kissimmee family

Why are you chastising me for sharing something I had to find out the hard way. I was only trying to help others avoid my mistakes. You act like I was doing everyone a disservice. The speed with which you replied and your 42 thousand posts makes me think you are a little too invested in the Cruise Critic forums.

Sorry for the late reply. What is known to you and other frequent travelers is of little use to non-frequent travelers unless they stumble on to the info somewhere. Unfortunately, non-frequent travelers don't know what they don't know. I just tried to share my experience. Sorry if I wasted the time of Frequent Travelers who have known about this for years. Also, I didn't mean to suggest Star link was related to the issues with the app. I was just mentioning one way you can identify if your ship has it, should you be curious. As for what is downloaded from where? The salient point is that if you downloaded the app sometime prior to boarding it may not update the cruise specific data correctly and that once on board RCCL recommends you reload the app. I will remember your trick to click the Play Store link for some free streaming time.

This was my setup procedure Turn on AIRPLANE MODE Turn on Wi-Fi and connect to ship's guest Wi-Fi If you already have the RC App loaded then remove it and download a fresh copy via the ship's Wi-Fi. Sign in to your account and activate Voom. Turn on Wi-Fi CALLING and open the Wi-Fi CALLING menu. Select CALLING PREFERENCE, select Wi-Fi PREFERED. Steps 7-9 only apply if you want to share VOOM via your phones Wi-Fi HOTSPOT. Turn off Airplane mode. Make sure MOBILE DATA Is off !!!!!! Turn on Wi-Fi HOTSPOT, you will probably need to name your hotspot and set up a password for other devices to use when they connect. Enjoy When in port you may need to reconfigure your phone. Just repeat the above when back on board.

Some operational observations. I can only speak for the phone I own (Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra) but this should apply to most recent Android phones and with some alterations Apple IOS. You can verify that your ship has Starlink by running a speed test (most will identify the service provider). I used speedtest.net Be aware that your ship may also have CELLULAR AT SEA service. If you do not take steps to disable this service you may have charges you were not expecting. More on this later Your phone should have Option switches for Wi-Fi, MOBILE DATE, and AIRPLANE MODE. Most newer phone may also have options for Wi-Fi CALLING and MOBILE HOTSPOT. In the general case Royal Caribbean will tell you to turn AIRPLANE MODE on (this should turn both your Wi-Fi and MOBILE DATA option off), then turn Wi-Fi back on and connect to the Ship's Guest Wi-Fi. This is the safest mode if you want to avoid any unexpected charges. In all cases you should make sure that MOBILE DATA is off as data charges via the CELLULAR AT SEA service can be extreme. Here is the first trick. Newer Android, and I'm going to guess, IOS phones can serve as a MOBILE HOTSPOT and share their Wi-Fi connection to Voom. This feature will allow all your ship board devices, smart watches, tablets, computers, etc. to piggy back on your Voom Account as long as they remain within Wi-Fi range of your phone. The rub is that this feature is incompatible with AIRPLANE MODE (at least on my phone). Now you can turn off AIRPLANE MODE and then enable the Wi-Fi HOTSPOT, but doing so opens you up to unexpected CELLULAR AT SEA charges if you try to make a traditional phone call or answer one (last time I checked they were around $3 per minute on ATT, your carrier may be different). If you do this you should see "CELLUALR AT SEA" displayed on the information bar of your phone. My understanding is if you let incoming calls go to voice mail there should not be a charge unless you check your voicemail or make a call. Second Trick. If your phone allows Wi-Fi CALLING you can enable this feature with AIRPLANE MODE on or off. If you turn off AIRPLANE MODE so that you can use your HOTSPOT there is one further step you need to complete to help avoid CELLULAR AT SEA charges. PRESS AND HOLD THE Wi-Fi CALLING icon until the Wi-Fi CALLING menu opens and you should see an option called CALLING PREFERENCE or something similar. Open this and choose Wi-Fi PREFERED. This is only necessary if you intend to use the traditional phone calling app. If you only use Whatsapp or a similar service this option has no effect. One last point, if you configure your phone with AIRPLANE MODE off there is a small chance a traditional phone call will still use the CELLULAR AT SEA system. This should only happen if you are in a space where you can not connect to the VOOM Wi-Fi servers. Yeah... they don't make this easy or obvious. If you are uncertain about any of this, I found the ship's Voom representative quite knowledgeable. I did not mention I was using my hotspot to avoid paying for multiple VOOM accounts, nor do I know what their policy is on this practice, but I assume they frown on it. Now for that Special note on the Royal Caribbean App. As per instructions on the RC web page I pre loaded the RC App on our phones. When we got on board at noon I headed to Windjammer's and sat down to snack and book our reservations. The app failed to load the ship dinning and entertainment schedules. Instead I got a message on screen saying "We are putting the final touches on your cruise experience. Please check back later". It wasn't until we went back to the cabin and happened on the ship video that tells you to down load the app "ON THE SHIP" that I began to think maybe that was the problem. Turns out that between the time you down load the App on shore and when you board, the App can be and probably has been updated but the last update can be ship specific and unless you download a fresh copy from the ship's servers you "MAY" run into problems. As a consequence we missed out on some of the entertainment and were left with poor meal times in the specialty restaurants plus a couple hours getting both straightened out and waiting in the line at guest services. My advice is to remove the RC App once onboard and reload it via the ship's Wi-Fi. This problem may not occur on your cruise or you phone. But if it does this may resolve the issue. As always take any such advice from the internet with a grain of salt and assume I'm an idiot that has no idea what I'm talking out. i.e. do your own research and seek help if in doubt. Lastly, I posted this on Dec 10th 2022 and it probably has a half life of a few months at best. Hope this helps someone. PS We are both fully vaccinated, third booster shot and recently the newest Bivalent Booster (Moderna). Almost three years later we had never caught Covid... Until this cruise. ruined the last three days of the cruise with self isolation. Symptoms were mild, similar to a seasonal cold, and while we are symptom free now we are still testing positive 10 days after first symptoms. Everyone seems to be acting as if the pandemic is history. I know we were. Only problem, perception is not the same as reality. The day before I isolated there were a lot of people coughing. Not preaching to anyone; just relating what happened in our case. Of note; the cruise line never mentioned that there were cases onboard. Mum was the word. If you have any of the antigen test kits the government sent out you might want to take them with you on your next cruise even if they are few months past expiration.

It is still marketed as Voom but Harmony has Starlink now. Speeds varied depending on location within the ship and your Wi-Fi signal strength. In cabin 14591 it was mediocre at around 4 Mb/sec with pings over 100 and substantial jitter. Elsewhere speeds over 30 Mb/sec were possible.

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of the comedy shows in particular. On a recent (disappointing) carnival cruise the comedy club was always full and it was a FCFS only option. Not sure how RC does it but do they swap out comedians at each port or is it the same show every night?

Question: Can you book dining and entertainment your entire cruise all at once? Any restriction on how many shows you book or if you want to see a certain show twice?