photopro2

I made some notes on our trip in February 2023, so hope these might help you. We obviously paid for our excursions in pounds, but that will give you an idea of the dollar amount.

We had visited Old San Juan and the forts previously, but would recommend taking a look at these on day two if you’ve not seen them before. However, our itinerary was as follows

Day 1 San Juan

Arrival in San Juan evening walk into town.

Day 2 San Juan

Made our own arrangements. Walk past government buildings to Palm lined beach at Balneario del Escambrón

Day 3 Tortola

AM walk round the bay to British governor’s old residence.

PM Tortola Scenic Tour & Beach INCLUDED This was a good included tour with an informational ride across the island, followed by an hour or so at a beach club with loungers, and one included drink as I recall.

Day 4 St Kitts

Historic Basseterre & Fairview Great House INCLUDED Reasonable included tour, Busy in the house at times and we visited the garden first. Then went back into the house once the crowd had gone through.

Day 5 St. Lucia

St. Lucia Panorama INCLUDED mostly a drive-by coach tour but the Stony Hill Estate visit at the end was lovely – wish we had longer there.

Day 6 Barbados

Made our own arrangements. Walked into the old town, and then a couple of hours at Brownes Beach, which was nice.

Day 7 Dominica

Rainforest Waterfalls & Beachside OPTIONAL £69 per person

Nice excursion. Swam in the pool under the waterfall and had a good amount of time (and lunch) on the secluded and picturesque beach. 

Day 8 Antigua

Amazing Antigua INCLUDED Maybe an hour at Nelsons dockyard and a couple of high points for overviews of the island, not a bad included tour overall.

Day 9 St. Thomas 

AM St. John National Park Champagne Catamaran Sail OPTIONAL £84 Per Person. Loved this excursion. We left the ship fairly early in the morning and were the first boat to arrive at the deserted beach, so those of us from Viking had it all to ourselves for the first 20 minutes. Then had time for swimming and sunning ourselves before returning to the ship. 

PM Secret Scenic Island Tour & Mountain Top INCLUDED Stopped at a couple of high points to view the island. The longer stop at the top was at a large touristy shopping area, not to our taste but okay for the view.

Day 10 America’s Cup 12-Meter Regatta OPTIONAL £92 Per Person. This was one of the best excursions we have ever done. Sailing those fast boats across the blue ocean is a completely unique experience and one we will always remember. 

Day 11 leave ship and fly home

27 minutes ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

Weird regulations usually have an origin story. I wonder what incident prompted this one?

I was thinking the same thing, I wonder if one of our Canadian readers have an explanation?

On 8/31/2023 at 1:04 AM, Clay Clayton said:

All we ever saw were "sample"'menus

Same for me, I've never seen chef's table menus on linked to specific dates on

MVJ

13 hours ago, longterm said:

I circled the logo, and also the awful flaw at the bottom. Deleted the app... again... 🙂

I now see what you mean and understand why you binned it.

12 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

Seems like a low quality startup operation.

And yet cruise critic have been promoting them via banners and emails.......

8 hours ago, dd57 said:

It is clear that the apple app and the android app are 2 completely different things.

That certainly seems to be the case. One of the criticisms of the Apple app is the number of adverts that appear. I don't normally see adverts using the app on my android mobile but I always do when using the browser on my MacBook. see screenshots.

3 hours ago, longterm said:

When you quit the app on the iPhone, and then return, it doesn't put you back in the forum, but back on the front of the app, where it's nothing but a barrage of ads. Perhaps it works better on Android

I can certainly understand that that would be annoying.

When I close and reopen my android version of the app it does return to wherever I was when I closed it - on a board or even in a particular post, so I am not normally seeing the ads that you saw. In my experience the general performance of the android version is better too, as you suggest might be the case, hence my preferring it to the browser site.

What is really puzzling me though is why, on one hand, Cruisecritic sent out emails promoting the app and, on the other hand, they are saying that it doesn't exist when asked about it????

Does anyone have the text of the emails that Cruisecritic sent that they could post to this thread by any chance?

17 hours ago, dd57 said:

The response is that there is not an app,

It is really strange that you got that you got that answer from someone at cruise critic saying that there is no app when this thread was started by people because they had received an email from cruise critic to say that there was an app???

