It worked, with caveats

Just returned from a 10 day cruise aboard Royal Caribbeans Grandeur of the Seas. Having read that some cruise lines and various ships have blocked this app from working we decided as a group of 18 to take the gamble anyways and give it a shot after reading recent reports that it did indeed work aboard Grandeur.

We were happy to see shortly after boarding and connecting to the ships Wi-Fi network at the app did indeed still function and we soon began to appear on each others friends list. Connecting to the ships Wi-Fi in such a fashion that you remain connected is a bit of a trick, however - when the login screen appears quickly click cancel and you will be presented with the option to "use the network selected without an Internet connection" – selecting this will keep you connected to the ships Wi-Fi network constantly which is essential for this app to function.

I did find the app significantly buggy however - quite often only the first few words of a message would make it through with the rest seemingly disappearing into oblivion. We quickly learned to send long messages three or four words at a time to avoid this issue.

At several points during the cruise my daughter was able to send messages to one of her friends, however messages she sent back in reply never arrived despite the fact that she could successfully message everybody else – we had to reset her application via the "new cruise" option several times and re-add her to the group which would usually restore things.

The voice call function works surprisingly well (and might very well be the preferred communication option for many!) although the video call function never worked a single time.

Being forced to leave the app in the foreground was admittedly a big inconvenience – when somebody would flip to their camera up to take photos, or spend some time playing a game, one has to remember to open the app again before locking your phone otherwise others wont be able to get a hold of you. Im not sure if this is a operating system limitation with the iPhone specifically, or if the op wasnt written with multitasking in mind, but as mentioned it was a big inconvenience.

Having said all of that and despite the bugs it was three dollars well spent and it did serve us well for the duration of our cruise, however one would be well advised to do some Google searching to make sure the app will work on your specific cruise line and ship before committing to the purchase.

Oshawapilot2 about Ripple Cruise Communicator, v1.0.1