Group chat in NCL app

Parents just got off an NCL cruise and said the new NCL phone app has NO ability to chat with other guests on the free internal ship wifi, not even the old option to pay $10/person for this service.

I am going on the Escape with 40+ friends in March and was hoping the new app would have some sort of group chat feature to coordinate activities with each other, even if we all have to pay $5-10 dollars to enable messaging. From what I've been able to find online, people are saying the only option now is for everyone to fork up the $30/day for regular wifi and just use FB Messanger / iMessage.

Surely this can't be true??? We were banking on being able to message friends to set up dinner times & impromptu meetups...