Texting on Board

[Dayzy]

Somebody told me that using the DCL app we can text onboard to people in our party. How does this work? Does each person need their own DCL account?

 

[Mommb]

Each person in the room can log into the DCL app using their name, birthdate, and room number. They can then automatically text other room residents through the app. To set up texting with another person onboard, they will need to enter the person's multidigit access code (which is shown in the app).

It is not necessary to have a full DCL account to use the app while onboard. It is possible to use the app to see events and ship information without logging in at all.

 

[mcd2745]

As the previous poster shared, you do it through the DCL app. You should know, however, it is very unreliable and you often do not get any notification that someone has sent you a message. These boards are full of complaints about how poor the messaging feature is.

 

[ljcrochet]

Does imessage work? I know a few years ago on a Royal Caribbean cruise, imessages worked even though we did not have an internet package.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

you often do not get any notification that someone has sent you a message.

That's because, when a notification is sent, it's usually a vibration, not a sound. And, if you're not actually holding/wearing the phone, you won't feel the vibration.

 

[TrishaK]

Does imessage work? I know a few years ago on a Royal Caribbean cruise, imessages worked even though we did not have an internet package.

Yes, they've been rolling out free text-only iMessaging on the ships.

 

[Marc D]

Yes, they've been rolling out free text-only iMessaging on the ships.

For now, we’ve had reports of free iMessage support on Fantasy and Wonder. No word yet on the two other ships.

 

[jtkboston]

Reported live on the Magic too (see other thread, click the arrow to go there):

It was free onboard the Magic last week

 

[iivye]

We had a horrible time trying to text through the app on our Med cruise last week. Messages wouldn't go through and it was difficult to stay connected to the ship wifi. We ended up just using the wave phones. We didn't try the iMessage since half of our group have Android phones.

 

[PurplePencil]

We had a horrible time trying to text through the app on our Med cruise last week. Messages wouldn't go through and it was difficult to stay connected to the ship wifi. We ended up just using the wave phones. We didn't try the iMessage since half of our group have Android phones.

Airplane mode is key, if you have data on your phone occasionally tries to override the wifi signal since it is weaker than the data and then the app will not properly work. If the cruise was the 8-night Rome, others were having issues with messaging and I was told they were looking into it.

 

[hnthomps]

Airplane mode is key, if you have data on your phone occasionally tries to override the wifi signal since it is weaker than the data and then the app will not properly work. If the cruise was the 8-night Rome, others were having issues with messaging and I was told they were looking into it.

Agree with this. I've never had any trouble with the app messaging. The only time my husband had an issue was when he didn't have his phone on airplane mode.

 

[iivye]

Airplane mode is key, if you have data on your phone occasionally tries to override the wifi signal since it is weaker than the data and then the app will not properly work. If the cruise was the 8-night Rome, others were having issues with messaging and I was told they were looking into it.

We did have it in airplane mode. Yes, it was the 8-night Rome. We are sailing again in March so I'm hoping it will be better on the Fantasy.

 

[Calantha]

We did have it in airplane mode. Yes, it was the 8-night Rome. We are sailing again in March so I'm hoping it will be better on the Fantasy.

It isn’t. On the Fantasy right now and the app is hit or miss on alerts. Yes, we are all in airplane mode and using a mix of android and iPhones.

 

[JARNJ3]

Airplane mode is key, if you have data on your phone occasionally tries to override the wifi signal since it is weaker than the data and then the app will not properly work. If the cruise was the 8-night Rome, others were having issues with messaging and I was told they were looking into it.

We were on the 8 night from Rome - never could get the messaging within the app to work. We were getting text messages from home, even though we had our phones on airplane mode.

 

[squirk]

I am no fan of the messaging component of the app. In concept, it is exactly what I want - a way to text other members of my party without also receiving texts from the rest of the world (i.e., shoreside).

However, the app has some serious limitation in terms of delivering messages in a timely manner and/or notifying you that a message has been delivered. In our experience on several cruises, it seems that the app must always be “surfaced” on your phone to work as advertised, meaning it must always be the current app displayed on your phone’s screen.

If the app is not surfaced (e.g., you opened a game of solitaire or whatever), you don’t get notifications that a message has been received. And in fact, we frequently ran into issues where we opened/surfaced the app, and messages that had been sent to us hours ago still had not been delivered.

If your messaging app cannot deliver messages promptly and reliably, you’ve failed, period.

I think the fact that they are rolling out free iMessage is quite telling.