Onboard Chat

[Ellusionz]

I've seen varying reviews on how well this $5 per person offering works. Is it a ship thing? Or a phone thing? 

[havanadaydreaming]

$5 per person, works on their phone.  

 

in Dec we have a group of 6 going so we'll probably all sign up.   most of the time when it's just my wife and I we don't really need to text each other when apart.   we tend to know what the rally points are during the day:   special trivia contest, activity we both want to do, back at the cabin before din din. 

 

 

[Joe817]

1 hour ago, Ellusionz said:

I've seen varying reviews on how well this $5 per person offering works. Is it a ship thing? Or a phone thing? 

To answer your questions: yes to both.

• You have to have a smart phone to access the Carnival Hub App, in order to use the chat feature, and
• You access the Hub App via Carnival's wi-fi. 

Only those people who pay the $5.00 can use it to stay in touch. And they have to be in your contact list.

The Hub App is a really neat feature. It does so much more that just access the chat function. 

 

https://www.carnival.com/shipboard/funhub/funhub-landing

 

You can download it there. It's free.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Joe817

[Ellusionz]

Thanks. But I meant issues with the app, how well it works. Some posts have said they didn't have problems. Others said there would be hours between when it was sent to when it was received.

[stellarose]

used it on the pride two summers ago. it was awesome. the grandparents loved it and so did the two teens. best- if you meet someone who has the chat- you can chat with them.  so worth the 5 bucks.  no wifi needed. keep in airplane mode. 

 

sometimes it worked fast sometimes a few minutes slow. it depended. still worth it. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by stellarose

[Joe817]

1 minute ago, Ellusionz said:

Thanks. But I meant issues with the app, how well it works. Some posts have said they didn't have problems. Others said there would be hours between when it was sent to when it was received.

It worked great for my wife and I. You have to have the app open 24/7, and never turn your phone off. But I think the issue is with wi-fi on the older ships, which isn't as efficient as the newer ships. We were on a 5 day on the Dream, and had no problems whatsoever. 

[Organized Chaos]

13 minutes ago, Ellusionz said:

Thanks. But I meant issues with the app, how well it works. Some posts have said they didn't have problems. Others said there would be hours between when it was sent to when it was received.

 

It's mostly a ship issue. The newest ships...Vista, Horizon, Sunrise (refitted older ship), and soon-to-be Panorama...have the best wifi service, so the Hub chat is more likely to work quite well on those. Other ships in the fleet have had their wifi service upgraded, but still aren't as good as the newest ones. It has a lot to do with wireless access points spread throughout the ships. The newest ships have more access points which means less dead spots, less congestion on a single access point, and better connections. Older ships have had their internet speeds improved, but without additional access points throughout those ships, there's still issues.

 

I see by your signature that your next two cruises will be on the Vista and Mardi Gras. So the Hub chat should work quite well on those. As Joe said, be sure to leave the app running in order to receive new messages. If you find that it doesn't work well, just go to Guest Services and let them know. They'll probably offer a refund.

[Ellusionz]

Perfect thanks, we only just heard about the chat thing last cruise but toward the end. We cruise cheap and have never paid for Inet but $5 seems like a good deal.

[adventuredancer]

DH & i used it on our last one. made it nice when one of us would walk off to do something/get something & we could check in to see if we wanted to do something else. it did drain our batteries a bit. ocassionally it might be delayed in response. have used it on the last 2 cruises.

[sc4125]

We used it earlier this year on the Paradise, which is one of CCL's older ships.  It worked very well for the most part.  There was only one time that I didn't receive a text from my daughter.  There were 7 of us texting back and forth and that was the only time I had an issue.  Definitely worth the $5 - also, even if you don't use the chat feature, you can see what's going on and schedule what you want to do and it will alarm you, check your S&S account, etc.

[skrufy]

5 hours ago, havanadaydreaming said:

$5 per person, works on their phone.  

 

in Dec we have a group of 6 going so we'll probably all sign up.   most of the time when it's just my wife and I we don't really need to text each other when apart.   we tend to know what the rally points are during the day:   special trivia contest, activity we both want to do, back at the cabin before din din. 

 

 

First time the app had some delays, but not for long periods. Last August it worked flawlessly.  Will use it every time we cruise. 

[Bowman1]

We have used the Hub App with chat function on the Sunshine, Valor, Vista, Miracle and Breeze.  It is absolutely worth the $5 per person.

 

As noted above, the Vista has the best throughput, since the ship’s WiFi was designed with the Hub App in mind

 

it worked perfectly fine on the other ships as well (a few dead spots, but nothing to complain about)

 

Carnival’s Hub App is the best that we have seen on any of the major cruise lines

[mikenbon]

We've used it on the Sunshine  and for 2 cruises on the Conquest without any problems. Occasionally I would miss a message if there was lots of noise around, like during a Lido deck party or competition, but honestly, text messages from my hubby or friends aren't THAT urgent on vacation. 😉

[dctravel]

On 11/6/2019 at 4:46 PM, Ellusionz said:

Thanks. But I meant issues with the app, how well it works. Some posts have said they didn't have problems. Others said there would be hours between when it was sent to when it was received.

We used it on the Magic this past summer (2019). It worked well. The Hub App crashes every so often, but loaded right back up. Also, in order to get messages, you have to have the app open on your phone. If you shut the app down, you loose connection to the chat feature.

[longhorn2004]

My wife called Carnival and was given two different answers about Onboard Chat.

 

Is it $5 per person per day or $5  per person for whole trip?

 

Thank you in advance.

[stellarose]

5 dollars per person for the week. so my family of four on the pride paid 20 bucks. 

[dmdiver]

We've used the chat feature a few times.  Seems like we had issues receiving texts the first couple of times, but I know I was closing the app.  Now that I know, I leave the app open & have no problems.  When traveling with people that may not be with you all the time, the chat feature is great when you're trying to find each other.  The $5 is per device for the entire week.  So, I only had the chat because even if hubby & I weren't together, he was with someone in our group that had it.  The hub app is free.  You download it prior to sailing and you can use it as a countdown.  Once you are on board, you can see menus, get your photos, see the entertainment options, when things open & close.  It's very useful.

[TonyinMD]

No problem for us on Horizon.  Just be sure to keep app open.

 

When it was recently rolled out when we cruised on Victory,  wifi reception was flaky but we made it work.  Last year on Liberty was good as well.

Edited November 13, 2019 by TonyinMD

[Chris64]

Just got off the Legend.  Chat was totally worthless in my opinion. Much too sporadic. Had to keep resetting app and WiFi. Usually didn't get messages until hours later.