WiFi Service on Viking Longboats

We'll be cruising the Grand European Tour on the Viking Ship Ingvi in August, and we were wondering how good wifi service will be on the boat. We will be in cabin B235, the middle deck near the front of the ship. We plan on using the wifi for posting photos for our friends.:confused:

Thanks.:)

We did the Grand European on Viking Alvsin 3 weeks ago. I have no other experience.

Viking provides internet at no charge for a reason. The connection is satellite and the connectivity and speed varies from non existent to poor. I am not talking about being at the bottom of a 80 foot deep lock. I mean on the open river.

AT&T Passport was not much better.

When I turned off Airplane mode at Newark, I received txt messages that were 2 weeks old.

Most people complained about the problems with uploading photos. TXT messaging without photos worked better but still had issues. iMESSAGE did not work, you had to change the iMESSAGE txt to SMS and resend it when it failed.

If you have a post stay you could use the hotel connection to post photos.

It is what it is. Still a wonderful trip.

I thought connection was pretty fast but you tend to lose connection when going under bridges or down in the locks. Same happened with the TV though too. I could easily send emails.

I couldn't upload pictures but they mentioned that would be a concern especially if too many tried to do it at once so I don't think they allowed it at all.

I could text iphone to iphone but not to another brand.

Considering where we were sometimes I thought internet wasn't too bad - better than out in the ocean somewhere!

We'll be cruising the Grand European Tour on the Viking Ship Ingvi in August, and we were wondering how good wifi service will be on the boat. We will be in cabin B235, the middle deck near the front of the ship. We plan on using the wifi for posting photos for our friends.:confused:

 

Thanks.:)

Someone asked a similar question on the "All Things Vantage" thread recently, and I posted the note below in response. This is based on three Viking cruises and one Vantage cruise.

FuelScience

I'll just give you my opinion. On our cruises, internet service seems to be more dependent on the level of usage than geography. The worst was when people were returning from a tour. I suspect that everybody got out their iPad and started posting photos to Facebook or sending them to all their friends back home. This has gotten progressively worse since we started doing river cruises. More people are bringing internet-connected devices every year.

At those high-use times, the internet crawled at best, and became unusable at worst. Of course, there were times when I couldn't get through at all due to geography--going through locks being the main example. But those tended to be few and far between.

I had a TEP wireless hotspot ($10/day) on our last cruise that I'd anticipated just using before and after the cruise or when away from the boat, but I ended up using it a lot on the boat.

FuelScience

Its all about being educated about image file sizes. There are many free apps that will convert high MB image files to a perfectly screen viewable 100kB file that will avoid clogging up the available wi-fi bandwidth.

I am just off the Viking Eistla and in one of the rearmost cabin. I had no problems with Wi-Fi

Ian

Its all about being educated about image file sizes. There are many free apps that will convert high MB image files to a perfectly screen viewable 100kB file that will avoid clogging up the available wi-fi bandwidth.

 

I am just off the Viking Eistla and in one of the rearmost cabin. I had no problems with Wi-Fi

 

Ian

You're absolutely right, but most of the folks on a river cruise aren't aware of the apps you mention and they try to upload 10 MB photos. Maybe the cruise lines have gotten better since I cruised last. I'll find out about Avalon in September. Still trying to decide whether to rent a TEP hotspot again or just go with the boat's internet.

FuelScience

actually the longships use a hybrid system which will use cellular when available and satellite when cellular can not be found {straight out of my cruise document book}.

Cellular access typically provides higher bandwidth so when in cellular range the boat's performance will be better. So your perceived speed can change depending on location (as well as the number of active users and what they are doing). There may be significant differences depending on WHERE the cruise is and how much cellular coverage there is about . . .

Don't really follow this line of thought: Viking provides internet at no charge for a reason. The connection is satellite ... speed varies from non existent to poor.

since ocean cruises all deliver Internet by satellite (which is slow and $$$) they should all be free by this argument.

{I 'purchased' satellite internet service for a fleet of vessels for a time . . }

We'll be cruising the Grand European Tour on the Viking Ship Ingvi in August, and we were wondering how good wifi service will be on the boat. We will be in cabin B235, the middle deck near the front of the ship. We plan on using the wifi for posting photos for our friends.:confused:

 

 

 

Thanks.:)

When are you sailing? We're on the INGVI beginning 27th of August

Merlot - We're leaving Amsterdam July 30. Sorry we'll miss you.

We've done 7 Viking cruises now in Europe and we're still waiting for decent wifi on any of our cruises. We travel with an Ipad, an android tablet and a small Windows laptop just so we can HOPEFULLY receive email on one of them. We don't send any photos small or large with email as signals are too weak. Wi-fi is intermittent at best and nonexistent most of the time even on days when we've skipped touring off the boat and few are on board. Wish they would upgrade.

We were on Grand European cruise 3 years ago. WiFi spotty in cabins. I found it acceptable in Library area. Best early in am. No one else up!

Merlot - We're leaving Amsterdam July 30. Sorry we'll miss you.

Enjoy your cruise - love to hear about it when you return.

Safe travels

Capt BJ

I have to confess that the words “Viking provides internet at no charge for a reason” are not mine. Those words were spoken at the daily briefing by a crew member trying to address the frustration of Alsvin guests with Internet or the lack of.

