Crown Princess WIFI usage

[phillyron]

My wife and I a going on a cruise on April 23-30, 2011. We want to take our laptop that is wifi ready. Are there fees associated with using our laptop on board in our stateroom or public places?

[robgvic]

The cost for wifi is for either in cabin or anywhere on the ship. It can be slow but it does work

[RickEk]

Yes, you just pay the standard Internet fee which is the same for wifi or wired.

[paul929207]

$3.95 sign up fee.

75 cents per minute, or you can buy a package.

 

$55 = 100 minutes

$75 = 150

$100 =250

$175 =500

[Putterdude]

The WIFI is extremely slow. We find that we use about 300 mins on a 7 day cruise.

[cmpaula]

We just returned from the Crown on Saturday and purchased the $55 Internet package....if you sign up before the ship is underway, you get 10 free minutes. Later in the cruise you will get a prompt asking if you want to buy more minutes.....15 minutes for $7.50 or 30 minutes for $15, which we took advantage of. We mainly used the internet to keep in touch with family and it worked fine. I certainly wouldn't use it for browsing the Internet but e-mails downloaded in 2 to 3 minutes. We used it in our cabin, the Santcuary and Cafe Caribe with very few issues. (like getting dropped). Be sure and log off every time by entering "log off" or "1.1.1.1" in the browser. I usually did it twice just to make sure! I brought my iPad and it was fabulous to use on board. Happy sailing....the Crown is a beautiful ship with great service.

[gandolfcruiser]

Has anybody used wifi in public areas recently on Crown when she is travelling between California and Hawaii or Hawaii and Tahiti?

 

I am concerned cause I did a transatlantic in May and RCCL would only sell time by the day cause they 'thought' they could have up to 3 days without any Internet access. My work only allows a max of 36 hours of no contact. I might not need more than 15 minutes, but I do need daily connectivity.

 

So, in the middle of the ocean did it work?

 

Thanks for any experience.

 

Conna

[Pam in CA]

Has anybody used wifi in public areas recently on Crown when she is travelling between California and Hawaii or Hawaii and Tahiti?

 

I am concerned cause I did a transatlantic in May and RCCL would only sell time by the day cause they 'thought' they could have up to 3 days without any Internet access. My work only allows a max of 36 hours of no contact. I might not need more than 15 minutes, but I do need daily connectivity.

 

So, in the middle of the ocean did it work?

It doesn't matter where you use your laptop, tablet or phone... WiFi is everywhere on the ship although the signal better in some places than another. Whether the ship is able to communicate with a satellite is a completely different matter. There are many factors that affect satellite coverage: where the ship is within the satellite coverage area, the direction the ship is sailing, sunspots, etc. Even weather. It is never guaranteed and can often be "out" for days at a time. It all depends. Often, there's no satellite communication between CA and HI. The reason being that there aren't as many satellites covering this huge, unpopulated area so there isn't as much coverage area overlap.

 

Princess sells WiFi packages by the minute, not by the day. If you are required to check in every day or every 36 hours, you may very well have a problem. Impossible to predict even based on past cruiser experience but I'd say it's unlikely you'll have daily coverage and when it's back up, everyone races to sign on.

[shredie]

Last summer, we did a transatlantic with stops in the North Atlantic. We had very little trouble with the wifi, but everyone said that was unusual. Except for one storm leaving Norway, the entire voyage was pretty smooth. That said, I wouldn't want to take a risk on good weather and reliable wifi if my job depended on it. Would checking in by phone work? Sometimes my phone provider is more reliable than wifi. There is also texting, but I'm not entirely sure how that would work with your job requirements.

[flamomo]

To conserve your minutes, try composing your emails in Word, and then copy and paste your messages to your emails, instead of composing while online.

I always have at least a third of my complimentary minutes left at the end of every cruise by doing it that way.

[sfo2008]

... My work only allows a max of 36 hours of no contact. I might not need more than 15 minutes, but I do need daily connectivity. ...

 

The satellites THEORETICALLY work worldwide, as a practical matter if you absolutely 100% MUST have contact you could be at risk. Satellites can fail, systems can fail, etc.

 

That said, in the normal course, you should be fine.

 

EDIT: Here's the satellite coverage map for Princess' internet provider: MTN - http://www.mtnsat.com/mtn-network/global-network

Edited June 27, 2014 by sfo2008

[caribill]

The satellites THEORETICALLY work worldwide, as a practical matter if you absolutely 100% MUST have contact you could be at risk. Satellites can fail, systems can fail, etc.

 

 

We were on a Princess cruise when a critical part failed. No Internet. No phone service.

 

It was 3 or 4 days before a part made it to a port on the itinerary and another day to get it installed.

[beg3yrs]

We had an interesting experience on the Dawn Princess with the satellite network. Due to the course taken by the Dawn, the location of the satellite in the sky, and the ships location on the planet, a part of the ship's superstructure was in line with the view between the satellite and the antenna, wiping out connectivity. We had no Internet or satellite-based cell-phone access for a couple of days. This event was expected to happen and published in the Patter in advance, attempting to reduce the number of passenger inquiries.

 

On the other hand, the ship's crew and staff needs the Internet to conduct Princess business (gotta upload those daily credit-card authorizations you know) as well as make navigational reports. We observed every four or five hours there would be a slight course change, just a few degrees first in one direction, then other and then back to normal. This was in deep ocean with no shipping traffic or other obstacles in the area. During those changes the Internet and cell-phone service came alive for a few minutes. Seems that those course changes were made to intermittently accommodate the staff's and crew's need for Internet service. We also saw this on the Ocean Princess but only for one day.

[gandolfcruiser]

The satellites THEORETICALLY work worldwide, as a practical matter if you absolutely 100% MUST have contact you could be at risk. Satellites can fail, systems can fail, etc.

 

That said, in the normal course, you should be fine.

 

EDIT: Here's the satellite coverage map for Princess' internet provider: MTN - http://www.mtnsat.com/mtn-network/global-network

 

Ah! They are MTN (RCCL isn't) That is good. Ok. I'll have a backup plan for worst case scenerio but this is a bit reassuring.

 

Thanks to all who replied. Tahiti has been on my bucket list a long time and I found I like the sea days on the transatlantic so might like them on a transpacific too!