rudeney

Go for it! I think I'll do a day 1 weigh-in, too - great idea!

I have a Google Wear OS watch with cellular, but like you, I found no value in paying $10 (actually closer to $15 with fees and taxes and fees) just so it would work when it wasn't near my phone (or not on a wifi network). I I bought the watch outright - not on installments - so I kept it. I just dropped the service plan and turned off mobile data. i just checked and it does have an option for data roaming (which is off with mobile data off), so it may still worth checking for watch users. I'd hate to incur a bunch of data roaming charges because I walked out of without either the watch or phone so that their Bluetooth signal is out of range and the watch starts using mobile data.

My wife was almost denied boarding a DCL cruise many years ago. I had a passport as I traveled for my job, but it was her first time cruising and she had no passport, so she used her BC and DL. Her maiden name on her BC did not match her married name on her DL and we didn't even consider that she should bring our marriage certificate. They had a port supervisor talk to her and they were about deny us boarding, but she showed her social security card (I have no idea why she had it with her) and here's where it gets weird. For some reason, when she changed her name officially with the social security office, she used her childhood middle name as her married middle name instead of her maiden last name. But that's the only place she uses it. Everything else is her maiden last name as her middle name - including on her birth certificate. That supervisor said that seeing the matching DOB on the DL and BC, plus all four names among three pieces of ID was good enough. I am not sure if that was an official thing, or if the supervisor just decided to clear us because we seemed to be truthful and harmless.

This brings up a good point. I know the OP said her watch does not have cellular capabilities, but for those who do, you probably want to shut that off while on the ship to avoid potential roaming charges.

Most newer phones and mainstream service providers support wifi calling. If you have that feature and pay for Voom, you can use it on the ship. Just make sure that if you haven't already done so, enable wifi calling while in your home service area and test it. You might not be able to activate it when roaming or on wifi. If that works for you, then on the ship, put your phone in airplane mode, then switch wifi and wifi calling on, and your all set. You don't need "stream' for this - "surf" would work just fine. Note that Voom Internet service relies on satellite signals, so clouds and other obstructions can affect speeds. Also the wifi access points on the ship can be spotty. Since incoming contact is important, you might want to have the hospital text you if they need you. Texts seem to go through more reliably than calls when Internet service is low/spotty. And as mentioned, when in port, if your plan covers international roaming, you can switch airplane mode off to use your phone as normal.

I lost over 70lbs on a low glycemic diet and kept it off for over 12 years, but unfortunately, the last few years I have not been so good and I've put some of it back on. I will sometimes buckle down and lose, but it's just tough as I get older (both the weight loss and the will). Anyhow, I've always done fairly well on cruises because of the wonderful selection of foods. For me, I load up on breakfast proteins and skip the pastries, fruit and juices. I avoid the breads, pasta, potatoes, corn and carrots at lunch and dinner. I also avoid anything with sauces. The great thing about cruise ship dining is that they will cater to your needs and bring you extra portions of the foods you want to eat. Just pass on the desserts - they aren't that good anyhow and look better than they taste (really!). Watch out for the "sugar free" desserts (except the ice cream) because they are still full of refined flour, so that's no good. Of course sugary sodas and most fancy coffee drinks are off limits. If you drink alcohol, just know what is good and bad. Avoid the cocktails and beers as those are loaded with sugar. Simple mixed like bourbon or Scotch with water/club is a good choice, or choose diet soda mixers. They don't have diet tonic water, though, so if you want a gin drink, go for a martini. Red wines are a good choice, white and rose not so much, and champagne is a no-no. I find it easier to stick to a low-glycemic diet on a cruise than at home and I often lose a few pounds.

That's a good point. In those cases, a birth certificate could not be used to cruise. Those passengers would require a passport because they don't have US- issued birth certificates. This all just solidifies my advice for people to get a passport. I know many people will argue that it's a hassle or that they won't cruise very often, etc. but it sure prevents issues like this.

😮 Seal?!? Besides being ingrained with horrific images of poachers bludgeoning baby seal, they just don't sound very tasty. I understand the overpopulation and ethical hunting because we have the same issue here with dear. I love to watch them - they are all over the nature preserve behind our house, but too many and not enough food is an issue.

Yep - I drink gin and diet tonic water. Sometimes I just drink straight diet tonic water. I've been doing this for so long that I can't stand the taste of "regular" tonic in my gin - the sweetness of the sugar overpowers the flavors of the gin.

That's is true, and the dropdown defaults to USA. Maybe they need to change the option it the dropdown to "United States (lower 48 + AK + HI)." And in this case, I think the OP's wife lives in the "mainland" USA so it might have been even more confusing. My thought was just to leverage technology to try to let people know that they may need some extra details for their cruise. I am sure this is not the first time this has happened and it won't be the last. Just giving the OP the benefit of the doubt...maybe his wife has been out of PR for so long that she had no clue this was an issue. I'm not for PR nor do I have any close friends from there, but I had never heard of this issue until this thread. Search for info about it, I found this: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/puerto-rico-birth-certificate-crisis-invalidating-fix/story?id=10422841 It seems that it's a two-fold problem in that pre-2011 PR BC's were easy to fake, plus they used them for ID so it was easy to get valid certified copies to use for making fakes. It's unfortunate for all those people having to deal with this.

