Moonarino

Typical. As mentioned before trying to cancel a Princess cruise, at least two of the numbers I tried took me to the same cue, with outlandish wait times. Utterly frustrating.

The specifics of your complaint were a lot more about phone service than the website (in fact nothing specific at all about that). I'll say, as I've said before, Celebrity's web services are actually a bit better than Royal or Carnival overall. As @PTC DAWG said, try calling at a different time of day, as well as on a different day. On that note I'll add that when I went out today for a "quick" trip (haha) to Wallyworld, for some very strange reason it seemed more like peak Saturday shopping hours than a Thursday mid-afternoon. Crazy doesn't even cover it. I have no idea what was going on. Maybe solar flares or something. (Not to make light of your complaint, I do thoroughly understand.) Edit to add: FYI, it took me weeks of calling Princess (3 diferent numbers) to get a cruise cancelled. Just sayin'.

Pre-existing conditions coverage varies depending on the company. It typically ranges from 10-21 days after you made the first payment. I would advise an hour or so of shopping. Two sites I use are squaremouth.com and insuremytrip.com. First you enter cruise info (including your first payment date) and then you can browse a list of policies, and compare 3-4 at a time side by side. Others of course will offer additional advice here, and there's a broker you can call that is very popular on these boards. I don't have that exact info, but I guarantee somebody will give you that info eventually. If not I can probably find it with a little research. Or search CC. Insurance info abounds in this forum.

Not sure how you can get around, but be warned there are numerous ups and downs in San Juan. One of the forts (I think the one PORT ROYAL points out) is at the top of a long upward grade. I was 60-something when we made that walk and managed ok, but I used to play basketball etc. Just keep this in mind for yourself and whoever else might be walking with you. It's flat near the cruise port, but don't let that fool you. Edit to add: Would be great if they bring the trolleys back by the time you cruise. We did use that at least once in the 3-4 times we've visited.

Just off the cruise ship there's a small strip of town dead ahead (a long east-west point), some good souvenir shopping mixed in there. We've walked from one end of that point to the other. Found some nice cafes hidden in some of the streets we walked, like one where we got some great Greek baklava ice cream. On one end of that point are a couple of nice "castillos" (forts) that are nice to see, right on the shoreline, plus some pleasant scenery along the Paseo de los presidentes, the Capitol area, etc. It's pretty along there. But just to the left off the ship, usually there are (or used to be) some smallish tour buses and taxis so you can go south into the main part of the city. Last time we were there we got a 2-hour bus tour (with a couple of stops) for $10-15, can't remember exactly how much. But I think there used to be "city" buses that you could hop on and hop off. Expect it to be hot, especially on narrow streets where some of the best shopping might be. As others have implied, San Juan is really one of the best walking ports we've been to. And yes, safe and clean. Edit to add: I might've skewed the directions a little bit. But if you have any kind of a map it isn't too hard to figure out San Juan proper.

I'm also interested in recommendations (or not) for this one. Booked on Silhouette Nov 7 10-day cruise.

I remember the day of the first Space Shuttle launch. I was living a little more than 15 miles south of the launch pad. That weekend morning I felt the launch (the vibration woke me up from 15 miles away) before I ran outside to scope it visually. The Space Shuttle was built from a plan that originated in the mid-1960s, and of course that plan also had decades of engineering history behind it. Some people argue about the cost, how all that money was spent one way instead of another. But it was all that money that got us in the position today of providing for the needs (and wants) of a population of 7 billion people on planet earth . . . soon to be 8 billion. And counting. We need all the knowledge and engineering we can get, more and more. Among many other aspects of all the technology we've grown into, communication can save lives, almost anywhere in the world. This is one part of progress that I will never, ever argue with or question in the slightest.

Maybe an upgrade? (Dontcha love 'em.) Either the phone or the app possibly. Chrome (the desktop version anyway) is sneaky about upgrading, I never know when one has happened. I don't use it myself but I "manage" my lady's laptop.

It might be something in the settings of your Chrome browser. My lady's Chrome is usually the easiest to get up and going when we travel. Check the Security or Privacy settings as compared to other browsers you might have on hand. (Edit to add) I just caught that it was Chrome on your iPhone. Unfortunately phone browsers never offer as much in the way of settings as computer browsers do, so there may not be anything to find or change. Android has a neat little "magic" deal buried in the code (part of the built-in web stuff) that usually makes it easy to connect to just about anything. (Almost too easy I might say.)

Gotta say a quick thanks for that. My laptop has "too much" security which usually blocks things like hotel and cruise ship start pages. I'm sure knowing the exact url to type in will help considerably. . . . as long as they don't decide to change it before my November cruise. 😐

Gotcha. It just opened up another whole deal for contemplation.

I would guess in most people. It takes a fairly intelligent person to recognize what's behind all the "red herrings" of everything-autism. I've had a couple of friends with at least borderline Aspergers, and their brainpower was off the chain. My daughter is possibly that, but coupled with a reading comprehension disorder that caused her major problems in high school. But her on-the-fly math skills were incredible.

One thing to consider is whether cruise ships will upgrade the "local area network" to take advantage of a larger pipe. "Local" meaning the numerous (presumably dozens of) WiFi Access Points that thousands of us will have to connect to (plus some number of wired connections around the ship), and then pass data through -- and then the switches and router(s) that process all the traffic to and from the Access Points, and simultaneously to and from the "big pipe in the sky" (satellite feed). Passing gigabits of data per second, for just one connection, is a HUGE thing. In fact "HUGE" doesn't even begin to cover it. In fact even for a techie like me I am utterly amazed, even flabbergasted, that it all actually works. But bring it on Elon, I'm "wired" and ready to go.

Actually my first exposure to "Satcom" was in 1973. There was a group of those techies down the hall from my crypto shop. I confess I had to look up GEODSS . . . deep-space surveillance. My turn for "wow". I can only imagine. Your later comment about image size relating to data transmission needs is right on point. For slightly (tongue-in-cheek) less-demanding general commercial applications, I'll throw streaming 4K video (not to mention video calling) into the conversation, times a billion or two. Cruise lines offer "standard" and "streaming" WiFi packages, for a reason. Streaming uses a whole heckuva lot more bandwidth that email, an online news page or social networking on average.

Yep, just like it has for most of a generation. It's amazing, overwhelming to think about. We want all 21st-century life's goodies but complain about what it takes to put the goodies in place. Colorado. Lowry AFB was where I learned my first big lesson about satellites (and "satcom"), sometime around 1979.