“Mr. Bell, Mr. Marconi, meet Mr. Cooper “

All hail Marty Cooper!

                   Who?

                   Marty Cooper!

                    You know….. the inventor of the cell phone as we know it!    He’s the one responsible for us having to be constantly in touch with everything and everyone, all the time.

          Even when we don’t want to be.

          Because…. someone will get quite anxious that we haven’t picked up on the third ring and call the police to put out an APB on us!

          That brings me to the quandaries and processes of trying to stay in communication with everyone for an extended period of time while being at sea for half of it and being in foreign countries for the other half.  It’s not that it’s hard to do…. In fact, it’s quite easy! The problem is doing it without having to take out a second mortgage on the ranch!

          There are many workarounds for this issue….. Face Time, What’s App, Google phone, and many others. The trick is NOT to turn your phone on when you are near any land as it will automatically try and pick up a cellular signal and could incur lots of crazy charges.

          “Airplane Mode” will be our best friend!

          On board, there is a fairly good Wi-Fi system that allows us to just stay on the Internet and not use the cellular part of the phone. If that were not the case, then as soon as a random text from your pharmacy happens to get sent to you (or was being stored for you until you got off of Airplane Mode), a $10/24hour period starts in which you can make calls and texts.

          All of that is fine if only you control it, but here comes that random spam text and Bam! Charged you get!

          So, let’s do THAT math….. 111 days, $10 a day…. Yikes!

          So, Yay!!! How we love Airplane Mode!

          Navigating through all of these different processes will take just a little bit of time I suspect. But I’m quite sure that we will arrive at the best way to stay somewhat in touch without going too crazy. The Onboard Internet issue seems to be under control and if one can believe the company propaganda on how reliable and fast the system is, then we don’t have much to be concerned about. The way it sounds is that everyone on board can stream their favorite movie, all at the same time, and there won’t be a problem with that.

          Yea, sure.

          Maybe it’s more like “there shouldn’t be a problem with that.”

          I watched the video on the Princess website and they do seem to have a nice system, but there were a few caveats, such as where in the world we are, and of course, weather. Otherwise, there should be enough bandwidth for us to check emails, etc. and for me to keep you all up to date with posts on this blog. This, I believe, should be fairly easy as I am usually writing this stuff when everyone else is still sleeping and not using the internet, which leaves tons of bandwidth for me to play around in!

          We shall see.

          And so shall you!

          To say that I am looking forward to having an excuse to write this drivel almost daily, with fresh subjects constantly being thrown at me, would be the proverbial understatement!

          So, get ready to climb the gangway with us as there are (as I write this) only 20 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes, and 44 seconds until we embark.

          (But who’s counting!)

          We are! And luckily the Princess folks have a nifty app that (for now) acts as a countdown device and then switches to that Medallion thing when on board.

          I suggest that you all start packing as time is growing short!

          Please let me know how much luggage you will be bringing with you as there is just so much storage under the bed.

          By the way, Mr. Marty Cooper will be on board as he is presently 93 years old and somewhat retired after a marvelous career with the giants of the telecommunications industry such as Motorola and AT&T.

          He will have his phone on Airplane Mode as well.