iMessage on Fantasy?

[Dug720]

Since iMessage seems to be more reliable than the messaging part of the DCL app, it makes sense to use iMessage while on board the Dream or Fantasy to contact family on board. We will be on the Dream in 2 weeks. Being able to use iMessage sounds very positive.

Again, as long as there is satellite connectivity. We were without it for around 24 hours on the 7/21 Dream (they were aware and trying to fix it, but they can only do so much) and nothing was able to work - not the app messaging, not app updating for the schedule, not ability to see your account, not iMessage. Nada. So it can happen that you have to use old fashioned leaving notes or actually conversing with each other.

 

[diznymom]

Is the iMessage working on the Wonder? Thanks

 

[squirk]

Since iMessage seems to be more reliable than the messaging part of the DCL app, it makes sense to use iMessage while on board the Dream or Fantasy to contact family on board. We will be on the Dream in 2 weeks. Being able to use iMessage sounds very positive.

Just speaking for myself (but I believe that there are many who would agree with me) - I use a cruise as an opportunity to “check out” from normal-life things. Unless there is a true emergency, I don’t want to receive iMessages from anyone shoreside.

I’ll use iMessage on the ship if it’s the only way to reliably receive messages from my wife and kids in a timely manner. But I’d sure love it if the DCL app’s chat feature worked like it should, so I could switch off iMessage and block all shoreside “noise”.

 

[MichelleCanada]

Is the iMessage working on the Wonder? Thanks

I phoned DCL this week to ask that question and then confirmed that it is

 

[hamm1207]

Yes. Airplane mode and WiFi with the DCL app. iMessages are in blue. Texts in green won’t send.

Thank you!

 

[seacruise]

Is the iMessage working on the Wonder? Thanks

Yep, we were on the 9 night to Alaska on the Wonder a couple weeks back and iMessage worked great (as did chat in the app). Used iMessage mostly to communicate with my daugher onboard about meetup times, etc. She had the DCL app as well, but just found iMessage more convenient for communication as that is what we are used to using. Kind of found the other app notifications coming in to be annoying while on the ship, but I assume that's just a function of using Apple's push notification servers for iMessage and probably not something they can control. On a side note there were several questions in the post cruise survey regarding iMessage.

 

[Plumberries]

I was on the Wonder July 22-29, 2019, and iMessage did not work at all. My family were all hopeful we could use iMessage as we are all iPhone users and I had been reading that iMessage had been made available for several recent itineraries.

However the messaging on the DCL app worked great for us. We got push notifications and whatever alert we normally used consistently enough to feel like it was a reliable service with no major difference between any other texting/chatting app.

Also our survey contained no questions regarding iMessage and only one or two questions regarding the DCL app as a whole (possibly including a question specifically on the messaging aspect, but I can't remember).

My only personal minor annoyance was figuring out when to switch from the DCL app to iMessage and back again as we weren't all necessarily onboard or in port at the same time. But when in port we had a decent range of the DCL app, and obviously if the ship is docked, we could use iMessage. (It wasn't an actual issue and I never voiced it so I have no idea if anyone else I was traveling with also experienced this annoyance, but no one else mentioned it either.)

 

[seacruise]

I was on the Wonder July 22-29, 2019, and iMessage did not work at all. My family were all hopeful we could use iMessage as we are all iPhone users and I had been reading that iMessage had been made available for several recent itineraries.

However the messaging on the DCL app worked great for us. We got push notifications and whatever alert we normally used consistently enough to feel like it was a reliable service with no major difference between any other texting/chatting app.

Also our survey contained no questions regarding iMessage and only one or two questions regarding the DCL app as a whole (possibly including a question specifically on the messaging aspect, but I can't remember).

My only personal minor annoyance was figuring out when to switch from the DCL app to iMessage and back again as we weren't all necessarily onboard or in port at the same time. But when in port we had a decent range of the DCL app, and obviously if the ship is docked, we could use iMessage. (It wasn't an actual issue and I never voiced it so I have no idea if anyone else I was traveling with also experienced this annoyance, but no one else mentioned it either.)

Hmm, interesting. Maybe they are just testing it on select weeks and we got lucky. Definately worked great for us. I just looked back at the screenshots I took of the post cruise survey and they had 6 separate iMessage questions. They wanted to know how we became aware of we could send and receive iMessage onboard, if we messaged people on and/or off the ship, did we receive app notifications, etc. I agree the the texting via the DCL app worked just as well. There were some delays receiving notifications at times of several minutes. I would get a notification that my kids checked out of the club after they were already back in the cabin.

 

[shafke]

iMessage did not work for any of us on the Fantasy for the 7/20 sailing. Although... after leaving Jamaica we did get a burst of messages/notifications from other apps including some gmail... this was on ship's WiFi/Airplaine mode.

