Advice on WiFi on Island Princess

[Worldtraveler 4727]

Can anyone tell me if the WiFi on the Island Princess is fairly dependable?

I only want to send a couple text messages per day back home to the kids--maybe a photo or two in an email.

For a 12 day cruise, would the 120 minute pkg be enough time to send a couple short messages?

Also, how do you keep track of your purchased internet time?

Thanks so much for your advice!

[paul929207]

The wifi is generally available, but quite slow. You can always buy additional minutes if needed.

[Colo Cruiser]

Can anyone tell me if the WiFi on the Island Princess is fairly dependable?

I only want to send a couple text messages per day back home to the kids--maybe a photo or two in an email.

For a 12 day cruise, would the 120 minute pkg be enough time to send a couple short messages?

Also, how do you keep track of your purchased internet time?

Thanks so much for your advice!

 

 

I compose emails etc off line, copy/paste when I log in to save minutes.

I don't count on it. The last couple of cruises I gave up on the ships internet and left a lot of my minutes behind.

I think you will probably be ok. It is usually slow though.

[leet102]

I was on the Island earlier this year. I was able to pick up the wifi on my Ipad from my cabin, which was on the same deck as the library/internet cafe. The minutes remaining show up once you log in. I also noticed that the internet seemed still active for about 5 min after I logged out, so I could do some quick 'free' last minute surfing. Be sure to run their log out program or the laptop remains connected (and eats up all your minutes).

 

The wifi at sea was brutally slow. I suggest composing the messages, attaching very small photos, then connecting to upload/download email. Then logout. Each login/out took me about 5 minutes. I would do limited surfing because loading webpages was really slow. The speed was better early in the morning/late at night. The number of users seemed to affect the speed.

 

The princess website is always free. You can send e-postcards from there.

 

Shore wifi was always faster. Depending on your ports, McDonalds, Subway and some cafes often have free wifi. I recall some ports had wifi for a fee.

[Worldtraveler 4727]

I was on the Island earlier this year. I was able to pick up the wifi on my Ipad from my cabin, which was on the same deck as the library/internet cafe. The minutes remaining show up once you log in. I also noticed that the internet seemed still active for about 5 min after I logged out, so I could do some quick 'free' last minute surfing. Be sure to run their log out program or the laptop remains connected (and eats up all your minutes).

 

The wifi at sea was brutally slow. I suggest composing the messages, attaching very small photos, then connecting to upload/download email. Then logout. Each login/out took me about 5 minutes. I would do limited surfing because loading webpages was really slow. The speed was better early in the morning/late at night. The number of users seemed to affect the speed.

 

The princess website is always free. You can send e-postcards from there.

 

Shore wifi was always faster. Depending on your ports, McDonalds, Subway and some cafes often have free wifi. I recall some ports had wifi for a fee.

 

This is the first time I have ever heard of e-postcards from the Princess website. Is there a link you could post?

Thanks

[Worldtraveler 4727]

I compose emails etc off line, copy/paste when I log in to save minutes.

I don't count on it. The last couple of cruises I gave up on the ships internet and left a lot of my minutes behind.

I think you will probably be ok. It is usually slow though.

 

Hi Keith

I am just interested in sending iMessages or texts through What's App back home to the kids. For the 12 days on our Med cruise coming up, would 120 minutes be okay or should I get the 240? I will use the advice of composing offline and then logging on and sending.

Also, how easy is it to use/find WiFi in the ports we will be visiting? Perhaps this is money ill-spent onboard the ship?

Thanks,

Kathy

[Worldtraveler 4727]

Also, can you tell me how you track the minutes you have used?

Thanks

[cbnewfie]

"can you tell me how you track the minutes you have used"

After you log out a summary of minutes used and those remaining will display. You'll get a message saying something like it's will display momentarily and then it usually comes up fairly quickly. You've already logged out at this point so this time is not eating into your internet minutes.

 

Also a quick comment - I've found that logging into my email is painfully slow as already commented. An alternative is to log into your facebook account if you have one. I use FB to private message family when cruising. The connection is much quicker than regular email.

 

Have not tried to upload photos though. I suspect this would be time consuming.

 

Sorry leet102 just noticed your comment 'The minutes remaining show up once you log in" -

 

So basically you can easily see time use and time remaining.

