Communicating with family while onboard

[John1519]

I will be on the Star Princess this June. I will have 3 staterooms for my family of 6 (2 people in each). My question is how do you communicate with each other? In have 2 adult kids with a 10 and 11 year old in each room. I am mostly concerned with the adult children. You know trying to meet up with them and such.

 

What have you done in the past? What's worked well?

 

Thanks

[Keith1010]

I would recommend having set times and locations to meet. You could also make do with messages on the room phones. The key is that when you establish times and locations to meet that everyone knows that you expect them to be there on time.

 

Keith

[Gunner22aa]

Have used them in the past. Stuck to another passangers door. Avoid the temptetation to use hand held FRS radios. They don't work well on the ship due to all of the steel and many fellow passangers find them anoying.

[paul929207]

Planning. You need to plan a time and place to meet up.

 

The alternative is for each person to have a cell phone and keep them turned on at all time. With most providers, each call costs $2.49 for the person placing the call and the same amount for the person receiving it if they are both on a ship at sea.

[crazymomof4]

I got some magnetic white boards from the dollar store and stuck one on each cabin door. We could leave messages on other doors, or on our own door like: At Trivia, come if you can, or more importantly: Napping, do not knock!

 

We also had some old cell phone walkie talkies. They didn't work everywhere, but they did a decent job.

[pinkfloyd4]

Before either cabin go out in the morning ,use cabin phone to make arrangments for the day

 

Dave

[PunkiC]

We once used walkie talkies when we traveled with cousin and his teenage son. They worked ok, but I agree that planning works.

 

Last year we cruised with our daughter and he girlfriend and just left messages on our cabin phones. We never had any issues.

[SusieS]

Does texting on iPhones work?

Thanks-Susie

[Gunner22aa]

It works but it is expensive. Check with your provider first. The bills can add up very fast and very large.

[FoghornLeghorn]

What works for the different groups I travel with....

we have a table for dinner each night together

sometimes we plan a breakfast or lunch together, too

 

We meet up something in the evening once we receive our daily newsletters....we all read through them and say the things we'd like to go to. We agree to meet up for Bingo, a slot tournament, a lecture, a class, etc.

 

We take the larger sticky notes and either leave notes on their door, or post on ours where we are.

 

Letting each group do their own thing and then coming together on things you agree on, works well. Sometimes we left phone messages. But, normally we just use the sticky notes (or you could use a small dry erase board IF someone doesn't take your pen)

[PescadoAmarillo]

We use the 2-way radios. They aren't perfect, but they're good enough.

[Desert Cruizers]

They also have the community Boards in the Centrum where you can leave messages, make sure everyone checks it each morning. We used it once to communicate our Roll Call Activities.

[chrysalis]

They also have the community Boards in the Centrum where you can leave messages, make sure everyone checks it each morning. We used it once to communicate our Roll Call Activities.

 

What is the "Centrum"?

[Treven]

What is the "Centrum"?

Or Piazza; the lobby area.

[Desert Cruizers]

The Centrum is the central area like the Atrium. Sorry, I just came from the RCL boards so was still using their descriptions. Princess has Atriums, RCL calles their the Centrum

[Pam in CA]

They also have the community Boards in the Centrum where you can leave messages, make sure everyone checks it each morning. We used it once to communicate our Roll Call Activities.

I've never seen a "Community Board" on Princess. Where in the Atrium is it located? I've seen boards on Plaza deck but those have always been for affinity groups.

[Desert Cruizers]

Pam, we haven't been on Princess since 2006 but the Community Board on RCCL's ROS was located to the right of Guest Relations just outside the centrum. I am going on the Coastal in Sept with friends and this will be the first time on the Star Princess. Our previous two cruises with Princess were in 2002 ( Sea Princess-- Mex Riviera) & 2006 ( Sun Princess -- 17 day Panama). We used the Community board on the ROS during our 15 day Hawaii for our activitie notices for time & place. I probably assumed Princess had them.

 

Gay

[WVBill]

We have free global roaming on our Verizon plan and used texting with our traveling companions. 27 texts = $5.85

[Colo Cruiser]

Pam, we haven't been on Princess since 2006 but the Community Board on RCCL's ROS was located to the right of Guest Relations just outside the centrum. I am going on the Coastal in Sept with friends and this will be the first time on the Star Princess. Our previous two cruises with Princess were in 2002 ( Sea Princess-- Mex Riviera) & 2006 ( Sun Princess -- 17 day Panama). We used the Community board on the ROS during our 15 day Hawaii for our activitie notices for time & place. I probably assumed Princess had them.

 

Gay

 

Have never seen a community board on Princess.

[Colo Cruiser]

To the OP, we leave a notepad/pen on our mailbox by the cabin door. :)

[Cruisin' Chick]

We left notes for each other on the cabin door (if you have a strong magnet, this can hold the note). Since it was just three of us, and we were in the same cabin, we also left notes on the notepad we kept on the desk.

 

I did see some passengers using the phones around on the ship to call others. There's voice mail on the in-cabin phones so you can use that.

 

Our girl knew when we were planning to eat dinner so if she wanted to come with us, she would be back at the cabin early enough to change for dinner.

[Thrak]

We have free global roaming on our Verizon plan and used texting with our traveling companions. 27 texts = $5.85

 

Free global roaming? Must be a much better plan than mine! We just turned our phones OFF when on the ship. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh....... We've only cruised twice and both times our son had his own cabin (he paid for it). It really wan't much of a problem to coordinate. We could use the cabin phones or just agree to meet somewhere.

 

My son was mostly to be found in the same part of the ship anyway - the stupid smoking area. He hung out reading a lot during the day. At night we went to bed but he went up to Skywalkers and partied. His bar bill was over $1k. (Of course maybe $100 of that was drinks he bought for ME.)

[Desert Cruizers]

Colo Cruiser It has been 7 years since I was on Princess and at the time never knew about them, but thought Princess might have something similiar. As earlier mentioned, another good way is to go over the patter the night before and talk about your plans for that day and a meeting area. After Day 1 I generally will find DH's favorite watering hole and can usually find him.:D If he doesn't find me by the pool, then he figures I am walking around looking for him and we know to hang around Guest Relations.

[alaskagirl2010]

We tried phone messages on the Crown last month and the messages arrived late and sometimes the next day. Don't know why.

[Colo Cruiser]

Colo Cruiser It has been 7 years since I was on Princess and at the time never knew about them, but thought Princess might have something similiar. As earlier mentioned, another good way is to go over the patter the night before and talk about your plans for that day and a meeting area. After Day 1 I generally will find DH's favorite watering hole and can usually find him.:D If he doesn't find me by the pool, then he figures I am walking around looking for him and we know to hang around Guest Relations.

 

 

We find leaving notes works good for us.

Sometimes we end up missing each other if we start trying to figure where each other will be. :eek: