Connecting to other passengers Royal App

[PattyW]

We sail on allure Sunday March 24th. Our family is in three cabins. We’d like to text onboard. 

 

I’ve added the other reservation numbers, but the app only shows me connected to one person in each of the other two cabins.  

 

My teenage kids are in my cabin; they made accounts and can see our reservations, but I’m not connected to them. I’m also not connected to the other adults (Passenger 2) of the other two cabins. 

 

Does this update itself when we are onboard and connected to WiFi?  If not, how do I find the rest of our party?

[jean-lynd]

1 hour ago, PattyW said:

We sail on allure Sunday March 24th. Our family is in three cabins. We’d like to text onboard. 

 

I’ve added the other reservation numbers, but the app only shows me connected to one person in each of the other two cabins.  

 

My teenage kids are in my cabin; they made accounts and can see our reservations, but I’m not connected to them. I’m also not connected to the other adults (Passenger 2) of the other two cabins. 

 

Does this update itself when we are onboard and connected to WiFi?  If not, how do I find the rest of our party?

We had some problems getting everyone connected on the app. We ended up going to the app help desk on the ship and he was able to get all of our phones set up. The tech guy was very good. He was able to work on a couple of phones at the same time and kept the line pretty short. I hope this helps!

[gerif]

Posts like this never fail to make me laugh. People have been cruising long before there were cellphones, WiFi, apps and the like (and lets not even talk about bottled water). Discuss at dinner any plans for the next day. Maybe meet for breakfast. A simple “if you want to meet up for lunch, we’ll outside the dining room at 12:30, otherwise we’ll see you later.”  Pick a spot near the pool where you tend to hang out and have your teens check in at predetermined times. They can also leave post-it notes or voice messages in the cabin. It’s really not all that difficult. 

[PattyW]

57 minutes ago, gerif said:

Posts like this never fail to make me laugh. People have been cruising long before there were cellphones, WiFi, apps and the like (and lets not even talk about bottled water). Discuss at dinner any plans for the next day. Maybe meet for breakfast. A simple “if you want to meet up for lunch, we’ll outside the dining room at 12:30, otherwise we’ll see you later.”  Pick a spot near the pool where you tend to hang out and have your teens check in at predetermined times. They can also leave post-it notes or voice messages in the cabin. It’s really not all that difficult. 

That was super unhelpful, but thanks for taking the time to respond!  Happy cruising!

[hmmerr01]

I am very interested in the topic! We are cruising on the Symphony in June and are concerned about allowing some freedoms to our Tweens but want to know where they are  and when they 'arrive' to locations.  Can anyone else comment? I was unaware that the app had this feature?  Thank you for asking and for any helpful comments!

[Biker19]

4 minutes ago, hmmerr01 said:

 We are cruising on the Symphony in June and are concerned about allowing some freedoms to our Tweens but want to know where they are  and when they 'arrive' to locations.  Can anyone else comment? I was unaware that the app had this feature?  

As far as I know the RCI app doesn't have a tracking feature (at least to end user, maybe to ship staff) - it has a chat feature (not yet available on Symphony).

Edited March 19, 2019 by Biker19

[Waycoolrob]

Is the Chat feature available on Allure? 

[Biker19]

Yes. 

[PattyW]

Now I’m wondering if this more of a true “chat” vs “text” where you don’t text with an individual, you have a chat conversation among all connected reservation numbers. If that is the case, then I think I’m good because I’m connected to the first passenger name of each cabin. If everyone in each cabin can read all the messages in the chat and post in the chat, then that works. 

[Ourusualbeach]

38 minutes ago, PattyW said:

Now I’m wondering if this more of a true “chat” vs “text” where you don’t text with an individual, you have a chat conversation among all connected reservation numbers. If that is the case, then I think I’m good because I’m connected to the first passenger name of each cabin. If everyone in each cabin can read all the messages in the chat and post in the chat, then that works. 

The messages are to individuals not groups.  You can’t read other peoples messages.

[PattyW]

1 hour ago, Ourusualbeach said:

The messages are to individuals not groups.  You can’t read other peoples messages.

Darn it.  I guess if the connections don't appear when we are connected to ship wifi, we'll figure it out with some help onbard.

[PattyW]

Just to follow up - everything was fine on the ship.  Once onboard, you could search by name and invite everyone in your party (no matter their cabin) to chat. 

 

As far as the app goes - it is a great first step, but could use a few more features; most notably - an auditory or vibration alert that you have a message.  If you aren't looking at your phone all the time (and who is during a cruise), you don't know that people are trying to communicate with you.  The app developers were onboard Allure the week we sailed and we had a nice conversation with a couple of them while eating lunch at Park Cafe (they asked for, and we passed on, our thoughts on the app and they shared with us a new feature they are working on). 

[Bee Guy]

12 minutes ago, PattyW said:

 they shared with us a new feature they are working on). 

Please elaborate. 