To quote from Alice's adventures in Wonderland: Curiouser & Curiouser......

Enjoying your report so far and looking forward to your impressions of the ship. You should be boarding anytime now ,,,,, 🙂

14 hours ago, dd57 said:

I suspect that the reason that the "app" appears snappier is that the instance of the browser is using less memory.

That makes some sense and I am using Chrome.

The "app" is not just a conventional shortcut to the browser though 

You will see from the screenshot that I have a shortcut BA lounges which I know launches in Chrome. That shortcut includes the Chrome logo. The item on my desktop for the cruise critic "App" is different and has a a logo which looks just like all my other apps. I also have an app in my apps folder called "Cruise Critic" Creating a shortcut does not create an item in the app folder.

This does beg the question if the "app" is exactly the same as creating a shortcut why have cruise critic or whoever put it out there?

We have left the tour part way round in several cities and made our own way back to the ship. Obviously you need to make sure that the guide is aware that you are leaving the group so no one spends time looking for you!

In Valencia we took the shuttle bus provided free by Viking from the ship to Pont dels Serrans (a bridge leading into one of the gateways into the old town) and did our own exploration of the city starting there.

2 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

You're right I think.  I'm using an 🍏 but are (as you know) in the USA.

And I am on 🤖 in the UK. Reminds me of the quote about us being two countries divided by a common language 🙂

10 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

Hmmm, my screen looks different than yours, I don't have the drop down.

That's a pity. I thought I had a helpful answer for you😞

I think we are bumping into issues where the app works differently depending on the operating system. There may be also differences depending on the country we are logging in from.

All I can say is that it is working well for me - hence my more frequent posts 😁👍

9 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

On the other hand, if other people using this app is a money maker for Cruise Critic, then I am not going complain (as long as using the app is not mandatory)

I totally agree with you and you will see from my comments above that I, for one, am very pleased with it 🙂

20 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

I've downloaded it but it doesn't seem to have all the features of the online version-like being able to see "my activities".  

That function is still in the app, you can get to using the drop down list on the upper part of the cruise critics section of the app. To the right of where it says "Cruise Critic Community"

14 hours ago, dd57 said:

On my tablet it is faster than using my browser

I find the same on my Android phone.

15 hours ago, dd57 said:

I downloaded the app when prompted while I was using Chrome browser on my Android tablet (in the US).  It looks just like it does when using a browser.  It took me straight to the forums when I opened it. When I check the app in Settings, it says it was downloaded from Google Play Store.

This was my experience exactly. I think the link from the cruise critic site opens the app in the forums section. The link in this thread I think goes to the homepage which has mainly adverts.

I didn't know what everyone was talking about at first when they said that it was purely a 3rd party marketing tool because I had not seen that section of the app. Now that I have explored I have found my way back to the home page which is, indeed, full of advertisements for cruises.

However by scrolling down into the cruise critic section of the home page there is a link saying something like "go to forums" and once I have clicked on that the app looks just like the cruise critic site. 

It comes back to the same section when I close and reopen the app which is why I had never seen all that marketing stuff before.

Like you I'm using an Android device and maybe we are getting a better experience and those with Apple products?

36 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

It is just using an in-app browser.

Thanks for your responses - I love to learn.

It seems likely that the difference in our experiences stems from the fact that we're using different operating systems. Would you agree?

I'm interested to know if there's any way that I can check if my version of the app is working via the browser as you suggest, or is pulling data directly from the software as the old app did? If it were pulling data directly then that might explain the snappier feeling I get from using the app rather than the browser.

15 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

Since what it takes you to is the web it just adds another layer.

I don't believe that is true. The app accesses the data in the same way your browser does, directly from cruise critic via the cloud, so is not adding another layer. In my experience apps can sometimes handle specific data in a more efficient way than an all-purpose browser.

15 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

This app does not display in landscape.

That may be a limitation of the iPhone or, much more likely, something on your personal settings. The app does display larger type in landscape on my Android device.

15 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

I also have several shortcuts on my homepage besides to the community forums page to my custom streams.

They will continue to work as before but may open in the app rather than on your browser. Either way there is no disadvantage in using the app from that point of view. 

