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There's a daily fee as noted above for the chat function but you don't have to purchase the Voom internet package to use it. RC's free-tier onboard wifi supports the chat function, albeit sporadically. We had two families for a total of 8 users on 8 different versions of Android and iOS phones and it wasn't consistent or remotely "real time" for any of us. Better than nothing, I guess. Curious as to why folks have such strong feelings about walkies. There isn't a quiet corner on the ship (except maybe the solarium) to disturb. Music, people, stuff going on everywhere...

Just a heads up that our party of 8 had a tough time consistently using the chat feature in the RC app while on Wonder of the Seas recently. It was hit or miss as to whether or not folks showed up as "online" even when they were on the onboard wifi. This was across iOS and Android devices. We actually wished we had brought walkies with us. Don't count on the chat for reliable real-time communications.

Just got off Wonders sailing this same itinerary. Marseilles was probably the weakest link for us. We took the little train at the port up to the cathedral and had lunch on the waterfront. Pretty touristy in the port, pretty crummy in the older part of town. On a side note, we got delayed coming into Marseilles due to a protest that blocked the port for two hours. If we had not been delayed, we'd probably be wondering what else to do. Palma was great with a very walkable old town, plazas, coffee shops, and restaurants. Very charming. We used a third party (Shore Excursions) for Naples and went to Herculaneum, Pompeii and a great restaurant for pizza and burrata. There were 8 of us so we had our own private van. Honestly I wish we had gone this route for the other excursions. The flexibility was terrific. Rome was tough. So much to see - we were running around and probably tried to do to much. Had to see Pisa and Florence, but again it was a busy day. We went with the RC tour for this one and the included lunch was at a pretty bad/touristy restaurant. Again, we'd probably have been better off going with a third party.

We just got back from a cruise on Wonder of the Seas. Masks were almost non-existent among guests in all public areas, shows, elevators, etc., but staff all wore them. There were hand sanitizer stations but we didn't see them receiving much use. N95 masks were required for exiting in Italy but passengers promptly removed their masks after walking through the checkpoint. RC almost never mentioned masking, though hand-washing was encouraged at Windjammer. Self-service with shared utensils was in effect there. Two or three days in you could start to hear more and more coughing and see people visibly unwell walking about and participating in activities. The hacking was actually pretty distracting/annoying during some of the shows. Several groups on my floor got COVID but weren't quarantined - they were surprisingly open about it and/or talking about it in their balconies where everyone else could easily hear. It was basically "don't ask, don't tell." If the cruise were twice as long, I bet most people would be sick by the end. The day before we returned the US Gov't announced no need for testing to return to the states. There were basically zero masks on our flights back and people were coughing all over the place. Three of our party of eight tested positive after returning.