[Mikew0805]

On 3/19/2019 at 7:20 AM, gerif said:

Posts like this never fail to make me laugh. People have been cruising long before there were cellphones, WiFi, apps and the like (and lets not even talk about bottled water). Discuss at dinner any plans for the next day. Maybe meet for breakfast. A simple “if you want to meet up for lunch, we’ll outside the dining room at 12:30, otherwise we’ll see you later.”  Pick a spot near the pool where you tend to hang out and have your teens check in at predetermined times. They can also leave post-it notes or voice messages in the cabin. It’s really not all that difficult. 

People like this? How about people like you? Stuck in the past, and wanting everyone to stay there with you? Listen, if you don't want a cell phone on a cruise then great... don't use one. Problem solved.  Oh and before you "laugh" at others, I hope you are "driving" to work, the store, and the pier in a horse drawn buggy. You know, because before cars everyone got along just fine. I could go on an on with this type of analogy. 

 

 

OP - Glad it worked out for you.. and what new feature are you referring to?

Edited April 3, 2019 by Mikew0805

[Akaicb]

1 hour ago, PattyW said:

Just to follow up - everything was fine on the ship.  Once onboard, you could search by name and invite everyone in your party (no matter their cabin) to chat. 

 

As far as the app goes - it is a great first step, but could use a few more features; most notably - an auditory or vibration alert that you have a message.  If you aren't looking at your phone all the time (and who is during a cruise), you don't know that people are trying to communicate with you.  The app developers were onboard Allure the week we sailed and we had a nice conversation with a couple of them while eating lunch at Park Cafe (they asked for, and we passed on, our thoughts on the app and they shared with us a new feature they are working on). 

Thanks for the followup, based on what you are saying it is a chat that you can setup with a number of people.  Kind of like WhatsApp I'm guessing.

[PattyW]

Just now, Akaicb said:

Thanks for the followup, based on what you are saying it is a chat that you can setup with a number of people.  Kind of like WhatsApp I'm guessing.

Unfortunately, you can't create a group text.  It's individual messages to individual people.  

[Akaicb]

2 minutes ago, PattyW said:

Unfortunately, you can't create a group text.  It's individual messages to individual people.  

Oh,  ok thanks for clarifying.  Still a great tool to use to communicate, rather than announcing to everyone  your plans on a white board on your cabin door.

[PattyW]

The new feature has nothing to do with the messaging system.  It's basically a user friendly search feature that searches the app for information.

 

For example - you can ask:  "When can I play trivia today" or "when does the Windjammer serve lunch" or "which days can I see Ocean Aria"  or "what time is All Aboard for San Juan" and the feature will search the app for the answer.  It doesn't provide any information not already contained in the app, it's just easier than clicking all around through the activities, etc for your answer.

[johnjen]

Might be a dumb question to some, but is use of the app and texting free?

[Clarea]

5 minutes ago, johnjen said:

Might be a dumb question to some, but is use of the app and texting free?

 

Yes, no charge.  Plus no internet package needed to use the app onboard.

[johnjen]

3 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Yes, no charge.  Plus no internet package needed to use the app onboard.

Thanks Bob. Perfect. And yes, we will not be getting the Internet package on this upcoming Med cruise; service was horrible in 2017 on Brilliance. I spent too much time waiting in line for help when I could have been....cruising! 

[Clarea]

8 minutes ago, johnjen said:

Thanks Bob. Perfect. And yes, we will not be getting the Internet package on this upcoming Med cruise; service was horrible in 2017 on Brilliance. I spent too much time waiting in line for help when I could have been....cruising! 

 

Just know that the texting feature has only been reported to work on Allure and Harmony so far.  Royal says they will be rolling out the texting to all ships at some point, but no schedule has been revealed.

[indy71]

We were a party of 10 in 5 cabins all in a row on Harmony. We tried using the chat feature, but the lack of notification for messages received made it useless to us, ie messages were not seen until hours after they were sent, etc. Also, the app didn’t work well at all for those in our group using Androids. They weren’t interested in spending time with a tech rep during the cruise to address the problems.

 

Soooo... we actually had a lot of fun with the white boards we put outside our cabin doors. The kids enjoyed drawing pictures on them. Even our cabin steward left us fun messages. Maybe it’s old school, but it worked quite well for us. 

[A2Mich]

On 3/19/2019 at 5:20 AM, gerif said:

Posts like this never fail to make me laugh. People have been cruising long before there were cellphones, WiFi, apps and the like (and lets not even talk about bottled water). Discuss at dinner any plans for the next day. Maybe meet for breakfast. A simple “if you want to meet up for lunch, we’ll outside the dining room at 12:30, otherwise we’ll see you later.”  Pick a spot near the pool where you tend to hang out and have your teens check in at predetermined times. They can also leave post-it notes or voice messages in the cabin. It’s really not all that difficult. 

True, but some people have grown up with 21st century technology and are wanting to use What they are used to.  They are free to do things the modern way, just as you are free to do things the low tech way.

[lcpagejr]

7 hours ago, A2Mich said:

True, but some people have grown up with 21st century technology and are wanting to use What they are used to.  They are free to do things the modern way, just as you are free to do things the low tech way.

Isn't a vacation to be able to drop everything and sit back and relax and take in the sights, sea air, etc?? I understand the post baby boomer generations are tech savy...but seriously needing to chat onboard?? Put down the phone and give your fingers a rest for a week...LOL