walky talkies

[firefighter15]

I want to use them to stay in contact with my party on the ship if we get separated or do different things. Has anyone had any luck with a particular brand, do they go thru the ship ok?

 

Or use the i concierge app just as reliable?

[roger001]

Walkie talkies are a complex discussion...and somewhat controversial. This is a good one to first try a search on. There are many discussions on them. No real conclusive answers though.

[cmdchiefthom]

My son used them with his kids aboard the Sun with us last April, and they seemed to work just fine. We also used them between cars when we drove down to Tampa for boarding. As I recall, they were Cobra brand.;)

[firefighter15]

Thanks guys i would give one to my kids when thry are at the pool or arcade if i needed to reach them, not just to "talk" only when i need them. Ill search

[Starflyr3]

We tried it once on the Ecstasy when our oldest DD was about 14. All the channels were full of people trying to shout over each other. It was a huge pain and didnt actually work in the end. Perhaps fewer people bring them now, but it was a waste of time for us.

[Sizzlechest]

Tried them on two cruises and they are unreliable and annoying to everyone. If you are on a ship that supports the iconcierge app, use it. It's worth the cost.

[bambione]

We just got back from the Getaway and used the IConcierage app to text back and forth. It worked great, had no problems communicating. It was a little confusing at first setting up everyone's special phone numbers to use, but after that it's really easy. Well worth the money.

[luddite]

They'll work line-of-sight.

Mostly, they'll annoy.

[wilmingtech]

We used them on our first cruise on freedom of the seas.

 

We own an older (10 years old) and higher end Cobra Radio Walkie (30 mile, although after 1 mile the clarity quickly fades) with extra features including privacy channels and marine monitoring and weather channels. (they were about 100$ for the pair when we bought them 10 years ago)

 

For the most part if we were on the same side of the ship and within 5-7 floors of each other they worked. If we were on opposite ends of the ship and one outside/one inside they wouldnt work. We were on the Freedom of the seas and from our room (7th floor all the way at the front) to the back (13th or 14th floor) outside sports deck...no go. But if I was in my room (7500) and the kids were anywhere in the Promenade then they worked fine.

 

It was nice to have and once we figured out where they worked best it was nice to have. You had to be purposeful in their use...meaning that if the kids were going to the kids club and your room was on the same side of the ship as the club...perfect. But if the kids were just going to wander then you never knew if they were going to work and it could be frustrating if you were relying on them.

 

They were great if you had to run to the bar to get drinks and wifey needed to add or change her drink order. Or if one of you ran to the buffet to grab some snacks. That aspect of it was good. But if you get a cheap walkie talkie (ours were high end of the cheap models) you will get mixed results. I think the best use was when we were in port where our cell phones did not have service. That was awesome. Wifey could shop all over the market and I could go bar hopping and she didnt have to worry about trying to find me.

 

We like to have them but after the novelty wore off we didnt really use them unless we specific about using them.

 

-Sean

 

One other thing...the ones we have do have an alert feature. You press the alert button and the other unit blinks and vibrates. So you could leave the volume down. Also - They have headset ports so you can use headphones. We didnt use the headphones but i cant see having a walkie talkie that you need to leave the volume up on all day. Thats annoying. Especially if there are others on the same channel.

Edited January 19, 2016 by wilmingtech

[jpcdds6]

Just use the NCL iconcierge app. Worked great for us last week on the Star.