If you absolutely need internet on the ship

[sjbdtz]

I need consistent internet access when travelling as well, but I always have an Out Of Office message which says I may be slightly delayed in responding.

 

What I don't understand, is....

 

a) are you planning on staying online 24/7? The charges are at minimum $0.40 / minute... that's $576 per day.

 

b) If you're not staying online 24/7, how will you know if one of these urgent requests comes in?

 

c) If you ARE staying online all day, you're probably not enjoying the cruise at all... you won't be able to easily read your phone on the deck (or in the pool), and if you plan to lug your laptop around, well that's just plain awkward.

 

 

 

Given these characteristics, I'd say going on vacation isn't a good plan for you, and especially not a cruise.

 

 

Stephen

 

 

.

[KeithJenner]

a) are you planning on staying online 24/7? The charges are at minimum $0.40 / minute... that's $576 per day

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

NCL now offer unlimited internet. It's expensive ($25 a day I think) but does the job if you need to stay online all the time. You need to check the connection hasn't dropped though.

[Demonyte]

a) are you planning on staying online 24/7? The charges are at minimum $0.40 / minute... that's $576 per day.

 

On most (not all) ships and sailings one can purchase unlimited internet packages for $24.95 to $19.95 per day depending on the cruise lenght.

 

http://www.ncl.com/about/staying-connected-sea-internet-access

[sjbdtz]

On most (not all) ships and sailings one can purchase unlimited internet packages for $24.95 to $19.95 per day depending on the cruise lenght.

 

http://www.ncl.com/about/staying-connected-sea-internet-access

 

Well that's awesome! I missed that somehow. Thanks!

[waxing witch]

is international roaming with your cellular carrier an option? depending exactly what you need to do, that might work.

[Demonyte]

is international roaming with your cellular carrier an option? depending exactly what you need to do, that might work.

 

 

When the ship is at sea, all cell communications also go through that same limited bandwidth satellite link - does not help OP at all.

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Source?

 

Why would Breakaway have different (better) hardware than newer Getaway?

 

Yes, they are testing different pricing schema onboard Breakaway but nowhere have I seen any facts about anything else than standard MTN connectivity.

 

NCL Breakaway definitely has different connectivity than other NCL ships. It has something closer to high speed land broadband. I was on the breakaway in December and the connectivity was excellent, pages loaded quickly, etc, nothing like my experience on other cruise ships or other NCL ships which have speeds akin to very slow dialup.

[waxing witch]

When the ship is at sea, all cell communications also go through that same limited bandwidth satellite link - does not help OP at all.

 

ah, i did not realize that. so it wouldn't even provide a more stable or constant connection. i know when i was on RCL years ago, i needed to connect to a VPN from time to time and was able to - but i didn't need to stay connected for long periods of time. now i'm glad i have a job that i can really 'unplug' from when i'm on vacation.

[M0rrie]

A lot depends on the security measures/criteria that are in place for your works Remote Desktop /VPN... I work for an FI and our VPN connection is extremely secure, if even minimal packet loss is experienced the connection is dropped on my employers side and I have to try and log in all over again... Needless to say I have never been able to work from the ship successfully which is why it is my absolute favourite type of vacation - guaranteed to force a workaholic to take some much needed downtime :0)

[nyfltraveler]

The internet worked just fine while on the Breakaway recently. Was able to send and receive emails and look at websites. They have an unlimited package which on a 7 day was approx $174.

[SailorSam42]

We have a cruise booked with NCL for May and I keep reading about internet on cruise ships being bad and/or really slow. It is imperative that we have internet, and good internet, on our cruise. If there really is no such thing, then I think I will have to cancel.

 

I know that a lot of people will tell me to unplug and that I am on vacation....but unfortunately some people don't have that luxury.

 

So am I out of luck here?

 

You absolutely should not rely upon being able to access the Internet (via on-board systems) on any cruise ship. You can, however, maximize the chance that it might work sometimes by getting your IT boys to set up a computer at the office and then use remote desktop to access it. This reduces bandwidth to the tiny amount needed to only change the screen pixels that alter on the host machine. To reduce this even further you can reduce the screen resolution on the host machine to the absolute minimum you need.

