How to keep in touch onboard

[GeneD]

I see that there is an itunes application ( i concierge?) for the Epic that allows a person to use their phone/pad /touch free through the on board wifi system so that a person can make reservations, book excursions, etc and keep in touch with other people once on board.

We will be on the Dawn in May and I was wondering how to keep in touch with other family members when some of us may be in one part of the ship and others in other parts. Has anyone tried walkie talkies or is there another way that you found to do so?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Gene

[WaldosPepper]

I am so looking forward to iConcierge being available on all the NCL ships. What a remarkable tool for so many uses, especially for keeping in touch onboard.

 

Last summer there was a very heated thread regarding the use of walkie talkies - actually, it seems one of those threads appears pretty much every summer, and always gets heated. The reason being, walkie talkies have a tendency to work sporadically, which means the user trying to be heard assumes they need to yell loudly for the other party to hear them. Consequently, everyone around gets blasted by the yeller, or blasted by the walkie talkie at the other end. Generally you'll find that many people frown upon the use of these devices, because they are very disruptive to the relaxing atmosphere.

 

What we find works for us is to either give a short list of places we might be found onboard each day, or leave sticky notes in the stateroom. Usually by the second day we've all figured out what the "favorite spots" are for everyone in the travel party, and after that it gets much easier to locate one another.

 

Hopefully some others will chime in with ideas that have worked for them.

 

Happy Cruising! :)

[GeneD]

I'm not a big fan of walkie talkies only using them for keeping track of two cars traveling together. The iconcierge sounds like a plan until I found out that it is used only on the Epic. Probably the newer ships like the Breakaway will have it. Too bad the Dawn didn't get it when they referbished it. Anyway there will be 6 of us and we should be ok with preplanned meetups. My 92 year old Mom may have a problem walking from one end to the other so we will have to make it convenient for her.

[luddite]

Waklie Talkies are pretty good at line-of-sight on the ship. Using semaphor flags would also work in that case.

 

The ship ain't really all that big. Figuring where people are isn't all that hard. Notes or conversations mentioning plans are always a good method of finding out where people will be. The room phone has voice-mail.

 

One of the nice things about being on a cruise is not being exposed to so many halves of a conversation like happens all too often ashore.

[lgfromdg]

I wish that you could pick up your cabin voice mail from a house phone - would make it a lot easier to keep in touch.

[travelingfools]

I wish that you could pick up your cabin voice mail from a house phone - would make it a lot easier to keep in touch.

 

That would be great! Never even thought about it.

[Tiger55]

Where ever the day's 2for1 drink specials are seem like an ideal meeting spot, lots of the time the have popcorn and finger food so it's kid friendly:D

 

The i Concierge is a cool app, but I forgot how much they charge you when you get on board to actual use it.

[Richpontone]

You need really expensive ones to penetrate the metal walls of ships and they are obnoxious to other passengers, when you are forced to yell into one to be heard by the caller on the other walkie talkie.Also, it makes you look like an idiot. Also, it is a hassle to carry one when you are going throughout the ship. You will need to hold one in your hand constantly in case you are being contacted.

Try writing on stick up notes and leave them on your cabin door. Also agree upon a common area to meet in the ship when you get lost. Besides spending a lot of money for them, when you end the cruise, what are you are going to do with them. They become useless.

[shelly11]

You can call cabins for free from your cabin phone. It has voice mail too, but I didn't try it. We used walkie talkies with our teens, but not a lot. Just to touch base on where they were.

[kcdancerkc]

Post it notes inside cabin for each other =

 

or way high up on cabin door for others in your group so little kids won't tear them down when they play in the hallway!