serialcruiser48

I've got about 100 cruise nights on Rhapsody and it's a great ship. Also, the perks from RCL are far better than Carnival.

I've got 250 cruise nights with NCL and can tell you RCL is far and away better. First the larger ships have more options for entertainment (bigger budget) and the loyalty perks (I.e. Diamond Club with free drinks 3.5 hrs night) are the best in the industry. No other cruise line has the Diamond Club perk unless you can afford the $1,000 per night "Haven".

Forgot to mention. I have the Master Chief collection (Halo 1-4) downloaded on my Xbox. Make sure you set it up to work offline (local) before leaving home or a wifi connection will be required. Game disc's should be fine offline (no wifi required). If games trys to auto update, that's going to suck the bandwidth dry so turn updates off. Lastly, I have the Xbox S (40% smaller and NO power brick).

Serialcruiser48, I thought that I would send a shout out and ask about your O3b experience on the remainder of your cruise. Did it continue to work well? Did you try YouTube or Netflix? TIA

 

BTW: I told my son about you bringing your system on board. He thought that was a great idea and I could see the wheels turning in his head. I reminded him that there would be 3 of us in 177 square feet of space. Sorry, not this trip.

:)

I was in a cabin on deck 3 and had poor connection. The drop out rate was 20%. I went around the ship testing the ping and forward on deck 5 was 0%, or no dropouts. They are still using the old distribution system, but was told will upgrade to Cisco and that will help. Dropout rate was typically 2% or very little degradation. What I would recommend is bring an iPad since he has to share space with others.

Connecting the Xbox to the ships wifi worked great the first time I connected. But, subsequent logins were more difficult as it would be with most devices. The browser has to have auto redirect from the ships DNS in order for the login page to show up; make sure he/you are tech savvy.

That reminds me, I forgot the ships not on this list Rhohan mentioned.

Empress

Mariner

And he said the Adventure is next, possibly in Sep.

I'm still not 100% sure about Enchantment and Indy.

I spoke with Rhohan, a three strip IT manager currently on the Liberty with me who turned up our O3b said he also turned up the Enchantment and Indy.

I was just talking with a man in the Diamond Club who is making Pinnacle on the Granduer his next cruise. He said he has sailed the ship multiple times and it's his favorite ship. Given his review it's now on my radar.

When you get 340 cruise points, you get 150% prices and you still get double points. So you can make Diamond with just 6 7 day cruises. As a Diamond, you get free drinks from 5-830 PM every night plus specialty coffee 24/7.

Anthem

Quantum

Oasis

Allure

Freedom

Ovation

Harmony

Symphony

Enchantment

Majesty

Independence

Liberty (Yes!)

if it's not O3b it's Gloom☹️

Unless it happened very recently Empress does not have O3B. I've not heard about Mariner but we have very few reports from her about anything never mind VOOM. Good to hear that they are proceeding with upgrades on other ships. I wonder why the pause between Freedom over a year ago and Liberty/now?

I was told the equipment typically used for O3b would not work on the Liberty in Galveston last year when they tested O3b implementation. Upgrades were needed for O3b in Galveston which it now has. This is only day 1 of my 1st O3b cruise on the Liberty and will be tested throughout the cruise.

Now, if they could just fix the suite lounge door, Liberty would be all set!

I'm on the Liberty now and the Suite Lounge has a card reader which was installed on my Jun 25th cruise and opens the door for you. Important for those who have a cart or a walker.

As per Rohan, a 3 stripe IT manager currently on the Liberty; who turns up O3b told me the Enchantment, Empress, Majesty and Mariner has O3b. He also said Adventure is up next for O3b, maybe in September.

If it's not O3b you have the misfortune of paying for Voom, but instead receiving GLOOM :(

LOL

 

Thank you for the update. Screen time withdrawl symptoms from my teens scares me.;p I may just get the package after all.

Thought it was time to post something about Xbox and cruising. I was worried about getting my monitor and Xbox through security. Brought them in my carry-on and no problems. The fold up table was in checked luggage.

It would be fantastic if the Liberty included Labadee in it's itinerary to replace Falmouth.

^ hope you are ready for comments about the efficacy of bringing/playing Xbox on a cruise.

No problem since I'm single. Lots a cabin space for the 20" monitor, fold up table and Xbox.

World of Tanks for Xbox one finally works on the Liberty with the newly implemented O3b wifi service. Edge popped right asking to login in when I connected to "royal-wifi". It may take a few minutes to work, but it will eventually.

O3b wifi went live Jul 2.

Wonder why the ping rates are >300 ms? Should be ~=250ms.

As I was leaving the Liberty Jun 18th I ran into Rohan (IT Mgr) and he said he will have something for me to test when I return Jun 25th. I'm taking my Surface Pro 4, IPad Pro (has a network analyzer) and Xbox with me to see if World of Tanks will work. I'll find out then when it's suppose to go live for the customer, but weeks ago I was told Jul 9th.

Do we have a updated list of ships that have recently been added to the O3B list? I confirmed that the Liberty had it installed last week. I'm wondering about the Vision.

 

D

I was on the Liberty when they installed two 03b antennas on Jun 11th. I spoke to the it manager (Rhohan) and he said he will have something for me to test on the 25th. I'm back again on Jul 9th and it should be live by then.

Nope. It's not clogged. The last time I reported the problem they sent a supervisor and he said that's the way it's suppose to be. Meaning they will not replace the restricter with an aireator.

I've reported this the maintenance 4 times and still I have the same water restricter on the sink fawcet. I always ask for the aireator so it's the same as home. But the water comes out so slow it takes an extra long time to wash my hands which I do often. Really aggravating!

I use Witopia for VPN. Last time I was on the Summit, VPN service was blocked.

Witopia.net

For those who may take this out of context. April fools!