It was my wife who said that she was concerned. She's not a worrier, she just over-thinks things sometimes. And I would never, ever take advantage of that trait as a joke. No, never! 😜

Yeah, that's true, except they have a separate option for PR:

Make sure the table it updated, and make sure the Google Play Store app is also updated to the latest version.

So there goes my plans for eating a couple of Big Macs to sober up after a night out!

I agree. It really does not seem like it would be very difficult to do this. Country of citizenship must be entered during booking. At that time, it would be simple enough to present a screen explaining what is needed based on citizenship/ports with check marks to indicate which docs will be used. In this case, if the OP had checked "DL + BC" then it could have noted that the BC had to have been issued since 2011. For non-US citizens, it could prompt them to seek visas where needed. Of course this wouldn't be fool-proof because humans can always choose to ignore things, even scary big red "STOP" warnings. But at least it would be better than buried in the fine print.

It depends on the ship. For those that still use mag stripes, holes are fine (avoiding the stripe, of course). Those that have converted to RFID, they don't want you to punch a hole because you could punch into the chip. Honestly, I wish they'd either just make the cards with a hole, or print them with a marker indicating where it's safe to punch.

If you are going to answer the "symptoms" questions with absolute truth, you might as well go ahead and cancel the cruise now. COVID symptoms include fatigue, headache, muscle/body aches, sinus congestion, coughing, and sneezing. These are all things the average middle-aged to older person experience on a daily basis. If I were you, I'd take this as "my son tested negative, so he doesn't have COVID, so he's has no COVID symptoms, and I've not been around someone with COVID."

Yep! And they even adjust prices per ship based on sales. The DBP must not moving well on our Voyager sailing as they have kept it fairly low (well, low for these days) at $65. It's bumped up to $70 and $75, but it's been $65 more than any other price.

Yeah, I know. This was just my wife's thoughts. She tends to worry about things like that, whereas I don't give it a second thought. In fact, if someone actually did that - took my SeaPass card and charged on it, I'd just pay it. I mean, I figure they need it bad enough to risk it, then they must really need it.

That thought crossed my mind, but someone would have to be really dumb to do that. They have cameras at the cash registers and you'd get caught. Um, we have a suite 😮 (now I'm going to tell my wife that and she's really going to be worried! 🤣)

When I told my wife about this, her first thought was, "Someone else could take into our cabin!" 🤣

I would assume they go by the FDA's revised expiration dates (go to page two for the iHealth test): https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/home-otc-covid-19-diagnostic-tests

My wife and I are not Diamond yet (I think one cruise after this next one will do it), so no vouchers. We do book suites so with having the Suite Lounge happy hour and two bottles of carry-on wine, the DBP never really seemed like a good deal. The highest beverage bill for the two of us has been about 80% of the cost of the DBP for that cruise. I did decide to buy it for our next cruise @ $65. It's not really about the money, but the convenience. I can see us not spending as much time in the Suite Lounge on this trip, plus we may not bring on any wine (that will be a last-minute decision). I am sure with that, I will more than break even, but my wife may not. Then again, she does like juice and specialty coffees. We shall see.

One of the things we are doing with our rewrite is to involve customers. We have 5 of our customers, who are involved several times a week. We bring them into our design sessions to give us feedback. We have made many changes based on their input. We then have them do user acceptance testing once development of a particular component is completed. It's not going to be perfect, but it is going to be better than what we have and better because we involved end users. I wonder if RCCL does this? Or do they even do any beta testing? That would be something under the control of IT. Well, unless the line of business is pushing them to the point that they have no time for that.

I'm not a wannabe - I am an expert. I have worked in software development for over 40 years, doing everything from programming to managing and owning software companies. What RCCL IT does is not easy. While I joke about their issues, in reality I don't blame them. They are likely designing and implementing software as requested by the business. For example, I doubt IT decided to try to pack a four-page fine-print cruise planner and other documents into a 6-inch phone screen. They likely just did what they were told by the line of business managers and VPs. I think some things could have been better designed by IT, but again, they operate under the constraints placed by on them by the business. I'm in the middle of a ground-up rewrite of my company's software and it is very challenging. We spend hours fretting over simple look and feel items - where to place a checkbox, what icon to use, etc. Our software is not anywhere near the complexity as RCCL's. And on top of that, theirs is being used constantly by hundred of thousands of people in a live environment. I wonder how much of this is actually "RCCL's IT" as opposed to subcontractors. Even though my company writes software, we have subcontracted the rewrite. Most of that work is done overseas and there are often language barriers (both in spoken words and technical terms). Again, my team is software development experts so we know how all this works. I can't imagine the challenges of non-technical RCCL managers trying to communicate with some of these developers. And I'm not faulting you for your opinion - I'm just offering my viewpoint and experience. 🙂