23 days suffering with Westerdam Internet.

I was trying to update an app on my IPad Pro and was wondering why it was taking forever. As it happens I have the software to graph download speeds and discovered this...

The green shows an actual download occurring, the space between shows no download activity.

Jacqui, my point of reference for stating ONLY $199 for unlimited was from the 7 day Koningsdam charging $250.00 for 1000 minutes, which is NOT unlimited. But I went into conserve mode writing many things off line and ended up having left over minutes....could I have bought a cheaper package...probably not but I did not have unlimited and paid $51.00 more than I paid for unlimited on NCL. Which BTW my Unlimited on NCL was extremely fast, our first Sea day was the day of the NCL Escape Inauguration with Pit Bull, I was streaming it LIVE while we had lunch in the Main Dining Room and had Servers coming over to watch it on my iPhone 6 plus phone. I could have never streamed a Live broadcast like that on HAL.

No worries LIsa,

But if I took that $199 and multiplied it by nearly 5x that would be very expensive for this cruise.

Well, we have had some issues on board, I have managed to upload a fair number of pictures and just learned when the Internet will not do-operate.

Having been on the Westerdam last year, I have seen the speed and do think some of this has to do with where we are in the world.

Unlimited does give you the benefit that if it doesn't work, you don't worry about the minutes you lost ;)

I can get what I need done - sometimes I need to wait, but we are in the middle of the South Pacific and I do think that has something to do with it.

All things considered, life is good on board the elegant, beautiful Westerdam :)

Any idea how it will be on an Alaskan cruise? We are on te Westerdan in Alaska in June. I wont spend much time with it, but I have a few things I will need to do.n

Ok......maybe I have an idea that will satisfy all people........im just not an engineer so don't know the how to harness this energy.

Is there anyway to tie the WI-FI to the drainage problem in the toilets on HAL ships? :eek:

Any idea how it will be on an Alaskan cruise? We are on te Westerdan in Alaska in June. I wont spend much time with it, but I have a few things I will need to do.n

As long as you aren't streaming movies or other data intensse things you should be fine.

Are the rates per cabin or per person?

As long as you aren't streaming movies or other data intensse things you should be fine.

I agree. One of our roll call members has been doing face time on this cruise with no problem and we are in the middle of nowhere.

closer to land the signal was really good last year. Put that in perspective though - it's not like wifi at home fibre op, high speed, whatever ou might have.

To put this in perspective, when we sailed on Oceania, they wanted over $25 per day for unlimited internet. It took me at least 20 minutes or longer to do a post or load a pic.

So this is a breeze IMO. Would I like it better? of course. But I know where I am and recognize the limitations that can be in the South Pacific.

Not sure why as on our TA on the Prinsendam, it stayed steady most of the time, but I have never been here and don't have the wherewithal nor the knowledge. It is what it is and life is good on board the Westerdam.

Any idea how it will be on an Alaskan cruise? We are on te Westerdan in Alaska in June. I wont spend much time with it, but I have a few things I will need to do.n

Good news! Your cell phone service is going to work in AK, it's still the US.

Don't bother with the ships Internet where you spend 5 minutes waiting for your web page to load. But, to answer your question I paid $10 day on 30 day cruise.

Current unlimited internet on the Nieuw Amsterdam is disconnecting every 10 minutes in spite of being in the middle of a download or upload so moving to create with subsequent paste for all internet postings.

I've been on the Westerdam and other ships with "unlimited" packages. Sailing on the Koningsdam, I couldn't' believe we had the "old" system! I don't care where HAL sails and what ship HAL sails, at the very least, HAL needs to have plans that offer unlimited plans that don't rely on obsolete plans where you pay by the minute. Give me a plan - even if it is not fast, that allows me the peacefulness of paying for untimed internet without the stress of watching HAL'S clock movements race me into a hyper-panic attack while the satellite above rules a "snail pace internet speed"!

I've been on the Westerdam and other ships with "unlimited" packages. Sailing on the Koningsdam, I couldn't' believe we had the "old" system! I don't care where HAL sails and what ship HAL sails, at the very least, HAL needs to have plans that offer unlimited plans that don't rely on obsolete plans where you pay by the minute. Give me a plan - even if it is not fast, that allows me the peacefulness of paying for untimed internet without the stress of watching HAL'S clock movements race me into a hyper-panic attack while the satellite above rules a "snail pace internet speed"!

Agree - unlimited is the way to go. But, when you go with no access for 4 days, it is then time to pro-rate. I don't mind slow, don't expect speedy, and was on the ship last year. Have done TA's and never seen the gaps that we have this time. But it's working now, so fingers crossed.

We are heading for another storm (big surprise on this cruise) and I am hoping it does not affect satellite.

We were on the Westerdam last October on a Caribbean route and I was able to purchase the unlimited internet - middle package (no streaming) - for $75 for the week. I was incredibly impressed with my internet experience - both in terms of cost and quality. I was told that this ship had the new WiFi@Sea and eventually all the HAL ships would be so equipped by the end of this year. On the Nieuw Amsterdam in March, it was a different story. I had to purchase a 200 minute package which was $99 for the week and I was continuously frustrated with my minutes ticking away with slow service. Pricing and accessibility should be consistent across the fleet.

Last night, just hours away from San Diego I wanted to print by boarding pass. Web pages wouldn't even load, so I just gave up. Not going to miss this Internet.

If you are needing to send emails, I suggest composing the message in note or Word and then you can log onto the internet, copy, paste, send, log off! Minimal time spent using those expensive minutes.

Agree - unlimited is the way to go. But, when you go with no access for 4 days, it is then time to pro-rate. I don't mind slow, don't expect speedy, and was on the ship last year. Have done TA's and never seen the gaps that we have this time. But it's working now, so fingers crossed.

.

We boarded the Westerdam in Fll on April 12 and soon after found the internet to be sadly lacking. We documented the down time and HAL recognized their problem and gave us a pro-rate refund. On the second leg of our journey (Hawaii and south pacific) we had even more problems. The IT person said there were ghosts in the servers ( seeing we know nothing about computer hardware, or software, for that matter) we assumed it was a joke--- or not.

HAL did recognize the problem and gave us a $40.00 credit on our account. Much appreciated but would rather have gotten what we paid for to begin with and avoided all the consernation.