twangster

Case in point - I'm about to do 15 nights on Radiance in an interior through the Panama Canal. My cruise was under $1,900 all in for 15 nights. An OV was over $3,300, balconies were over $4,500. I've spent about $600 on excursions and $240 on a 10 night dining package. I'm still ahead so I basically got free excursions, free dining, gratuity covered and I'm still under the cost of an OV. I'll bring a couple of hundred for cash tips and still be under the cost of an OV. I've done the canal before and I know I'll be all over the ship that day. Moving from the sides to the rear to the helipad and up top at times. Heck I may sit in a hot tub for part of it. If I had a balcony I wouldn't sit on my balcony the whole day, I'd be all over the ship. A cabin is a place to sleep, shower and shave. Having said that if an upgrade were $200 I'd make that investment but not for the amount they are charging.

I'm fine in an interior, especially Alaska. I would much rather put money into excursions. I've sailed Alaska 7 times, twice in interior cabins. The thousands I saved went into expensive excursions. Helicopters, trains and planes for example. I still remember those expereinces like they were yesterday. My cruises in balconies and suites haven't left a lot of memories that involve the cabins. Couldn't tell you much about those cabins but the excursions fill my memories. For $150 I'd upgrade to a balcony. For $1,000? Nope.

That works on wifi networks where you just enter a passphrase to join the SSID like most people have at home. In the case of ship and CocoCay WLANs the SSID is open (no security) but requires a captive portal to log into a Voom account. An Apple watch and an iPhone have different MAC addresses and Voom won't allow a second device with a different MAC address to connect to the internet based on an iPhone already being connected. In fact Voom won't asscoiate a watch with a particular phone, they are different wifi devices from Voom's persepctive. The watch can connect to the WiFi but it won't have access to the internet and the lack of internet access renders the connection useless. The work around posted above by spoofing a MAC address on another device is an interesting work around that appears like it should work.

This class isn't expected to be updated in a measurable way. As required to continue operating these ships will dry dock for routine maritime maintenance below the waterline. While in the shipyard they will repair things like broken windows, tile floors, carpet, leaky pools, etc. It's unlikely cabins will be updated. It's also unlikely they will receive new venues or features. With around 40% of the internal volume compared to new ships there just isn't the real estate to do much in guest spaces. What they are today is likely what they will be in 2024.

Has something changed? Published Date: February 21, 2023 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209071 Find compatible Wi-Fi networks Your Apple Watch can connect to a Wi-Fi network: If your iPhone, while connected to your watch with Bluetooth, has connected to the network before. If the Wi-Fi network is 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz (or 5GHz if you have Apple Watch Series 6 or later). Your Apple Watch won't connect to public networks that require logins, subscriptions, or profiles. These networks, called captive networks, can include free and pay networks in places like businesses, schools, dorms, apartments, hotels, and stores. When your Apple Watch connects to a compatible Wi-Fi network instead of your iPhone connection, the Wi-Fi icon appears in the Control Center.

Anyone else who does IT can probably relate.... https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/spacex-starlink-outage-caused-by-expired-ground-station-certificates/

It was that long ago people were questioning newly amped Voyager class ships into the short FL market. What? Are they crazy? Then they went FR class into short FL. Then they went OA class into short FL. For Royal? Any ship goes.

Symphony (Oasis class) never tenders. As far as docked ports this is subject to local clearance being granted by the authorities but it can be anywhere from 10 or 15 minutes before the published arrival or 10-15 minutes after. Sometimes they hold passenger traffic on a pier if another arriving vessel is about to thrown their lines to the pier as a safety precaution for example.

No need, just start using TikTok.

Bank of Nova Scotia is Canadian. This loan was their part of the debt they accumulated during the pandemic to stay afloat and it lists virtually every ship in the RCG fleet. That's different from the financing used to do the initial new ship build. Most ships are single LLCs. This is used across the shipping industry, not just cruise ships. It limits liability when major accidents occur.

MSC World class is heading to Miami once the new terminal is built. Miami is where MSC is focusing their efforts to conquer America.

Somewhat related article with John Murray, CEO of Port Canaveral. He talks about ships plugging into shore power and some of the challenges with that particularly for PCN. Then he mentions the idea of plugging in an LNG ship into shore power and why that concept is strange since Florida's grid is only ~75% gas. So, we have 2 LNG ships out of our 13 at Port Canaveral. We will have another one coming in '25 that's already known, Disney Wish. Two others are coming that aren't already known. But they'll be LNG powered too. Disney Wish and Mardi Gras are LNG powered. Two more are coming. One of those is probably another DCL new build that hasn't been named yet. Maybe both of the future LNG ships are DCL new builds but that would place all DCL new builds into PCN. Maybe one of the future LNG ships is from another line, like Royal. https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/a-conversation-john-murray-ceo-and-director-of-port-canaveral

Anthem doesn't need to fight a DCL ship. People who want a Disney experience will pay the 2 to 3 x factor for the Disney experience. No cruise ship in the world will stop someone who wants the Disney experience from booking DCL. DCL is specialty boutique cruise line operating in their own market.

I think Utopia was destined for China but they are rethinking that based on geopolitical factors. Royal knows if they send Utopia to Florida that guarantees a certain response. No matter when they announce such a deployment the market response it all but guaranteed. Consequently that is there fallback position. Meanwhile they can wait to see if geopolitics change. If a non US deployment was the plan there would be no reason not to announce that and commence taking bookings and using that much needed cash infusion. Icon is selling extremely well. If Utopia wasn't coming to the US why not announce it and get on with it? A Europe start would have minimal impact to Icon bookings. A Singapore deployment would have minimal impact to Icon bookings. They are waiting to see if there is any way to make China work. Beyond that anything is possible with Florida or Texas being the safety net. At the moment it's undecided. Or, they've decided and like Wonder they are scrambling to find a shipyard to modify her once they take delivery.

