Internet usage help required for Dawn Princes

[Grey Nomad]

Can someone please answer a few questions about using the internet on board. We will be going on the Dawn Princess on 8th April and disembarking in Honolulu where we are staying for a week before flying home. We are Platinum members and therefore get 250 minutes/$100 free internet. Is this per person or per cabin. Also I intend taking my laptop with us and just wanted to ask a few questions.

Last year we went on Sun Princess on Northern Explorer cruise which only sailed in Australian Ports and we just used our Bigpond Wireless in whatever port we were in, but each time I went to go in I had to select Bigpond as Sun Princess access automatically overrode the Bigpond. At this stage we were only gold members and I did not want to have to pay. This time it is different.

Can I just sit on the balcony and send or receive emails and is the 250 minutes/$100 calculated on time only and not on megabytes. Also does it automatically come off our account or do we have to discuss it at the end of the trip. Is there a record kept of the usage so we know where we are at. I should imagine it would be better to type the emails and have them in the Outbox before we log in. Also is it best to use my Bigpond mail address or am I best to open a gmail account.

Any help or discussion on this subject would be a great help.

Don’t think I am mad worrying about emails while I am away. It is just that my son and daughter-in-law have told us they are expecting another baby on 1st April and we go on 8th April for a month. Would love to be able to keep in touch and receive photos, etc. so not to miss out on too much.

[thied]

sorry can not help with the interenet,

but I will say I do hope it all goes well for your son and daughter-in-law and with there baby.

[rkmw]

Can someone please answer a few questions about using the internet on board. We will be going on the Dawn Princess on 8th April and disembarking in Honolulu where we are staying for a week before flying home. We are Platinum members and therefore get 250 minutes/$100 free internet. Is this per person or per cabin. Also I intend taking my laptop with us and just wanted to ask a few questions.

Last year we went on Sun Princess on Northern Explorer cruise which only sailed in Australian Ports and we just used our Bigpond Wireless in whatever port we were in, but each time I went to go in I had to select Bigpond as Sun Princess access automatically overrode the Bigpond. At this stage we were only gold members and I did not want to have to pay. This time it is different.

Can I just sit on the balcony and send or receive emails and is the 250 minutes/$100 calculated on time only and not on megabytes. Also does it automatically come off our account or do we have to discuss it at the end of the trip. Is there a record kept of the usage so we know where we are at. I should imagine it would be better to type the emails and have them in the Outbox before we log in. Also is it best to use my Bigpond mail address or am I best to open a gmail account.

Any help or discussion on this subject would be a great help.

Don’t think I am mad worrying about emails while I am away. It is just that my son and daughter-in-law have told us they are expecting another baby on 1st April and we go on 8th April for a month. Would love to be able to keep in touch and receive photos, etc. so not to miss out on too much.

 

hi Grey Nomad, if you both are platinum you both get $100 worth or 250 minutes so thats a total of 500 minutes

 

what you have to do is sign in with your name and cabin number and a password and you can still use your Big Pond mail...they will take the $100 off your account but put it back on but everytime you use the internet you have to sign in but make sure when using your laptop you always sign off otherwise the clock still ticks

 

i'm with big pond and i just sign in and click on web mail and check on my emails

 

if you are not sure what to do see the internet manager

 

rkmw

[Billy and Charlie's Mum]

We are Platinum members and therefore get 250 minutes/$100 free internet. Is this per person or per cabin. If both of you are Platinum, you are each entitled to the 250 minutes.

 

Can I just sit on the balcony and send or receive emails and is the 250 minutes/$100 calculated on time only and not on megabytes. Yes, it is calculated by time online. Make sure you type out your emails on word and then copy and paste whilst you are online.

Also does it automatically come off our account or do we have to discuss it at the end of the trip. When you get onboard, take your laptop to the internet cafe and the manager will explain to you how you go about getting your free internet minutes. You actually have to sign up for the minutes. It will go onto your onboard account and then will be credited the next day. It usually takes around 24 hours for this to happen.

Is there a record kept of the usage so we know where we are at. Yes, when you sign out of each session, you will see how much time you have used and how much time you have left of your allocation. Just make sure you sign out of each session or it will cost you a fortune.

Also is it best to use my Bigpond mail address or am I best to open a gmail account. No, open up a gmail account. Much easier.

Don’t think I am mad worrying about emails while I am away. You are not mad, I always take my little netbook with us to keep in touch with the family and friends and to send emails to work to make them all jealous.:D

It is just that my son and daughter-in-law have told us they are expecting another baby on 1st April and we go on 8th April for a month. Would love to be able to keep in touch and receive photos, etc. so not to miss out on too much. Congratulations, I hope everything goes well, grandkids are wonderful, spoil them, get them all worked up and give them back LOL, Payback!!!

[rugbypopsie]

Previous information is correct...every time you log on it will tell you how much time you have left...internet cafe on the Dawn is small and slow..and they use it to give lessons so often there are very few available terminals. Take your notebook and use the wifi areas around the ship.. not sure about the balcony you will have to try it and see. Take note of the copy and paste tip to save time...it really helps.

[victravellers]

The internet should work on the balcony, what everyone else has said is correct.

One thing I will press upon is the logging off the internet. Just shutting down your laptop will NOT shut down the internet. You must physically shut off the internet or you will be wasting you minutes.

[mummsie]

Just don't use your bigpond wireless while overseas - it will end up costing you $1,000's. The cost to download is around $15/mg :cool: mummsie

[Grey Nomad]

Thank you to all that have replied. I won't even put the bigpond wireless stick in the laptop. Thanks for that note on making sure I log off as I would be inclined to just turn the laptop off expecting it would automatically log off. I was trying to work out whether to open a gmail or use the bigpond, but I think I will stick with bigpond but just unsubscribe from all the rubbish emails over the next few months before we go.

[bazzaw]

The easiest (and best and fastest) way to use email, either overseas or here in Oz, and regardless of whether it is via a home connection, a wireless WiFi hotspot or a Bigpond NextG wireless dongle - is to use an email client (like Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc ) and NOT use WWW based Webmail.

 

The reasons for this is 1. that you can write an email in the email client while offline - and as soon as you connect to the Internet, click "send and receive" (or even have it setup to send and receive automatically on connection to the Internet). There is no need at all to write things in MS Word and cut and paste. 2. Using an email client means that the only data that gets sent and received is the data in your email and those emails sent to you. Using webmail (via the WWW) means that you have to connect to the WWW. As we all know, most webpages in the WWW are "graphically intensive" with all kinds of unnecessary pictures, logos , advertising , etc which are downloaded to your computer before you can even start to post emails.

 

Most ISP's (I am with TPG) allow you to have a number of email addresses. I have created an address which will be only for our cruise and I will advise friends/rellies of this before we go. I also have a normal "private" address which I use here at home for strictly private communications and another address which I use to sign up to places like this Forum (it is the one that attracts junk mail and spam - not my private one) I will simply monitor my normal private address (as well as the new one created for the cruise) - it happens very fast when using the email client . You just tell it to send/receive on the first address and then again for the second address. I wont even look at the address that I use for forum and other website registrations.

 

Barry

[Grey Nomad]

Thanks Barry. That is a good idea to have an extra email address for subscribed emails and rubbish and one just for cruising. I will have to reorganise my bigpond. Do some housework. Urghh!!