Internet on TransAtlantic

[scdreamer]

Is it possible to have internet on a TA - internet that is capable of basic function with reasonable speed?

 

Also - I am seeing the cost for internet on Celebrity seems high, but there may be a new system in the works that will be more efficient and priced lower?

 

Or is that just wishful thinking?

[Kwaj girl]

Not wishful thinking....there should be internet but WILL be slow unless you access at odd times....like 6am when everyone is sleeping...this has consistently worked for us...and we will be on the Silhouette TA in 2 days.

[scdreamer]

Thanks for that information. I looked on the Celebrity website to see if I could figure out what an internet pkg/minutes costs, but it seems you have to be registered for a particular sailing to view the prices. We haven't quite committed to the Transatlantic sailing we are considering - so does anyone have a ball-park figure for the costs. Both pkg and minutes?Thanks!

[Dick in Falls Church]

Based on quite a few TAs over the past few years: Internet ranges from unavailable to s l o w to v e r y s l o w. At the best of times, is seems to equate to dial-up.

 

usually found it best before 7 am and late.

 

Could catch up with most e-mails, but certainly wouldn't try to do much business.

[red919]

I'm guessing no Netflix streaming but would you be able to download movies on iPad? I've heard that's been problematic in the past.

 

And is internet faster on S class vs M class ships?

Edited October 30, 2015 by red919

[scdreamer]

I would likely only want WiFi in order to stay in touch with my family. No need to stream videos or follow social media. I would imagine I could get by with enough time to download my emails every other day or so. Read them and write responses without being online.

 

Maybe it would be better to just buy minutes and then try to use them during off-peak hours?

 

IMO - Hey, it's 2015! Get with the new century, cruise companies - and provide internet access as a matter of course, included in the fare. :rolleyes:

[westcoastcruiser]

Am on Equinox T/A now. For the Med sailing before this it was the last of a pilot program of high speed. We bought unlimited amd with our meager select status discount I believe we paid $150 regularly $199. On our current cruise, no longer high speed but I must admit it is not terrible. I can access throughout the day. In fact, it is better than when we cruised Alaska in May on the Infinity. Cost for T/A unlimited is $299 and with our select status discount is about $250. Worth it IMO.

 

Hope this helps.

[Celebrity Cruises]

Is it possible to have internet on a TA - internet that is capable of basic function with reasonable speed?

 

Also - I am seeing the cost for internet on Celebrity seems high, but there may be a new system in the works that will be more efficient and priced lower?

 

Or is that just wishful thinking?

 

 

Guests can connect wirelessly (using their own device) anywhere on all ships, all Decks, forward and aft, including most staterooms (wi-fi signals may not reach all staterooms).

 

Due to the nature of our maritime satellite Internet connection, applications such as VPN, Remote Access and VOIP (including Skype®) are not supported and may or may not work.

[beentothere]

Guests can connect wirelessly (using their own device) anywhere on all ships, all Decks, forward and aft, including most staterooms (wi-fi signals may not reach all staterooms).

 

Due to the nature of our maritime satellite Internet connection, applications such as VPN, Remote Access and VOIP (including Skype®) are not supported and may or may not work.

 

The above is a very incomplete and inaccurate answer.

 

High transmission requirements, as the software listed above are 100% blocked. FTP used to be allowed, is now also blocked. Time of day and passenger loads are not as important as before as their modernized software

optimizes frequently visited and appears to reduce the amount of frequently

retransmitted graphics, speeding the system sometimes considerably.

 

The limits are placed to share resources and are due to the software they use.

I do not believe it has anything whatsoever to do with the satellite, except for

total capacity considerations. Any type of program that requires larger capacity

or bandwidth has a very good chance of being blocked. It appears all the popular ones are. They must be always searching for more to prohibit to keep the amount any one person uses to a minimum. Share and share alike, but don't increase the pie even though we all need more and communicate more frequently.

 

HOWEVER: beware! The system still in my experience throttles. That means

when youy o log on you get a quick burst of speed for a short period. Then it slows down ....more ....and more. So log out and restart frequently. Send

multiple pictures in small groups. Example of my experience: 1 picture fast,

3 pictures not bad, 5 pictures getting slow, 10 pictures frustrating, and 25 pictures .....like 2 months to go. Documented with the IT staff and hotel director on the Sil, transatlantic. I consider that limiting to be more than inappropriate as it requires excess time charges, which can become considerable, very considerable.

