Question for communication on board

[ajstaud]

We will be on the Alaskan cruise and I’m trying to figure out how my 12 year old can communicate to us as where he is if he leaves the tween area. He will be in 7th grade so I feel like he’s old enough to check him in and out of the club but I still want to keep tabs on him. I downloaded the cruise app on his phone but he’s not old enough to create an account. Do I just log him into my account? I don’t want him accidentally canceling excursions or something by him messing around in the app.

 

[cincystamper]

You don't need an account to use the app on board. Once you're at the port, he'll be to log in to the app using his name and stateroom number. That's what we did when I cruised with my elderly parents. I had downloaded the app for them at home and then at the port, I logged them in with just our room number. Worked great for them!

 

[Mommb]

As cincystamper described, the DCL app works completely differently before the cruise (when it requires a Disney account) and onboard the cruise (when it is available for all passengers). You may need to grant access for your son the first time he uses the app while in the terminal or onboard, but then he will have access to texting within the app. The app will know he is a child so he shouldn’t be able to mess anything up on your reservation.

 

[ajstaud]

Awesome! Thank you!!

 

[ArielRae]

Just a note the lead guest on the reservation has to grant permission for your child to use the text feature. On our last cruise DH’s phone wouldn’t connect to the ships Wi-Fi for a while that first day. I tried to get DS set up with the texting on his phone but we had to wait until DH was up and running so he could click on his phone to grant permission. I couldn’t do anything with my phone to help grant permission. We went to guest services to try for help but was told we had to wait until DH was up and running on his phone.

 

[msmama]

Honestly, I've found what works best for us is leaving notes for one another on a dry erase board on the door. When he was younger, I'd give my son strict instructions about the places he can go (NEVER into someone else's room, and never let someone in our room). He's older now so pretty much can go where he wants, within reason but we still do the door messages. He doesn't like to carry his phone around so a lot of times if I message him to tell him where I am, he ends up going back to the room to check his phone anyway.

 

[CaliGrrl]

If you all have iPhones, iMessage also tends to work even when in airplane mode on the free DCL wifi. Some people report iMessage not working for them so good to have a back-up plan, but we have not had any issues on previous cruises.

 

[Travel60]

In my experience, the messaging isn't immediate. May be delayed by several minutes. Caused quite a disagreement between DH and I when trying to meet up on ship.

 

[squirk]

In my experience, the messaging isn't immediate. May be delayed by several minutes. Caused quite a disagreement between DH and I when trying to meet up on ship.

I second this. In my experience, the DCL app is wildly inconsistent with its message delivery time.

And unless they’ve made some changes lately, you have to keep the app “surfaced” at the top in order to get notified about an incoming message.

In other words, you can’t leave the DCL app running in the background while you use a different app (e.g., a game app, your Photos app), and still get message notifications.

 

[MichelleCanada]

We all had iPhones on our last two cruises so we used iMessage with our ds11. It was so much more reliable than the app. As others have mentioned the app can be quite delayed. In April we had a deal with our son that he had to have his phone unless he went to the pool. Then when he went to the room to change he would leave his phone so we knew where he was. After the pool he either had to be at Edge or come get his phone. We had zero problems finding him. We also used the app to family events so he got a notification from the app that an event was coming up. I really loved the independence it gave him on our last cruise.

 

[gatorlisa]

The Navigator app does not have push notification capability for messaging within the app. The only way to know you have a message is to open the app and check. If you have iPhones, text-only iMessages will go through when connected to WiFi. You can't send or receive any pictures or videos via iMessage through the WiFi, but text messages will come through just fine.

 

[squirk]

The Navigator app does not have push notification capability for messaging within the app. The only way to know you have a message is to open the app and check. If you have iPhones, text-only iMessages will go through when connected to WiFi. You can't send or receive any pictures or videos via iMessage through the WiFi, but text messages will come through just fine.

I found iMessage a little spotty, but agreed - LOADS better than the DCL app.

Just like @MichelleCanada, we used the app for everything but the messaging feature.

 

[Flossbolna]

Beware of relying totally on iMessage. For my husband’s phone it got deactivated at some point during the cruise. It was a pain to reactivate it again and he needed Internet access to do that. It appeared as if the DCL WiFi changed the settings in his phone. Both times it happened over night. Suddenly in the morning he was totally logged out of iMessage.

 

[Clarkson U]

We all had iPhones on our last two cruises so we used iMessage with our ds11. It was so much more reliable than the app. As others have mentioned the app can be quite delayed. In April we had a deal with our son that he had to have his phone unless he went to the pool. Then when he went to the room to change he would leave his phone so we knew where he was. After the pool he either had to be at Edge or come get his phone. We had zero problems finding him. We also used the app to family events so he got a notification from the app that an event was coming up. I really loved the independence it gave him on our last cruise.

When we heart events it only shows up for the person who ’d them. How do you get it to show up for everyone in your party and same stateroom even other adults?

 

[ArielRae]

When we heart events it only shows up for the person who ’d them. How do you get it to show up for everyone in your party and same stateroom even other adults?

Everyone has to heart their own events on their own phones. If you want everyone to have the same events hearted to get the notifications then you need to coordinate with each other to have like items hearted.

 

[randumb0]

WhatsApp also works best if one or all of the people in your group uses Android

 

[anricat]

Beware of relying totally on iMessage. For my husband’s phone it got deactivated at some point during the cruise. It was a pain to reactivate it again and he needed Internet access to do that. It appeared as if the DCL WiFi changed the settings in his phone. Both times it happened over night. Suddenly in the morning he was totally logged out of iMessage.

This has happened to me on two different cruises and I still can't figure out why. Then it happened to my daughter. Both times it took actually connecting to CELL service (not just wifi) to get everything sorted out again. There was actually a thread floating around awhile back about it, but nobody has seemed to determine any kind of rhyme or reason or how it happens. We have WhatsApp set up now as our backup since the DCL chat app is a bit buggy.

 

[Flossbolna]

This has happened to me on two different cruises and I still can't figure out why. Then it happened to my daughter. Both times it took actually connecting to CELL service (not just wifi) to get everything sorted out again. There was actually a thread floating around awhile back about it, but nobody has seemed to determine any kind of rhyme or reason or how it happens. We have WhatsApp set up now as our backup since the DCL chat app is a bit buggy.

We were in port in Europe with a European phone, so our internet was via cell service anyway. But it was bizarre.

 

[anricat]

We were in port in Europe with a European phone, so our internet was via cell service anyway. But it was bizarre.

Unfortunately, we were on a 9 night Southern Caribbean with no service. Finally we stopped in St. Thomas and since that's the US, we did have cell service and I was able to get it back online.

 

[sadiecatie]

I’m also team use iMessage if possible - we just got home from our Alaska sailing and iMessage worked great onboard. The messaging in the app was very spotty, often having messages be delayed quite a bit.