Edited October 15, 2015 by cbnewfie
correction

[Worldtraveler 4727]

"can you tell me how you track the minutes you have used"

After you log out a summary of minutes used and those remaining will display. You'll get a message saying something like it's will display momentarily and then it usually comes up fairly quickly. You've already logged out at this point so this time is not eating into your internet minutes.

 

Also a quick comment - I've found that logging into my email is painfully slow as already commented. An alternative is to log into your facebook account if you have one. I use FB to private message family when cruising. The connection is much quicker than regular email.

 

Have not tried to upload photos though. I suspect this would be time consuming

 

Thank you for the info!

Have you (anyone?) used iMessage or What's App? (not crazy about using FB)

Thanks

[cbnewfie]

Thank you for the info!

Have you (anyone?) used iMessage or What's App? (not crazy about using FB)

Thanks

 

Sorry, I am not familiar with either of those, so can't comment on their efficiency. But, I'm sure that someone else here will be able to help.

[laughing husky]

Kathie, I used the Princess ap this past summer on the Coral. It worked well, It was difficult....or rather lengthy....to upload, but the gal in the InterNet cafe did it in about 5 minutes....it seems to upload different....anyway, once loaded it was very easy to use. Could check all of my bills, keep track of what was going on, etc.....I liked it and will use it again next week..BTW...Kathy and Keith...it appears that there will be a white truffle festival in the streets when we are in Florence.....:) More good things to eat......;)

[Worldtraveler 4727]

Kathie, I used the Princess ap this past summer on the Coral. It worked well, It was difficult....or rather lengthy....to upload, but the gal in the InterNet cafe did it in about 5 minutes....it seems to upload different....anyway, once loaded it was very easy to use. Could check all of my bills, keep track of what was going on, etc.....I liked it and will use it again next week..BTW...Kathy and Keith...it appears that there will be a white truffle festival in the streets when we are in Florence.....:) More good things to eat......;)

 

A white truffle festival? Woo hoo!

I'm not familiar with the Princess Ap at all...

And how many minutes did you purchase for the trip?

Kathy

[leet102]

There's no link on land to the e-cards. On the ship the princess website comes up when you log in (I think). But don't waste your minutes doing this on your own computer. I think the princess website gets cut off when you log out.

 

There are desktop computers in the internet cafe. On these you can send free e-cards to all your friends & relatives (with a picture of the ship). There is often a computer guy at the internet cafe to help. Look for the icon for free cards. I think you can log into your princess account and look at excursions, etc for free as well. But it's all slow.

[leet102]

For imessage, I suggest typing out the messages in advance in the notepad, or other text editor, connecting, and pasting it into imessage. Sometimes I got errors that they didn't send for some reason.

 

I mainly sent emails. This seemed to work fairly well, as my ipad put them in the outbox and once I connected they were sent.

 

I didn't use whatsapp because it's online and would gobble up time messing around with more apps to connect.

 

Are we all on the same Med cruise on the Island Oct 25? If so I can help you out at the internet cafe.

[SadieN]

Onboard words are slow. Pictures are glacial.

[caribill]

Sending e-cards. Screen may be different on your voyage, but it should be something like what is shown in post #7 at

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=47845990&highlight=ecard#post47845990

Edited October 15, 2015 by caribill

[caribill]

Can anyone tell me if the WiFi on the Island Princess is fairly dependable?

I only want to send a couple text messages per day back home to the kids--maybe a photo or two in an email.

For a 12 day cruise, would the 120 minute pkg be enough time to send a couple short messages?

Also, how do you keep track of your purchased internet time?

Thanks so much for your advice!

 

I would skip the photos unless you can reduce their size significantly before sending them. In the normal photo sizes, it can take minutes per picture to send one on the ship.

 

What are you sending the text messages from, your smart phone? If so, they should not take much time to send.

 

If you are doing this each day, 10 minutes a day may prove to be too few minutes.

 

When you sign onto the Princess Internet each time, it will first tell you how many minutes you have remaining and ask if you want to purchase more. As others posted, when you sign off there will be a screen showing how many minutes you used and how many are remaining.

[Worldtraveler 4727]

For imessage, I suggest typing out the messages in advance in the notepad, or other text editor, connecting, and pasting it into imessage. Sometimes I got errors that they didn't send for some reason.