 

Wifi in rooms when there is a corner or bend in the hall, sometimes is not covered by the antennae and is spotty or worse.

 

Higher capacities even for an extra charge are not supported, unless changed recently. Hotels can offer you higher speed for a modest extra charge.

[Jim_Iain]

I am currently on Reflections Transatlantic and currently about 2 days from St Kitts. I use the internet extensively have done some tests to quantify the actual internet experience. I understand Celebrity will be rolling out a much faster service next year but Reflection currently has the slower system.

 

I have consistently been receiving speeds of approximately 260-330 kbs/s (0.26 Mbps) download and 130-150 kps upload. There are a number of ports that have been blocked which may block some of your software. I use a day trading software and have found that port 8080 is blocked so have to resort to web based information. For the techie's the ping speed was 524 ms.

 

I would not plan on streaming or downloading any large file. I had to download 50 meg file and it took approximately 1 hour.

 

Connectivity has been consistent with only a couple dropped connections on a high sea day.

 

Hope this helps.

[BosoxI]

Our requirements for the internet are not very demanding, but on six or seven TAs we've found the speed to be quite good. On one or two of the TAs, however, we did lose the service completely for a day or so. Luck of the draw, I guess.

Edited October 31, 2015 by BosoxI

[scdreamer]

Our requirements for the internet are not very demanding, but on six or seven TAs we've found the speed to be quite good. On one or two of the TAs, however, we did lose the service completely for a day or so. Luck of the draw, I guess.

 

If you purchase a package for the TA, and it's out for a few days, is there a prorated final charge or a reimbursement made?

[Moobaby214]

We did the unlimited internet on the Silhouette east bound TA last year and wifi was great all over the ship, surprisingly including our room. I know some ships have slower wifi than others.

 

The unlimited package is great to have if one of those random "I need to google that" thoughts come up and be able to do it right there.

[upwarduk]

Would be interested to know if there has been a speed upgrade on Infinity, since she has come out of dry dock.

We were in 9156 ( corner FV) on TA Oct 2013. I had to go to the iLounge to try to log on. Even then there was a message on the TV screen to inform that at certain time the Internet would be non existent.

I was told ' what else do you expect, you are in a metal box!'

[BosoxI]

If you purchase a package for the TA, and it's out for a few days, is there a prorated final charge or a reimbursement made?

 

I can't say, as we were getting it for free, being Elite+. But something tells me the answer to your question would be "no"

[Pilot70D]

We just finished the TA this morning on the Silhouette. For the first three days of this cruise the Internet was OK. It was VERY slow but it was reliable. After leaving Toulon Internet reliability became worse and worse as we sailed westward to Brcelona, Palma de Mallorca and then Tenerife before seven consecutive sea days.

 

It didn't matter whether Iused one of their computers in the iCafe on Deck 6 or our own devices. There were numerous delays and out right outages per hour. i t also didn't matter when Iogged in. I tried at 7:00 A.M., 11:00 P.M and even 1:00 A.M. Reliability was so bad that we went to a cafe wwith Wi-Fi in Tenerife so that both of us could respond to a handful of business emails that had come in. Here is a hint - in Tenerife go to McDonlad's. Their Internet is frree. It's fast and it's reliable.

 

After leaving Tenerife I really needed to reply to one email that Isent whille in port. I connected to Celebrity with n problem. I logged in to Yahoo email again with no problem. Iclicked o nthe message Iwanted to open and then waited. After eleven minutes I gave up. I tried another message and after eight minutes I once again gave up because no message was ever retrieved. I did go talk to the personnel in the iCafe and they cheerfully restored my minutes but so what. The reliability of the Internet service did not improve. In fact they published a notice every day in the Celebrity Today that their are "challenges" in achieving reliable satellite reception when crossing the Atlantic. Guests were requested to be uderstanding about reduced Internet reliablity.

 

Now Celebrity does have Project Zoom underway. in this project they are changing their satellite service provider and they ar increasing the bnadwidth available to guests. They have done this upgrade on one ship. Unfortunately that one ship isn't the Silhouette. Frankly I hope that Ceelbrity completes this effort quickly because almost anything would be ebtter thann what we had on our transatalntic.

