Are walkie talkies still a thing?

[a3593]

It's been several years since I've been on a Carnival ship. SOO excited to be back on CCL this summer!  Last time I was on one, we all stayed in touch with walkie talkies with mixed success.  I thought I saw somewhere that now you can communicate free via the Carnival app.  Is this the case?  If not, how do you guys stay in touch with your party?

[jerseygirlinAZ]

I think it's $5 for you to be able to message back and forth to others during your cruise through the hub.  We used it on our three-day cruise on the Radiance earlier this month and it worked well. 

[elcuchio24]

Use the messenger app. Super easy. 

[csm5986142]

Yes, it's $5 per person, and we had good luck with it as well.  It's not as good as regular texting (some ppl complain that the notifications don't work, etc.) but it's certainly better than the old post-it notes we used to use. 🙂

We have been on several cruises since this past summer, and every time I have seen people at guest services requesting their $5 back because they are so unhappy with the chat feature, so maybe some ships are better than others.

[MistyRo76]

6 minutes ago, a3593 said:

It's been several years since I've been on a Carnival ship. SOO excited to be back on CCL this summer!  Last time I was on one, we all stayed in touch with walkie talkies with mixed success.  I thought I saw somewhere that now you can communicate free via the Carnival app.  Is this the case?  If not, how do you guys stay in touch with your party?

As another posted mentioned, you can download the Carnival Hub app for free. There is a lot of free content on it once you board the ship (menus, funtimes, your Pixels photos, etc.). For a $5 per device fee, you can also access the chat feature of the Hub App. One of the great things about the chat feature is that it will link you to everyone who is booked with you (as long as your cabin bookings are linked together). Then you can send individual or group chats. I will say that it works just okay. It was pretty common for someone to all of a sudden get dropped from our group chat. Or messages would come through randomly - for example, someone in our group sent a message to our group chat - my sister and I were sitting next to each other and she got the message and I didn't get it until about an hour later. 

 

Another option would be to get the social media wi-fi package and use FB messenger or What's App to send messages. That would cost more money and I'm not sure how much better the service is going to be but my friends that have used that package seem to be able to send messages pretty easily. Going this route will also allow you to stay in touch with people back home. 

[letstrythisplace]

I admit $5 isn't a lot but MSC had this feature for free when I was onboard. It also wasn't the greatest with notifications you usually needed to have the app open to be alerted that you had a new message, not sure if that is also the case with Carnival's app, if so just practice checking the app every once and a while.

[knagl]

47 minutes ago, letstrythisplace said:

I admit $5 isn't a lot but MSC had this feature for free when I was onboard.

 

...and Princess has it for free, and probably other cruise lines, too. Yes, it's a bit nickel-and-dimey, but it's $5 one time per phone. We've found it to be well worth it.

[n6uqqq]

walkie talkies are still a thing.....................to avoid at all costs 😉 

[PhotoMike]

If you have an iPhone, and purchase the "social media" internet package, chances are that iMessage will work for you. At least that's been my experience for the last 3 Carnival cruises.

[crazyank]

9 hours ago, n6uqqq said:

walkie talkies are still a thing.....................to avoid at all costs 😉 

That's for sure!

[sflinch]

Unless you have an elderly mother wondering the ship, that does not own a cell phone.

 

Yes, I will be using a walkie talkie, to communicate with her on the ship.

Edited March 30, 2022 by sflinch
abbreviation

[crazyank]

15 hours ago, sflinch said:

Unless you have an elderly mother wondering the ship, that does not own a cell phone.

 

Yes, I will be using a walkie talkie, to communicate with her on the ship.

then make sure you keep the volume down and don't disturb other guests.  I can't begin to count the number of times we have heard  "are you there? say again?  I can't hear you!" at full volume

[Schoifmom]

19 hours ago, sflinch said:

Unless you have an elderly mother wondering the ship, that does not own a cell phone.

 

Yes, I will be using a walkie talkie, to communicate with her on the ship.

 

Alternatively, you can provide her with an old cell phone (maybe one you already have or can buy very inexpensively, probably for less than the cost of the walkies).  As long as it can connect to wifi, you can set it up for her to use on the ship.

[mdin]

As others mentioned, messenger is $5. That said, I saw a kid walking around the ship with a walkie-talkie last week.

[CrzRani]

On 3/29/2022 at 2:57 PM, letstrythisplace said:

 It also wasn't the greatest with notifications you usually needed to have the app open to be alerted that you had a new message, not sure if that is also the case with Carnival's app, if so just practice checking the app every once and a while.

Why is this?  I have the same issue too.  Even with notifications on, it still only is visible if I physically open the chat in Hub.

[letstrythisplace]

13 minutes ago, CrzRani said:

Why is this?  I have the same issue too.  Even with notifications on, it still only is visible if I physically open the chat in Hub.

 

I didn't figure out why at the time but google tells me we might need to go into settings for the app and enable background data but I don't want to have my data on so maybe that's the reason it's not notifying us when it's closed.

[sflinch]

5 hours ago, Schoifmom said:

 

Alternatively, you can provide her with an old cell phone (maybe one you already have or can buy very inexpensively, probably for less than the cost of the walkies).  As long as it can connect to wifi, you can set it up for her to use on the ship.

Getting her to press the correct, 1 button on a walkie talkie will be challenging enough. She will turn 81 on the ship, and not tech savvy at all....and I already own walkie talkies. 

 

 

[Victory Bound]

We were on the Horizon last week.  My husband & I and my sister, her husband and kids.  We used the chat feature on the app.  Since our reservations were linked, we could easily set up individual texts and group texts.  For the most part it worked very well.  I think the only time it was a little glitchy was when we would switch devices.  (iPad to iPhone)  My sister and I were switching using both devices and there were times when I would have to close the app and then open it back it.  Once we figured that out, we could use the feature without a problem.  I would recommend it.