOM is now available and a lot of us would like to know if this is true.

LOL Bob you're so insensitive.😜

I have yet to cross over to the Apple "Dark Side". Maybe one day but I love my Android.

WhatsApp is good if you have to communicate with non-Apple devices. If all your devices are Apple, then I'd use iMessage.

One Android and two Apple devices. I think Whatsapp might be the best solution reading it.

You buy a three device package for your family.

Thank you so much!

You can use any number of different devices on your single 3-device package. However, you can only have 3 logged in at the same time.

Perfect! Thank you so much!

Bob was it Whatsapp that you recommended for a texting service to use on the ship?