POA1

The Navigator app for Android updated today. I can't tell what the miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements were though. The one thing that I know was broken - and still is - is some dining menus for upcoming cruises. It's a file location problem and not an app issue, so I guess we'll just need to wait until they get the files in a location available off ship. We're trying to see Nieuw Statendam menus. I know they can be seen on the ship because Colin is posting them in his "Live From" thread.

Sometimes it's easy to bring da noise, but much harder to bring da funk.

Be very concerned. You are limited to a 2.5 inch (63 mm) pocket knife blade. They are wielding 12-14 inch (22°C) knitting needles. The knife will come in handy if they try to knit you to a chair, but you'll need safety goggles so they don't poke your eye out. And whatever you do, do not comment on the "lovely scarf" they're making. They could be knitting what they call "a muffler." Offend them at your peril.

@Real NHDOC Are you talking about the Volendam & Zaandam? Or every ship that's not one of the three big Pinnacle Class ones? I ask, because we've heard great BB King bands on the Vista and Signature class ships. It's nice to have the 3 separate music areas, but I haven't found that it detracts from the experience if you don't.

Behold! The healing power of CruiseCritic... I hadn't really thought about all the implications that MAC randomization would have. There are quite a few instances where it can mess things up with network Layer 2 (L2) protocols. This is especially true where you have a wireless network with multiple access points - like on a ship, for instance. You've got devices presenting a different hardware address every time they move to a new access point (AP.) So, without you knowing it, your phone, tablet, or computer is flooding the MAC address / hardware address tables of the network. The same thing happens if you have devices that are trying to "talk to one another." What's happening is the equivalent of the "This device is not recognized" error you sometimes run into with two factor authentication. You have to supply additional credentials in order to connect. Multiply this by a few thousand users - because we "Have It All" -- and you've got yourself a full-blown, Class A, circle-jerking, clusterfark*. It's not the network's fault you've got a slew of devices acting like teenagers with a bunch of phony IDs. The blame lies with the operating system vendors. I'm sure there was some mention of this during a "What's new in iOS 14,"or the Android 10 changelog, but who the heck reads that stuff? Anyway... I'm glad to know that this has helped some people. (Did anyone have "CruiseCritic Networking Advice" on their 2024 bingo card?) * I used to use the less clean version of this phrase at work to describe projects that went sideways. It's impactful, yet humorous. Let's bring it back for 2024 — hard.

They changed it from Room to Lounge because the literal-minded stood the entire time. HAL had a press release about a week ago stating that BB King and Rolling Stone were continuing.

It's $11.80/pp/day when you factor in the service charge. Yes. It includes soda and canned water.

Thanks, @whogo Not having an Apple device upon which to test, I had to rely on some of the iOS tech support sites. DW used to have an iPhone, but she came over to the dark side a couple of years ago.

You're very welcome! The National Institute of Cheer is very focused on customer satisfaction. That's why we would have given you your money back if we couldn't help. 😁

Tell Debbie she's doing an excellent job enforcing the food photography rule.

You can't see Point of Americas I in that photo. Sky Harbor is in the foreground. That's where the webcam is. Point of Americas II is on the right. POA I is in between. Our pool is on the oceanfront. Point II's faces the Stranahan River, which is the name of the channel that you'll be taking from the port into the Atlantic Ocean. We have blue-tinted glass railings. "Point 2" has white steel railings. (The solid white balconies are ones whose hurricane shutters are closed.) It will look a little different because the pool at Point 2 is empty. (It's being refurbished. We all use the Point 1 pool, where you will often find upwards of 12 people at any given time.) The blue dot shows our relative position. Princess' terminal is closest to the bridge. HAL's terminals are off screen, to the left or south. You'll probably be in Terminal 26, which is where boarding was for the Volendam and @kazua

Hi, Rich. Brian from tech support here. Did turning off MAC randomization help with the login issue? If it did, we can close out your trouble ticket. If not, we will have to escalate to someone with a greater understanding of networking. Thanks!

I read an article about randomized MAC addresses being a big problem with certain ISPs, so I would not be surprised. A lot of large networks have issues with randomized addresses. In fact, if you search for how to turn it off, you'll find a lot of results from universities. I bet it's causing significantly more problems than people realize. After all, this is not a super obvious problem. It took me a day and a half to figure out what the issue was. (In fairness, I was not working on the issue full time, and I did upgrade my beverage package....) If turning off MAC randomization does, indeed, fix your mail issue, give yourself a pat on the back. That's some quality problem solving!

She would use your login and be fine.

The daily menus are 404 (HTTP code for not found) for me on the Nieuw Statendam. I know that's not the app's fault. It's a bad link. My guess - and it's only that - is that the URL being passed to the app works fine on the ship, but not externally. Otherwise, people on the ship would not see their menus.