toolworker

And enough to zoom. Thanks for this. But in port cellular data is available. What's the speed away from land, before dinner when everyone's checking email? I have been told by several phone agents that it has not. They often don't know (although the last one checked.). And they always mention the expensive upgrade to "more bandwidth" which doesn't give more bandwidth, just unblocks streaming sites so the bandwidth can be further degraded. We had great internet on Viking Sky in October. And as @the more ports the better said, "internet is a huge deal for many people who sail on O." The proof is that there are enough users to drastically affect the bandwidth, as mentioned in several posts above.

@Divetripnow, how was the internet on your trip? We'll be on Riviera soon and are hoping to keep up with our weekly zoom. We do have T-Mobile, with free international 4G roaming, so can fall back on that in port. But we'd rather zoom on sea days - like everyone else on the ship. Sigh.

If you have taken this tour from an NCL or other line, how much time did you actually get to walk around at the ruins? Oceania offers a 9 hour tour to Chichen Itza, warning that "Approximate time at the ruins is 45 to 60 minutes. Travel time is approximately 3.5 hours each way (45 minutes ferry transfer to Playa Del Carmen and 2.5 hours bus ride to Mayan Ruins." I'm wondering how accurate this is. Also how comfortable the buses are that Oceania uses. We've seen a good number of Mayan ruins. This will be our only chance to see Chichen Itza; we'll never come back by land. P.S.: If you comment on a tour you've taken, it would help to know the cruise line. Different lines use different equipment.

That was my experience with the app I used on Scenic last year. I suspect the people for whom the app worked better stayed close to the group and didn't have a lot of disconnections. IMHO they should not put the app back in use until it is able to reconnect automatically without requiring user intervention. Even if that's accomplished, I would rather have the Whisper, for a number of reasons. One is that the app will always require the user to be closer to the guide than a Whisper. Wifi range is at most 92 meters (100') outdoors. Whisper claims up to 300 meters. And of course it reconnects automatically.

If the user gets out of range and the connection to the guide drops, does the app reconnect automatically when back in range? Or does the user have to do something?

It wouldn't let you leave them all unchecked? Sorry about that - it's my first poll. It works on wifi. I started up the app to check this. When connecting, it displayed the wifi calling (telephone over wifi) icon in my notification area. So it's using that feature, and I'd guess it needs to be in airplane mode so that incoming or outgoing calls don't try to use the same feature. After exiting from the app, the icon was still there, so the app remains alive and controlling at least one of the phone's settings. I had to kill the app to get rid of it. And then of course remember to take it out of airplane mode. Not ready for prime time.

I wonder if the folks who liked the app stuck close to the guide. The app I used disconnected whenever I got more than 100 feet or so away. That happened often because I like to take photos. Reconnecting was fiddly and often took a minute or two, despite my technical expertise. So most of the time I was either not hearing the guide or trying to reconnect. Some years ago, on a Rhine cruise that used dedicated wireless units, our tour got to the main square in Bonn. There was a flea market, so my wife and I wandered through it and bought something, hearing the guide all the while. When the signal started to fade, we looked around, saw where the group was leaving the square, and caught up. Can't do that with a wifi app! We have T-Mobile. Free texting and data, $0.25/minute calling, almost everywhere outside the U.S. Some plans include 5 Gb high speed data per month.

We will embark in Rio de Janiero and have the included hotel and transfers. Will our checked luggage disappear from the hotel and reappear in our cabin? Or will we have to handle it at the pier? The rules may vary depending on the port. I seem to remember having to take suitcases from the bus and bring them to the porter with the big cart. But I don't remember what port that might have been.

The Regent info page instructions say "After placing your phone in Flight/Airplane Mode, open the app." So will the app block sending and receiving texts? I need that to coordinate with others in our group.

There's a poll on that here.

We used something similar to Smartguide on a Scenic river cruise a year ago. I'm wondering if it's been improved.

Oops - my bad. I read the press release too quickly. It's not vital; it's just one of the factors to weigh. So you're on Splendor? One of the couples in our Zoom group is on there too. We've had good Zooms with them the past couple of weeks - over an hour, with only an occasional video/audio freeze for a second or two. If it's the same system as Viking, maybe the problem is that twice as many pax are sharing it ... Did you use Teams from an app or a browser? And did you need to get the upgrade to access it? So we'll see if there's any improvement when she comes out next month. One of the two sessions is at Harvest Caye, Belize. It's an NCL island so no cellular there, but it's a mile off the mainland and T-Mobile's map shows 4G coverage. So it might work. In port I do use the hotspot. Our T-Mobile plan now includes 5Gb of international 4G/5G per month and free texting. We used to pay $50 for a month of that plus free calling.

Unfortunately, these two events are helping to facilitate workshops. So video is required. Audio only might be helpful at other times. Does that generally work well?

I see. So the system blocks sites like YouTube, Zoom, Skype, etc., and the $10 gets us access to them - but at speeds that make them useless? I wonder if the latest refurbishment will improve the wifi. (A phone agent told me it wouldn't, but he told me some other stuff that was wrong.) Marina left drydock a few days ago; I posted this question in the Roll Call. We were on Viking ocean last month, and had no trouble on our weekly zoom. Another couple in the zoom did fine this month from a Regent ship.

Does that mean that standard wifi has a speed limit, and the paid upgrade only raises that limit? Or are there hotspot channels that the upgrade makes available? But if I understand you, in either case we are competing with everyone else for a slice of the same pie. So if there is capacity available when everyone's at the standard limit, we can exeed that limit, but if there isn't then we slow down the same as everyone else?

How well does Oceania's wifi work for Zoom, with the paid speed upgrade? We will be on Riviera and are hoping to participate in Zoom meetings on two days, between 12:30 and 6:30 pm. One day is a sea day; the other is docked at Harvest Caye, Belize. Does anyone know if the refurbishment will improve the wifi? We could also use cellular data at Harvest Caye, if it's available. T-Mobile shows 4G service up to the mainland shore, which is a bit less than a mile from where the ship will dock. Has anyone used cellular there?

An Oceania phone agent confirmed this - but only after putting me on hold and checking. She and the other agent I talked to had both told me that it was still continental breakfast only in steerage. But they were wrong. A complaint from a prior guest had seared the continental breakfast into her memory - but the complaint was from last year.

Did they starch your shoes, or just fold them?

Are there limits on the free laundry service? We took a river cruise (Scenic) a while back with "free laundry service." IIRC the rule, once onboard, was supposed to be one 2 kg bag. But in practice it was all you could cram into a smallish laundry bag, which turned out to be plenty to get us through the 11 day cruise.