14 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

Surprised there has been no announcement.

I think I may have stumbled across a banner link that had been put up early in error. It almost makes me wonder if my inquiries on the boards forced management's hand into starting to send out the email announcement sooner than they planned.

Glad the link worked for you. I am generally pleased with the app as it seems a little "snappier" than the browser experience.

On 8/25/2023 at 4:08 PM, photopro2 said:

The next thing to do is to find a cruise critic admin contact so I can ask what is going on....

And the answer is.......

It seems that I really do have an app as I always thought 😁 and it is brand new which is why I had not heard about it and could not find anything on the web.

Apparently cruise critic have just started sending out emails to announce it.

My guess is that I stumbled across a banner link on the UK website that may have been put up early in error.

I understand that this is a link but have not tested it

http://click.email.cruisecritic.com/?qs=b8774010bf9cd1355d8011a5857d086070291bab880b4dcbec5f95910390f5eb2503cff043b03950b68124aa09d4d8d13fcd605c27b064c4abd2a2c954e10940

It seems that I really do have an app as I always thought 😁

Apparently cruise critic have just started sending out emails to announce it.

I understand that this is a link but have not tested it

http://click.email.cruisecritic.com/?qs=b8774010bf9cd1355d8011a5857d086070291bab880b4dcbec5f95910390f5eb2503cff043b03950b68124aa09d4d8d13fcd605c27b064c4abd2a2c954e10940

It seems what I have really is an app and cruise critic have just started emailing information about it to users. 

I understand that this is a link but have not tested it

http://click.email.cruisecritic.com/?qs=b8774010bf9cd1355d8011a5857d086070291bab880b4dcbec5f95910390f5eb2503cff043b03950b68124aa09d4d8d13fcd605c27b064c4abd2a2c954e10940

Thank goodness this is now public!

I stumbled across the app through a banner link that briefly appeared on the cruise critic UK website and installed it a few days ago. My guess is that the link was put up early in error. (Sorry @janetcbl I have no way of getting back to it)

Then I couldn't understand why I couldn't find any reference to it online. When I tried asking about the app on other threads I was told what I had was not really an app when I was perfectly sure that it was!!!

It is great to discover that it does exist and is not just a figment of my imagination 🤪

1 hour ago, Squawkman said:

So if anyone downloads the app, try sending me a message to see if this works

That feature is currently marked as disabled on my version, maybe this is because I'm in the UK.

On 6/22/2023 at 8:12 PM, broberts said:

If you don't see Add to home screen, there is an app for the page so select Install app.

I think your comment explains something that I've been puzzling over.

Last week I saw a banner on the cruise critic UK website which said "install cruise critic app." which I clicked and went through the install process. Sure enough the outcome was that I got what appears to be a cruise critic app in my apps folder and the app icon on my home screen. By the way I am using Android.

I was surprised that I could not find reference to a cruise critic app in the Google play store.

What confused me was that the "install app" process you mentioned does what it said and created an app in my app folder which behaves exactly as I would expect a cruise critic app to behave. This is very different to putting a simple link on my home screen which I've done before for other sites.

I now understand that I am linking to the web-based forums even though, from my point of view, it looks exactly like I am using an app. 

So two questions:

1 Have I understood this correctly?

2 If I have understood, then the "install app" function you describe allows people to easily have an app style experience of the forums. I was lucky to happen to see the banner on the UK site but I wonder why this simple link is not more widely publicised.

14 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

That is a link to the Cruise Critic forums web page. It is not a real app. See post #8 by broberts on the topic

Thanks to your help I think I am getting to the bottom of what happened.

I knew that I hadn't installed a simple link to the site on my homepage.  I have done that for other sites and the link icon for those includes a small chrome logo which the cruise critic "app" icon does not.

So looking again at the post by @broberts I noticed that they add at the end: "If you don't see Add to home screen, there is an app for the page so select Install app. That fits much better with my experience and I'm sure now that I've linked to the site from my home screen using that alternative "install app" process. 

I'll see if I can get a bit more clarification by posting to that thread.

Sorry to disagree with you, but it really is an app. Please see the attached screenshot from my settings.