 

If you buy a Microsoft Surface or similar it is small enough to take ashore and nearly all coffee shops these days have excellent WiFi. If you plan your cruise around connecting to the Internet only when ashore you'll have far less stress and anxiety than trying to use a dysfunctional on-ship network and save a lot of money into the bargain.

 

Ship networks don't have to be like this. It is quite possible for the cruise lines to purchase as much satellite bandwidth as they want to and to offer guaranteed bandwidth to their customers. Instead they seem to buy a tiny amount of bandwidth and then share it amongst thousands of users giving a useless connection to everybody. I'd applaud a cruise line who would sell guaranteed bandwidth connections, even if expensive. It would only have to be one or two Mb/s. I don't know of any cruise operator that is currently doing this but it would open up the cruise market to a huge number of users that simply must stay connected.

 

As others have pointed out. If money is not an object, something like an Iridium Satellite phone will give you 2.4Kb/s. Even though this is super-slow it might provide a solution in combination with Remote Desktop or similar used in the way described above. Provided you don't attempt to watch video, upload or download files, or do any printing, 2.4 Kb/s should be adequate for remote access (although you'll probably still see the screen re-painting at times).

[Fitzyk23]

While this won't help your situation, it might help others. I get so much work and personal email that I would waste so much time and or data to go through looking for the important ones after days offline. I'm considering setting up a new web based email just for this trip for my coworkers to email re: work emergencies. Then I could just check that email daily and it should only take me a few minutes. I won't be able to remote in and actually do the work but I can point them to someone who can or type in the language for them to cut and paste into a letter and sign for me, etc.

[SailorSam42]

While this won't help your situation, it might help others. I get so much work and personal email that I would waste so much time and or data to go through looking for the important ones after days offline. I'm considering setting up a new web based email just for this trip for my coworkers to email re: work emergencies. Then I could just check that email daily and it should only take me a few minutes. I won't be able to remote in and actually do the work but I can point them to someone who can or type in the language for them to cut and paste into a letter and sign for me, etc.

 

While webmail will use massively less bandwidth than a POP3 solution you still have a problem with attachments. If somebody sends you a spreadsheet, for example, that you really need to read, the bandwidth needed to open it will be enormous compared to the bandwidth needed to open and view it on your own computer back at home accessed via a remote control utility such as remote desktop (included in Windows).

[Fitzyk23]

While webmail will use massively less bandwidth than a POP3 solution you still have a problem with attachments. If somebody sends you a spreadsheet, for example, that you really need to read, the bandwidth needed to open it will be enormous compared to the bandwidth needed to open and view it on your own computer back at home accessed via a remote control utility such as remote desktop (included in Windows).

 

But others before you were saying remoting in was not possible on the ship. Are you disagreeing regarding the amount of bandwidth/speed necessary to remote in?

[richg35]

If fast, reliable internet access is a requirement, then a cruise is not the right "vacation" for the OP.

 

What's more disturbing is that people have allowed their work to infiltrate their vacations more and more. Nobody's job is actually that critical, even though many have convinced themselves of it.

Edited September 11, 2015 by richg35

[GUEST080219]

If fast, reliable internet access is a requirement, then a cruise is not the right "vacation" for the OP.

 

What's more disturbing is that people have allowed their work to infiltrate their vacations more and more. Nobody's job is actually that critical, even though many have convinced themselves of it.

 

I would love to get paid to work or be on call duty during a cruise.

Apart from that I don't think the speed or bandwidth is the problem but the reliability if you _need_ internet connection. Whereas at home you can always take some money and get two redundant internet connections through different technologies there is no way to do it at sea.

[SailorSam42]

But others before you were saying remoting in was not possible on the ship. Are you disagreeing regarding the amount of bandwidth/speed necessary to remote in?

 

Yes I am disagreeing.

 

Microsoft did a whitepaper on this in 2008. They tested with desktop themes turned off and 16-bit color depth (as well as screen resolution it would be good idea to also do this on the host machine). For typing and scrolling they suggested a bandwidth of 2.13 Kb/s was needed while a browsing session with Internet Explorer would typically consume 5.59 Kb/s (if done using remote desktop).