New user here. Just got my devises this week but this thread caught my eye. One of the reasons I purchases GTM’s was for a couple of Royal Caribbean cruises we have coming up. First in August we are on the supersized Oasis of the seas in the Caribbean. In the spring we are on Voyager of the seas out of Singapore.
On past cruises just keeping in touch with each other on board can be a hassle so I hope your experiment goes well. I will be waiting to hear your results.
Honestly for the cost it would be a great feature for the ships themselves to set up relays and then sell these on board.
Unfortunately I don’t see Royal being interested. They are now starting to offer an App that lets you communicate on the ship but for a fee. They won’t want anything to take away from that fee if you ask me.
I am sailing August 4th returning August 11th. I will have Internet access occasionally and will try to post results up here as I get them.
I think you are correct about that. If it would be perceived as taking away from internet or app revenue it would be dead on arrival. Norwegian cruise line even bans SAT phones. https://www.ncl.com/prohibited-items
Have fun on your cruise and pace yourself on that self serve ice cream machine.
Welp. I’m in the final week countdown. Flying Friday and boarding the ship Saturday. Looking forward to it and will bounce in here to provide feedback and test results.
I was just on a cruise to Alaska on Celebrity this past week and it was amazing! We took a pair of gotenna mesh units and they mostly worked on the ship. If I was in the cabin, I could receive a message but not send unless I exited to the hallway. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they did work. Not 100% but pretty good considering!
PS: If you are ever considering a first time cruise, that’s the one!
Great report and encouraging, too. I’ve also thought of Alaska as the one cruise destination I really want to check off my bucket list. A great bonus is the train ride available on the White Pass & Yukon from Skagway. The goTenna Mesh is a great thing to have for train travel also, especially if you have a photographer along you need to keep track of.
Good to hear. I think the real benefit I will have for my trip is I am sailing with 4 other cabins of friends and we will all have at least 2 units so the mesh coverage should be pretty good. I also had them all upgrade to 5.0 before our trip.
Like I said, I will have 4 units. One of them will be on my balcony in relay mode.
I’m thinking we will have a good chance for success. I’ll be reporting my findings here when I can from the ship so I can test anything that people may want me to try while I am still onboard.
My folks used them on a cruise ship and said it worked basically everywhere — make sure you also test ship to land and see how far you can get with LOS (line of sight) too!!
I did not have an additional unit for relay. That sounds like a good plan for your group. There were hits and misses on the ship but overall worked well. I’m hopeful it works great for you. Happy Sailing!
I am hoping that in some ports my balcony will be on the side of the ship that faces the island. I plan to leave the relay up there. Should help some! If my balcony is on the opposite side of the ship from the island I doubt it will help much if at all.
I have been on very similar routes before with Carnival. If you need a good cab in Barbados call Elon’s Taxi 1-246-242-6173. Great guy, retired cop from Canada he will steer you right. We did a day pass at the Accra Beach Hotel and spa on Barbados. Wonderful mix of beach and hotel pool areas for the day and you are not in a heavy tourist beach.
San Juan great local spot called the La Casita Blanca for lunch. 10 minute cab ride from the cruise port in a residential neighborhood. Worth it for the food. Menu changes daily.
Unfortunately I left my pelican box and temporary mast and mount home.
I’ll make do without it I guess. Will just have to clip it to a chair on the balcony.
Also had a small external battery in the pelican case that I left home. We are in ports for about 8 hours. Hopefully the charge will hold unless I can find a way to keep power to it.
I’m guessing the battery will hold for 8 hours. The GTM will go 24 hours on a full charge with limited traffic, but guessing that you may use it up a little sooner with a party of 8 or so.
First stop was Saint Maarten today. Weather was pretty nice. I did find a good place to mount my GTM on the balcony. Fortunately for us the ship and our balcony was facing the island and the beach that we were at a little over a mile away. We had successful communications from the beach to the ship and all around the beach area today. No undeliverable messages at all. I was very impressed as were my friends we are cruising with who also bought GTMs.
Haven’t had much chance to test in the ship but I have to say so far it’s been hit or miss. Was hoping for better. Let’s see how things go tonight.
Can someone answer this for me? If we shout it does not go through relays correct? What about if I create a group and then send a message to the group. Will that go through relays if needed?
Thanks and I’ll update you more later or tomorrow. We are in St. Kitts tomorrow and will be on and off the ship all day.
Great beach report. The ship will be harder, but it’ll get better.
The Shout does not go through the relay or anyway but directly from the sender to the receivers within range of that single hop between them.
Group messages do forward through the relay, as do all addressed messages. That’s one basic difference between the two. In Shout, it’s like a CB or party line, everyone in range hears it.
With 1to1 and Group Private Messages, it only goes between you and your specified recipients.
