My one cruise was in 2018, and thankfully the biometrics weren't a thing on our ship then (though obviously we needed the passport). That's disappointing to hear.

(We got a very limited ship wifi plan and just used non phone devices to check email once a day to make sure we hadn't missed anything major. It was actually nice being largely offline and having my phone serve as nothing more than a camera.)

Hope you were able to enjoy lots of food, reading, and sights (those were the three things I most loved when we were on the cruise).