duncantuna

On 3/5/2023 at 7:21 PM, RedDivers said:

Yes it would- I called RC and the Crown and Anchor person dug into it for me - saying it does in fact only allow you to get the 10% discount offered to the adults to the child.  They said they have had a TON of complaints about the wording - it says "access" and not "discount" but the dot is in the Gold column!  So, too bad for us - Looks like the best option to stay in contact with the kids when they are in a program is walkie talkies.    FYI - doesn't look like Apple Watch (even an independent stand-alone watch) can use the RC app for communications.

I came here for this exact answer.  Thanks for putting the issue to rest with official information!

.. The last few cruises with my kids .. I just bought one device, connected my phone, then turned on the hotspot, which easily broadcast into the connecting room.    Yeah, they had to be with me to use the internet, but wasn't a big problem.

It's funny to look at the Crown/Anchor perks .. I've spent 7 weeks on their ships over the years, and the perks are meaningless to me.  A few bucks off dry cleaning or coffee?  Whoopdidoo.

We got off the Navigator a couple weeks ago, 5 day cruise. Our family of 4 had a great trip, in total.

Sure, there were some annoyances: The Windjammer is pure chaos during peak hours, breakfast and lunch. Highly recommend the Main Dining Room for breakfast. There was usually a line to get in, but it was under 5 minutes.

And perhaps common to cruise lines .. the pool water temperature was freezing cold, so my kids wouldn't go in it, which was unfortunate.

On the plus side, we stayed in a grand suite room, and that was quite nice. We did not get a drink package, but had access to the suite (concierge) lounge where they had a complimentary bar. We'd pop by there before dinner, have a drink, mingle with the other suite dwellers, then get a glass of wine to take to dinner. That's a huge perk. I'd forgotten cash the first night, so on the 2nd, tipped the bartender $20 .. from then on, the drinks were huge pours.

The Navigator's ship, service, and food were generally good.

I would reply to these bandwidth numbers .. our cruise last week, we had the Stream package ..

On the first day or so, being the network guy I am, I ran speed tests and got about 3 megs down, 1 up.

On days 3-4-5, the speed was down to about 150k, with it being a little higher in the morning. Clearly, as people added more and more devices to the network, the speeds plummeted.

That being said, my kids were able to watch Youtube videos as they downgrade and buffer.

In short, it was bad, but usually doable. There were plenty of times it was unusable, though.

On our 5 cruises, I'd say we befriended two groups, was OK with one, and the others were nothing special.

Our cruise last week, the 4-some at our table rarely showed, and we found an awesome family of 4 we'd have loved to swap with, but couldn't pull the trigger.

I would be interested in the %age of people who want to be seated with others. Personally, I very much enjoy being with another group of people. No doubt, they need to be a good match, but .. I imagine the desire to share a meal with others is very much in line with whether you are extroverted or introverted.

It's a crapshoot for cruise lines to match people up. I do wonder if any cruise line has solved the riddle through some sort of "dining table friends" survey matcher.