Edited November 15, 2015 by Pilot70D

[az_tchr]

If internet is down for a longer period the charges are prorated and refunds made ON REQUEST.

 

On every TA we have done the service was a choice between slower and slowest!

[Hlitner]

With the exception of a handful of ships (none of which are Celebrity) cruise ships continue to have internet service that varies between slow, very slow, or not at all! Having cruised all over the world we have actually not found a lot of variation from place to place except when we were above the arctic circle (a very bad angle to the satellite used by our ship). RCI has started adding high speed internet (not as fast as at home but pretty fast) to some of their newer ships and one suspects that this trend will gradually spread across the entire industry.

 

Hank

[Nachosdelux]

The Equinox TA internet was surprisingly OK.

 

much better than expected, only 1/2 day of no reception, speed adequate for basic functions.

[cle-guy]

I can say that on my TA to rome on Connie this spring, I used internet daily, mid day to use windows Remote Desktop Connect to attach to my home/office computers and do my daily routines. I was kind of surprised how well it worked.

 

I'd say 95% of the time I wanted in I was in and working well.

 

A year prior on Connie, I could hardly download emails in the caribbean.

[jagoffee]

We just finished the TA this morning on the Silhouette. For the first three days of this cruise the Internet was OK. It was VERY slow but it was reliable. After leaving Toulon Internet reliability became worse and worse as we sailed westward to Brcelona, Palma de Mallorca and then Tenerife before seven consecutive sea days.

 

It didn't matter whether Iused one of their computers in the iCafe on Deck 6 or our own devices. There were numerous delays and out right outages per hour. i t also didn't matter when Iogged in. I tried at 7:00 A.M., 11:00 P.M and even 1:00 A.M. Reliability was so bad that we went to a cafe wwith Wi-Fi in Tenerife so that both of us could respond to a handful of business emails that had come in. Here is a hint - in Tenerife go to McDonlad's. Their Internet is frree. It's fast and it's reliable.

 

After leaving Tenerife I really needed to reply to one email that Isent whille in port. I connected to Celebrity with n problem. I logged in to Yahoo email again with no problem. Iclicked o nthe message Iwanted to open and then waited. After eleven minutes I gave up. I tried another message and after eight minutes I once again gave up because no message was ever retrieved. I did go talk to the personnel in the iCafe and they cheerfully restored my minutes but so what. The reliability of the Internet service did not improve. In fact they published a notice every day in the Celebrity Today that their are "challenges" in achieving reliable satellite reception when crossing the Atlantic. Guests were requested to be uderstanding about reduced Internet reliablity.

 

Now Celebrity does have Project Zoom underway. in this project they are changing their satellite service provider and they ar increasing the bnadwidth available to guests. They have done this upgrade on one ship. Unfortunately that one ship isn't the Silhouette. Frankly I hope that Ceelbrity completes this effort quickly because almost anything would be ebtter thann what we had on our transatalntic.

 

Very interesting. I just finished the same cruise. Although we did have some issues at times and experienced what you reported at times I was really surprised how well it worked for us. We had an unlimited package, so we're a little less concerned about losing minutes. We were using an IPhone, IPad, and MacPro. I wonder if the device used was a factor? We used it successfully several times everyday.

[az_tchr]

A suggestion for the future - forget the email if there are issues and go to Customer relations with a phone number. They have provided use of the ship phone at no charge to my family on several occasions caused by family illness to credit card issues. Simply ask politely and with a smile saying you need their help and why.

[2Fltravelers]

On the Equinox TA (10/27/15) we had no real internet problems. Perhaps because we timed our use to dinner times (early seating around 6 pm) or after 11pm (when most of the ship was sleeping). People were constantly on their phones and tablets throughout the day which we found interesting. Either they bought an unlimited internet package, or a massive international phone and data package, or are in for a big surprise when they get their bill.

[ehfl]

If you have a REALLY long Ethernet cable, yes.

[kreemmer]

Just returned from Silhouette TA and as Elite had reduced rate for unlimited internet. We used it for three devices- MacBook, Ipad and iphone. We had very few problems accessing most sites. It was not very slow and we used it in our cabin and on our balcony. We thought it was a good deal and were not frustrated if it took a little longer as it was unlimited. For us, being able to keep up on our local news and be in touch with our kids it was a good thing.

 

Kathy