 

[allashore]

I was on the Wonder July 22-29, 2019, and iMessage did not work at all. My family were all hopeful we could use iMessage as we are all iPhone users and I had been reading that iMessage had been made available for several recent itineraries.

However the messaging on the DCL app worked great for us. We got push notifications and whatever alert we normally used consistently enough to feel like it was a reliable service with no major difference between any other texting/chatting app.

Also our survey contained no questions regarding iMessage and only one or two questions regarding the DCL app as a whole (possibly including a question specifically on the messaging aspect, but I can't remember).

My only personal minor annoyance was figuring out when to switch from the DCL app to iMessage and back again as we weren't all necessarily onboard or in port at the same time. But when in port we had a decent range of the DCL app, and obviously if the ship is docked, we could use iMessage. (It wasn't an actual issue and I never voiced it so I have no idea if anyone else I was traveling with also experienced this annoyance, but no one else mentioned it either.)

we were on the same cruise, imessage worked most of the time for us on the ship, main exception was glacier days
we did a b2b and did not get a post cruise survey for either

 

[Plumberries]

we were on the same cruise, imessage worked most of the time for us on the ship, main exception was glacier days
we did a b2b and did not get a post cruise survey for either

Oh, my whole family tested iMessage the first day out of Vancouver, and then the first day at sea. An extremely small minority of iMessages would get through, but once or twice it would take over an hour. One or two iMessages were received within a reasonable time of being sent. And most messages were never received at all. By the time we got to the glacier day we stopped trying.

Incidentally we all have relatively new phones, as in the phones with the least capabilities I think were iPhone 8s, so I don't think our inability to use iMessage strictly through the DCL wifi had anything to do with the types of phones we were using. I do wonder if it's related to using Connect@Sea because only two of five phones in the party I traveled with ever did log into Connect@Sea and that did seem to be relevant to the phones with time automatically updating to ship time.

 

[Mom24Princesses]

So I could iMessage to people back home as well???

 

[allashore]

YES! iPhone to iPhone

 

[BRC6C]

We are recently off the Fantasy and had similar experiences to those above. Most of the time iMessaging worked well on the ship in airplane mode but there were times that messages didn't go through. Similarly the messages through the app went through most of the time. We got notifications on our iphones and my husband occasionally had some internet, was able to use google and update his twitter feed without using the paid wifi. No one else in our party was able to do that so we're not sure what was going on there....

 

[BCV23]

My only personal minor annoyance was figuring out when to switch from the DCL app to iMessage and back again as we weren't all necessarily onboard or in port at the same time. But when in port we had a decent range of the DCL app, and obviously if the ship is docked, we could use iMessage. (It wasn't an actual issue and I never voiced it so I have no idea if anyone else I was traveling with also experienced this annoyance, but no one else mentioned it either.)

Can you explain what you mean about switching from the DCL app to iMessage? We sailed on the Fantasy in May and loved being able to use iMessage. Used it with family on the ship as well as family at home and some close friends. However, I never switched in and out. Put our phones in airplane mode, switched on DCL wifi and that was it. We did not use the messaging feature on the app since iMessage was more straight forward.

 

[Trera]

We got off the Fantasy today and it was working.

 

[bakerworld]

On the Dream in June DH's android was able to use text messaging and received notifications. We did activate the free 50 mgs of wifi and used it. I am guessing when we text home we used the free wifi. We didn't get charged for any extra wifi or cell charges. Previously when we were unable to activate the free wifi we were charged international rates by our cell provider. We don't use either feature much but we have a son who we like to connect daily - just 'hi' - so the free wifi was enough and the international charge was only $21 dollars total.

 

[Plumberries]

Can you explain what you mean about switching from the DCL app to iMessage? We sailed on the Fantasy in May and loved being able to use iMessage. Used it with family on the ship as well as family at home and some close friends. However, I never switched in and out. Put our phones in airplane mode, switched on DCL wifi and that was it. We did not use the messaging feature on the app since iMessage was more straight forward.

Unfortunately for my family, iMessage would not work for us if we were sailing and too far from a port and had to use DCL wifi, but the DCL app messenger would not work if we were too far inland to get a signal from the ship. Basically if we were in airplane mode, we wouldn't receive iMessages, but also if we turned airplane mode off and relied on cellular service, that could interfere with the DCL messenger functioning.

Also, I wasn't sailing on the Fantasy. I was on the Wonder, because even though the title of the thread is about the Fantasy, someone had asked about the Wonder. And apparently someone above mentioned their family was on the same cruise as me and they could use iMessage, so I don't know what caused that disparity.

 

[braysmommy]

We were just on the Fantasy and at times it iMessage was slow. Did like that you could see the person had read the message so able to know it finally went through.

 

[n2mm]

Thanks for the info here. We leave on the Fantasy in 2 weeks and some in our party are interested in this, esp to check on their fur babies. We are an Apple family, so fingers crossed.