All anybody can do is relate their own experience during a trip. WiFi was an issue (for whatever reason) during the Alsvin June 4 sailing.

Included is a picture of the Alsvin in Cologne with the satellite antenna under a bridge. During our entire time when we were parked in Cologne, both internet and TV was down. Not a deal breaker for me. I did not spend this kind of money to watch TV or spend time on Facebook. But it does go to the OP question on WiFi. It may never happen again, but it happened to us.

Dear Riversanddale & Gravity Railroad,

Thank you for your loyalty to Viking Cruises! We’ve documented your feedback about the Wi-Fi connection and appreciate the opportunity to respond to your comments.

As Capt BJ so kindly explained, on our European river ships, the Internet connection functions via cellular service or satellite. For this reason, there may be times when reception is not possible or when the connection is quite slow. We do, however, recognize that staying connected is a priority for many of our guests and will continue to explore additional ways to improve the technology.

Riversanddale & Gravity Railroad, while we hope you both enjoyed your overall experience with Viking, should either of you wish to discuss your comments further, we would be happy to hear from you at TellUs@vikingcruises.com.

Thanks again! We look forward to welcoming each of you aboard again on another river.

Kind regards,

Viking Cruises

We've done 7 Viking cruises now in Europe and we're still waiting for decent wifi on any of our cruises. We travel with an Ipad, an android tablet and a small Windows laptop just so we can HOPEFULLY receive email on one of them. We don't send any photos small or large with email as signals are too weak. Wi-fi is intermittent at best and nonexistent most of the time even on days when we've skipped touring off the boat and few are on board. Wish they would upgrade.

Capt BJ

 

I have to confess that the words “Viking provides internet at no charge for a reason” are not mine. Those words were spoken at the daily briefing by a crew member trying to address the frustration of Alsvin guests with Internet or the lack of.

 

All anybody can do is relate their own experience during a trip. WiFi was an issue (for whatever reason) during the Alsvin June 4 sailing.

 

Included is a picture of the Alsvin in Cologne with the satellite antenna under a bridge. During our entire time when we were parked in Cologne, both internet and TV was down. Not a deal breaker for me. I did not spend this kind of money to watch TV or spend time on Facebook. But it does go to the OP question on WiFi. It may never happen again, but it happened to us.

We last sailed Viking in Sept 2014. We had no, or very few internet connection problems in our cabin. We mostly only checked and responded to email, and only did that either early morning or late evening.

When one sits on the sun deck or the Aqua Terrace, in the middle of the afternoon and watch several people trying to upload a couple hundred 10-12 mega pixel photos to the cloud, they know trouble is brewing. Why wouldn't people wait until they get home to do that instead of bringing the system to its knees for everyone? Some of the cruise line's systems are programmed to identify people attempting to run huge loads and the system automatically squeezes them out during heavy usage times, allowing other normal traffic to continue. The Viking rep, if they so desired, would have to comment as to whether Viking uses this technology, but the bandwidth hogs shouldn't be surprised if the answer is yes.

We last sailed Viking in Sept 2014. We had no, or very few internet connection problems in our cabin. We mostly only checked and responded to email, and only did that either early morning or late evening.

 

When one sits on the sun deck or the Aqua Terrace, in the middle of the afternoon and watch several people trying to upload a couple hundred 10-12 mega pixel photos to the cloud, they know trouble is brewing. Why wouldn't people wait until they get home to do that instead of bringing the system to its knees for everyone? Some of the cruise line's systems are programmed to identify people attempting to run huge loads and the system automatically squeezes them out during heavy usage times, allowing other normal traffic to continue. The Viking rep, if they so desired, would have to comment as to whether Viking uses this technology, but the bandwidth hogs shouldn't be surprised if the answer is yes.

With all the free wifi on land, you would think people could send their pics if necessary while they're relaxing and having a coffee or drink... That's our plan when we sail with Viking in a couple of months if we "have" to send a pic or two;)

With all the free wifi on land, you would think people could send their pics if necessary while they're relaxing and having a coffee or drink... That's our plan when we sail with Viking in a couple of months if we "have" to send a pic or two;)

The problem is everyone is "relaxing and having a drink" at the same time. That adds to the overload.

We found it best to skip a couple of the activities (port talks/movies/something else) and use the internet then. Or first thing in the morning when everyone else is getting ready to go to breakfast.

Sailed on Viking Vidar in May. Wifi was slow, but still doable. Impossible to text pictures, but was able to email pictures with no issues.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Sailed on the Forsetti a couple of weeks ago and thought the WIFI service was very good.

It worked best in the public area's, as it was a little slow in the state room.

I was able to text/email pics. Just send one pic at a time.

Overall, I was very happy with it.

I will second what many on here have stated it. Internet access is spotty sometimes, non existent most of the time and NEVER good. I thought perhaps it was the WiFi so one evening I went to the provided wired stations and they were no better.

FWIW, I was very pleased with our cell service through the company that has mobile in their name preceded by the letter of the alphabet that is between S and U. They offer unlimited data and texts as part of their standard plans and you aren't under a contract so even if I didn't have them for my regular service, I would consider getting them for a European trip. The only place we didn't have good coverage was in Ceskykromoff (sp).