Email to Silver Cloud

How does a passenger receive email onboard?

Your boarding docs will provide you with an e-mail address. This address can be used with the television based e-mail system in each suite; however, it is very expensive with a serious charge per e-mail (like 5$).

I would suggest that you use one of the free or low cost internet e-mail services like yahoo, google, excite, etc. Then you can go to the ship's computer room or use any available internet access to do your e-mail.

[quote name='bdmarine']Your boarding docs will provide you with an e-mail address. This address can be used with the television based e-mail system in each suite; however, it is very expensive with a serious charge per e-mail (like 5$).

I would suggest that you use one of the free or low cost internet e-mail services like yahoo, google, excite, etc. Then you can go to the ship's computer room or use any available internet access to do your e-mail.[/QUOTE]

Make sure you google the sign-on screen (aol, yahoo, or whatever) and try to minimize the time where information is downloading. Meaning... you don't need to wait for all the artwork to load, when all you want to do is enter your screen name and password. You are charged for the amount of data you download, when using your own account. Still, it is less expensive than the Silversea screen name. My husband and I also found big variation between computers. The one in the back of the Silver Whisper computer room, on the left when facing the porthole window, seemed to move faster than the rest. By now, who knows... But, there were times when my husband checked his yahoo email for the total cost of fifty cents. My aol tended to take longer downloading, and was significantly more expensive. The computer officer said that is usually the case. Aol downloads more slowly and overall charges tended to be higher than other service providers.

If I use the computer room computer to send or receive an ordinary e-mail (using the ship provided e-mail address and say about one to two pages at a time), roughly how much will it cost me? Thank you.

As has been explained before - next to nothing as it's the amount of time the computer takes to send the message not the amount of time you are typing. Thank you.

[quote name='meow!']If I use the computer room computer to send or receive an ordinary e-mail (using the ship provided e-mail address and say about one to two pages at a time), roughly how much will it cost me? Thank you.[/QUOTE]

I used the ship email address only, on my first trip. I sent messages of different lengths - some very short, some about a page long. The cost to send, per email, was between $1 and $3 typically. The cost to receive tended to be higher - about $2 to $5 for each. At the end of my 3 week trip, my internet bill was nearly $300. This was with me curtailing my emails due to cost. I don't know if the fact that I was far away, in the South Pacific, had anything to do with it. I don't think so, because I used the ship email in the Caribbean too - and it seemed to run about the same.

If someone tries to send you an attachment (which happened to me on ship email while in the Caribbean, because we actually sold our house and negotiated a contract while on board) it cost me $20 - and the attachment didn't go through. You are not able to get attachments while on board. I asked the computer officer to eliminate the $20 charge, because I didn't even get the attachment, and he did not. I didn't press it, though it still annoys me that I was charged for something I never received.

So... using the ship's email address costs a bit more than pennies.

In contrast, using your own, is much better. I believe my husband's total internet charges for a 2 week trip was about $15...