Explorer VOOM/O3B Alaska Internet?

All,

Helping someone research a cruise here for Alaska looking at Explorer. The issue is they need to be able to do Facetime with their small child back home during the cruise.

Anyone know if Explorer actually has O3B support and what the speeds/quality are like for doing video chatting?

I know that in general the O3B sat coverage in Alaska is nothing like what it is in the Caribbean where I've used it. So looking for info from folks if facetime/video chat is reasonably possible on an Alaskan cruise on Explorer?

Thanks.

No O3b support yet on Explorer, and no info on any deployment schedule.

I'd be looking for land based WiFi in ports.

It might work with the current set up with the Stream package. Even if Explorer had O3B it would still not be a guarantee that it would work during heavy usage. What will work is using WiFi as ^ Bob suggested in Victoria and the cell phone plan data in Juneau and Skagway.

We were on LIberty in the Caribbean this past week and had THE worst reception on VOOM all week. As in basically unusable internet. Could not log in most of the time and things like streaming movies or Facetiming had no chance in heck of happening. It took me 5 minutes each time just to get to my gmail and then 5 minutes to load 1 email and 5 minutes to respond 3 sentences. And that was on a good day when I could actually log in. What a joke! I would say 100% no way in AK.

What a joke! I would say 100% no way in AK.

Location and ship (other than O3B) have little to do with how well things work on board - the number of people using it is probably the biggest factor on performance. That, can change at any time on any ship. We have plenty of reports of very good results on Liberty, especially since July when O3B was added.