Live Review Advice Needed

[amyhphoto]

I will be on the Oasis Aug 06 with my 2 young daughters. I'm loving reading all of the live reviews. I think I may have time to attempt a live review. 1) Any tips on what the easiest app to use is? One that allows me to easily add pictures? 2) I only have VOOM for one device and was thinking of using it on my ipad and leaving it in my room to stop me from being on my phone all day checking email and facebook but if I take photos on my phone Ill have no way of getting them on the live review. Any suggestions? Im not super high tech. 3) Any other advice on making a decent live review is welcome. Thanks!

[Clarea]

Have you tried either Tapatalk or the Forums app? These make it very easy to post photos in your Cruise Critic posts.

[Biker19]

Spend time with your daughters - don't worry too much about a live review.

[PCWalton1]

Being a person that does the live reports I would agree with Biker. Enjoy the time with your kids,. Trust me, it will consume a lot of time and that would not be fair to your kids. My wife Marie is "tolerant" with my posting but has made a comment not and then as to what my priorities are. :o

[Hoopster95]

Great advice above... especially Bill's (PCWalton) & Biker's! I tried Forums app for the first time on my last sailing and it worked extremely well. Be careful that if it becomes time consuming, cumbersome, you don't feel like keeping up no one will hold you to it here on this forum. Maybe think about finishing off with a post cruise review perhaps. My post cruise reviews take a couple of hours per port (uploading photos, explaining/typing narrative, etc) so be prepared to spend some many hours doing a full review over and above a simpler one.

Have a great cruise :D

[amyhphoto]

Thank you for your advice regarding spending time with my children, I plan on it. They're little and will need to be in bed early and I will be stuck alone in my cabin so I was thinking of possibly using the live review as my evening entertainment. I do a vacation alone with them every year and enjoy every minute of it.

[easyboy]

Will be following your review. Enjoy your cruise with your daughters!

 

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Forums mobile app

[BearClaw28]

I recently did a sort of live review of the Allure. I started live but by mid week I started getting behind. I finished it a week after I got home. While it is time consuming, it gives you a great memento that you can look back on to remember your cruise. Here are some bits of advice:

 

Tapatalk is a great app to help you with your review. It's very easy to add photos. I did most of my review with my phone since all my photos were on there. But be aware that you can only add 6 photos per post. And the app will refresh itself after a break in use. So if you start a post, I would finish it and post it. It happened to me once where I started a lengthy post with multiple photos and then left it for a moment. When I returned to it, the app had refreshed and I lost the post that I had started.

 

As others said, first and foremost, enjoy the cruise and the time with your family. If you'll be in your cabin early as the kids sleep, it will leave you time to go back on your day and post your live review.

 

Take lots of pics. Even if you don't use them all in your review, you can use them to help you remember what you did when you find time to post. Plus it's always nice to have lots of pics to look back on.

 

Enjoy your cruise and good luck with your review.

[PCWalton1]

Thank you for your advice regarding spending time with my children, I plan on it. They're little and will need to be in bed early and I will be stuck alone in my cabin so I was thinking of possibly using the live review as my evening entertainment. I do a vacation alone with them every year and enjoy every minute of it.

 

Be careful, it is addictive. :D

Look forward to your report.

[cb at sea]

Please don't interrupt your vacation to give "live" reports! You will find that an "after the cruise" review does the job just as nicely...and you still get to have fun and not have to take a picture of a menu, or find out what color the lounger pads are.....live reviews are more like work than vacation fun!

[mdaviswv]

I've been feeling the same way as OP. Never have done it, and always thought people were crazy for doing that during their cruise. However, the last couple months I have been obsessed with tagging along with those willing to share glimpses of their vacation. I definitely agree you can't let it adversely affect the cruise though. The Forums app is wonderful. I've been on CC for like 15yrs, but have been more active recently since I discovered the app. It seems to me as though it wouldn't be so bad to share photos and notes on my observations from time to time. But we'll see, I wish I would have experimented with my last cruise since it was our 5th time on the ship and we were very familiar with everything. Next cruise is Oasis and we'll be absolutely clueless. But that's ok. Might mess around with it, might not. Either way amyhphoto, if you follow through, I'm sure I'll be following along with you!

 

Sent from my LG-UK495 using Forums mobile app

[Rubyfisch]

I mostly used Tapatalk for mine. I tend to journal when I travel, so I found it soothing at night to summarize the goings on (I was traveling with my parents).

[whitshel]

I also like Tapatalk, inserting photos is a breeze.

[PCWalton1]

While doing a live report during a cruise I use the Tapatalk app on my phone for almost all my postings/pictures just for the convenience and mobility. I even use the app for posting most of the pictures I take with my Nikon. I have a WiFi SD card in my Nikon and download all the pictures from my Nikon to my phone. Puts all my pictures on one platform for uploading. :)

[pharaoh]

Adding photos using Tapatalk is the easiest, that's the app I would suggest for a live review.

 

As for Voom, if you buy it for one device, you can still switch between devices, as long as only one device is connected at a time. So you could still do your review from your phone easily. Or if you have an iPhone and iPad, you can easily airdrop your photos from your phone to your iPad and then post the photos from there!

 

Enjoy your cruise, I'll be on the look out for your live review. And do check out our RC Periscopers group if you're interested in trying your hand at live streaming. :) http://rcperiscopers.live

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cstimmons]

I'm on oasis right now and started doing one on day 1 and said screw it. I don't wanna to be typing all week. Oasis is a huge ship and theres so much to do. I'm only typing this right now because I'm waiting on my last friend to be ready for dinner. 7:59 pm lol.

 

Also you can switch devices, you just can't be logged into 2 at the same time if you have the one device plan.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[Sascol]

Spend time with your daughters - don't worry too much about a live review.

 

This.

[amyhphoto]

This.

 

 

 

I'm not sure how you missed it but I have explained that I was planning on doing this at night after they go to bed. The kids are little and need to get good sleep. So please stop telling me to spend time with my kids. It's insulting. I didn't spend over 4K to sit on my phone and ignore my kids. I spent over 4K to sit on my balcony with a glass of wine and a cigar after they get put to sleep and post some pics from my day.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mdaviswv]

I'm not sure how you missed it but I have explained that I was planning on doing this at night after they go to bed. The kids are little and need to get good sleep. So please stop telling me to spend time with my kids. It's insulting. I didn't spend over 4K to sit on my phone and ignore my kids. I spent over 4K to sit on my balcony with a glass of wine and a cigar after they get put to sleep and post some pics from my day.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Amen to that. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do!

 

 

Mike

Bridgeport, WV

[jll583]

Enjoy your trip! We will be heading on for the week as you depart!