DCL doesn't compete with RCI. What DCL does has limited or no impact. Show of hands. How many gamblers sail DCL? Wait. Oh yeah. Right. New to cruise who are not Disney fans aren't going to be stolen by DCL in Singapore. Cruisers who want the Disney experience and have the money for it book DCL.

In my experience - no. She will be taken off the manifest so she is not on the cruise. This effectively stops her on board CAS perks.

On any cruise the "day two" strategy can help to reduce the cost of a Voom on board full voyage plan purchase using a CAS discount. This approach involves not doing anything on day one but using the CAS perk on day 2 or 3 (or later). Since most cruises depart at 4pm or so, most people will have cell coverage in port on day one. Then you go to dinner, go to a show, etc. Do you really need to be connected using Voom on night one? By waiting to exercise the CAS discount on day 2 or later can provide some internet for more of the cruise. The CAS discount for D and D+ is not a percentage, rather it's a fixed amount. You have a choice of getting a 24 hour pass OR the equivalent discount that equals the cost of a 24 hour pass that can be applied towards a full voyage plan purchased on board. Key concepts - 24 hour pass OR a discount, not both, plus on board purchase. The discount does not apply in advance. The full voyage plans drop in price based on the number of nights remaining in the cruise. On boarding day you have the full cruise length ahead of you so the on board plans are based on the full length of the cruise. On day two the full voyage plan drops in price since there is one less night in the remainder of the cruise. On day 3 the full voyage plans purchased on board drop in price again since there is another day gone. In other words the full voyage plans are prorated based on the number of nights remaining. The longer you wait to apply a D or D+ discount towards a full voyage plan the cheaper the full voyage plans becomes since there are fewer nights remaining. If you just want to use the D or D+ 24 hour passes that's fine. You are not required to purchase a full voyage plan. Waiting until day two or later still has merit. If you are smart using your free 24 hour passes you can start a free 24 hour pass mid-day. That starts the clock on your 24 hours. If you start the clock on day 2 at noon it works until day 3 at noon. This way you get some coverage on day 2 and some coverage for day 3. A cruising couple each gets CAS Voom discounts. A Diamond couple has one 24 hour pass each. If you share the 24 hour passes you effectively get two 24 hours passes. A D+ couple each get two 24 hours passes. That's four 24 hour passes if shared between both of you. Take turns logging in and logging out and share your passes, one user connected at a time.

I have 12,000 users in a campus environment all on a single VLAN. That is the current best practice for optimal roaming. It's called the Single VLAN design and it spans multiple floors and buildings in a campus environment. https://www.arubanetworks.com/resource/single-vlan-design-for-wireless-lan/ If you do it by floor you can expereince issues when clients associate to a different floor as they move around and you will create roaming issues. For example talking on a wifi call while walking around, going up stairs, into an open foyer where access points on multiple floors could be in play and so on. My users can stream video or play on a game conole as they walk between buildings and never drop a session. In an environment like this you don't want one per floor.

Correct - you get a free day OR a discount towards a Voom plan purchased onboard the ship.

The Royal app chat feature has been unpredictable for many. Sometimes you will get notifications right away and other times you will not get anything until you check manually. One theory is that a device operating system, ios or android for example, doesn't recognize that Royal is a chat app like the well known chat apps so when the app has been idled it's put to sleep to save battery. The Royal app doesn't know it's been put to sleep by the os. Another issue could manifest in the way that devices are constantly checking to see if they have an active connection to a cloud service. Apple devices check to see if they can reach iCloud for example, android tries to reach google, etc. If they can't reach their cloud they determine there is no internet so they disable some communication to save battery, only allowing communication to try every so often. If you have a paid Voom plan then notifications work better since your device is connected to the internet but that doesn't matter if the person you are trying to reach doesn't also have a paid Voom plan and their device is blocking the notification. If you both have a paid Voom plan then you can text normally and you don't need the chat in the Royal app. Catch 22. Whatever is causing it is somewhat irrelevant to us mere humans. The chat feature in the app doesn't appear to provide reliable notifications for many. Maybe they are doing this intentionally to motivate people to pay for Voom.

What WiFi rates has your device negotiated? How are you determining your LAN latency?

Those appear to be the capped speeds that some other ships use. Oasis has nearly the exact same speed caps. For some reason Royal has decided to throttle users on some ships but not others.

Too much latency to the default gateway or to a destination on the internet?

Royal places multiple systems on each and aggregates them. At least 8 on small ship like Radiance class and around 16 or so on larger ships like Oasis class. That way they are capable of much higher rates and if one particular antenna is blocked by the stacks or some other piece of superstructure, or if one system fails they have resiliency in addition to the aggregate bandwidth of many systems. Oasis class has some on top of Coastal Kitchen and some on top of the suite sun deck. Forward suite sun deck roof area, 2 on starboard, 2 on port side. Voyager class has around 10-12. Six on top of the VCL and then at least 4 on the forward roof area. Forward roof area, 2 on starboard, 2 on port side. Jewel has four on VCL roof Plus four on roof above the Sky Bar. What we don't know is what RCG negotiated for the bulk purchase of so many systems (All RCI plus Celebrity and SilverSea ships) or if they negotiated a bulk contract for the bandwidth. However if the private yacht service dropped from $5k to $1k you can bet Royal realized a price drop as well for their bulk contract.

Starlink website Feb. 22, 2023 suggested 350 Mbps @ $5k/mo. for the maritime service: Starlink website a few weeks later on March, 12 2023, 220 Mbps @ $1k/mo. for maritime service: Sure it's 38% slower but hey, the price went down $4,000 per month. Think of the money Royal is saving.