 

I mainly sent emails. This seemed to work fairly well, as my ipad put them in the outbox and once I connected they were sent.

 

I didn't use whatsapp because it's online and would gobble up time messing around with more apps to connect.

 

Are we all on the same Med cruise on the Island Oct 25? If so I can help you out at the internet cafe.

 

Yes, several of us here on the Island Med cruise Oct 25 :)

Thank you leet102 for your kind offer

Kathy

[Worldtraveler 4727]

Thank you everyone.

I can always count on the Cruise Critic Family :)

[compozer]

Morning Kathy,

 

I am not familiar with half the stuff you guys are talking about. Leet102 - maybe we could have a get together later in the day on our first (and almost only) sea day. I know there are so many functions on my Iphone that I have never used and I'm on my second one. And many more that I do not know about on my computer.

 

I do have it down to a science on downloading different tabs in two minutes. I've been so use to unlimited internet that I thought I'd run out of minutes but, like Keith, we have had leftover ones the past cruises. I find the system is much faster real late at night. Late afternoon and early evening is almost impossible to send an email out.

 

We can look for WiFi spots when we are doing our tours - we'll let the guys have a beer and we can use the internet.

 

Does anyone know if cafes around the Med have 30 minute limits on internet usage? In the Azores this spring, we went into a cafe and ordered sandwiches and a glass of beer. The waiter gave us the password and we got online but started talking to our friends, then the sandwiches came and next thing we knew, the connection was lost. We asked about it and they only allow you 30 minutes online.

 

Sandy

[Worldtraveler 4727]

Good Morning Sandy~

Thanks for the good info and advice--I hope someone might be able to pinpoint better for us some of the wifi places on this Med trip that will work for us--maybe they will be obvious, but until you go there once, it's all such a mystery of where such things might be found.

Less than a week to go now! Woo Hoo!

~Kathy

[LeeW]

I rarely use more than 150 minutes on a trip, checking/responding to email and looking at a few pages. But that is me. The real key with wifi on the ship is find a spot with "excellent" signal strength. A strength of "good" means you are retransmitting many packets and if you are lucky you will actually connect to pages. Try areas around the atrium for this. Of course both are roughly equivalent to the old phone-based modems. Keep all data transmissions to a few hundred words. Avoid pictures - they may never upload. And make sure you go to logout.com or push the logout button when you end. If the account summary doesn't show up, do it again (and it might never show up with a weak signal).

[roadpainterbeef]

Saw someone mention Florence - we were there in 2012 and stayed at the Hotel Caravaggio. Next door was a restaurant we loved, called Il Giardino Barbano. They had free wifi - which we could actually use in our hotel room next door!

 

That might not be too useful if you're just in Florence for the day but what I started doing on other stops (Greek islands for example) was scanning for unlocked networks as we meandered down the streets. Or if I found one that was named the same as a cafe, often the password was the name of the place. If we wanted to sit for a while we would stop and buy a drink but if I just wanted to download email, I would just stand nearby until it was finished. It worked in several places however that was about three years ago.

[FawnRiver]

we were on the Island in September and the wifi wasn't too bad, bearing in mind that it is a satellite connection with limited bandwidth. We each had 250 minutes free (platinum members), which was enough for me, but DH bought an extra 150 or so as he had to maintain contact with his office while away.

If you pre purchase via the personalizer, it gives you a bit of "extra" time depending on the package.

 

As to free Wifi, it was funny for us, we disembarked in Barcelona and stayed there a couple of days before heading home. Our hotel had free wifi, so I checked my email and forgot to turn off the wifi before heading out to walk down Las Ramblas with DH. About half way down, my phone goes off with a message from the airline reminding us to check in for our flight. I panicked until I realized there are free wifi hotspots all over that area and since I didn't shut the wifi off on my phone, it just kept making connections as we walked along. :o

 

I certainly would not use ship wifi to send anything as big as a picture, definitely time to find a free wifi spot (bearing in mind a lot of other cruisers and crew members do the same thing so you could end up with a slow connection anyway). Good luck

 

Have a great cruise! :)

[Worldtraveler 4727]

Thanks, everyone.

I'm sure all who mentioned not trying to send photos from the ship are correct. We will definitely avoid that.