Internet connection

[CaribLola]

Hello everyone,

I am about to take my first cruise in January.. well it all depends on your answers actually. It is a five days cruise from FLL to Labadie in Haiti then Jamaica then back on Independence of the sea.

I read that internet is available on board for 20 dollars a day, but I need to know from you own experience, if you have signal all day? I need to work on computer (emails) as it is not a 100% vacation for me. I also have TMobile as a provider on my cell that covers Haiti and Jamaica, but can I have signal on the boat with my roaming? I don t care about the cost, I need to know if I can see when I receive emails and be able to reply. Thanks.

[Scrapnana]

Wifi on a ship is never guaranteed. You may get anywhere from fair connections (think dial-up speed) to none. I was on Liberty of the Seas in October and the wifi was horrid. When you are away from port you will need to use the ship's system for e-mails.

[spookwife]

It is slower than dial up and can and does go down a lot especially during peak periods. As for cell phone. coverage on board you will be charged cellular at sea rate on top of what you carrier charges

[Keith1010]

I would ask this on the RCI Board because on some of their routes they are now making use of special satellites and the internet experience might be different than others have experienced on other lines.

 

Keith

[Krazy Kruizers]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

Many ships are starting to upgrade Internet service.

To know if your ship has the newer internet, ask your question on the RCI board. Even the newer internet service is not always reliable.

[chengkp75]

As far as I know, only the Oasis and Quantum classes have the VOOM (or O3B) internet. The thing you have to realize about ship's internet on most ships is that what is available to passengers is the "leftovers" from what the ship uses. The ship's maintenance, purchasing, inventory, financial, personnel, reservations, and even the individual POS machines in each shop or bar are online with the home office 24/7. The ship has a fixed bandwidth with their satellite provider, and so the passenger service is just whatever is left over from corporate usage at any given time of the day.

 

So, sometimes you may experience dropouts and disconnects, and extremely slow loading times.

[mo&fran]

Another reason for slow connections are that the WiFi system gets saturated in certain areas of the ship. On a recent Indy cruise, where the full time internet packages were offered, i heard the Concierge tell some passengers that certain areas of the ship had faster connections than other areas, suggesting this is a problem.

I would suspect that better connection speeds could be achieved in the on board computers that are hard wired into the system, rather than using WiFi.

[zqvol]

Hello everyone,

I am about to take my first cruise in January.. well it all depends on your answers actually. It is a five days cruise from FLL to Labadie in Haiti then Jamaica then back on Independence of the sea.

I read that internet is available on board for 20 dollars a day, but I need to know from you own experience, if you have signal all day? I need to work on computer (emails) as it is not a 100% vacation for me. I also have TMobile as a provider on my cell that covers Haiti and Jamaica, but can I have signal on the boat with my roaming? I don t care about the cost, I need to know if I can see when I receive emails and be able to reply. Thanks.

 

 

If costs are not an issue then the answer to both of your questions is yes. Keep in mind that with Internet (e-mails) if you are talking about dealing with attachments (bigger than about 15 K) or images the speed is verrrrrrrry slow, and will be frustrating.

 

As with any satellite connection weather might effect connectivity, but that is not a common occurrence.

[mo&fran]

Hello everyone,

I am about to take my first cruise in January.. well it all depends on your answers actually. It is a five days cruise from FLL to Labadie in Haiti then Jamaica then back on Independence of the sea.

I read that internet is available on board for 20 dollars a day, but I need to know from you own experience, if you have signal all day? I need to work on computer (emails) as it is not a 100% vacation for me. I also have TMobile as a provider on my cell that covers Haiti and Jamaica, but can I have signal on the boat with my roaming? I don t care about the cost, I need to know if I can see when I receive emails and be able to reply. Thanks.

If your phone can connect to the ship wifi you should have no problems. i have not seen any connectivity issues on cruises in the Caribbean.

[CaribLola]

I am so sad... I really was looking forward my first cruise, but I don't want to be stressed thinking I can't send emails.

[Ex techie]

If you are receiving and sending plain text emails, you will be fine.

If you are receiving pictures or graphics of a large size to say approve, then they will take longer to download, and unless you need to edit them and resend them, just plain emails should be able to work for you.

 

High density cloud cover (very rare), and VERY rocky seas do cause disturbance and connectivity issues for the ship satellites as they are on a gimble that balances the dish relative to the rolling of the ship so it keeps positioned to the in space satellite. But there is only so much it can do.

 

HTH's!

 

ex techie