Internet on the ship while in China

[corpkid]

Does anyone know if the ship's internet connection will be impacted by "The Great Firewall" while in China?

 

Thanks!

Edited January 12, 2016 by corpkid

[PaulMCO]

It does not use a landline connection so it will not. However MTN has blocked a number of streaming sites and internet providers (Comcast). I could not access my Comcast mail directly and had to use a third party web access.

 

Your best best is to access your email using a WEB based application.

[corpkid]

Perfect. That's what I thought. I'll have a VPN anyways if need be but don't want to add overhead to an already super slow connection if it's not needed.

[PaulMCO]

Perfect. That's what I thought. I'll have a VPN anyways if need be but don't want to add overhead to an already super slow connection if it's not needed.

 

Most VPNs do not work over MTN because of the satellite delays. Depends on the timeout settings on the remote end.

[Hawaiidan]

China and indeed much of Aisia is king of the hackers.....having a ship load of rich americans is too much temptation.... Me I would never use any internet in the region.......rather be safe than sorry... forget their firewall...how about yours.

[pinotlover]

We're going to China in May for three (3) weeks on a Uniworld tour. Past travelers have basically said to take an old phone to browse the internet with and throw it in the trash when you leave. Any systems you open up will be hacked and contaminated with malware. Some even recommended setting up a new email address, for any emergency and/or necessary notifications from those back in the States, and not use one's regular email address while there. Then cancel out the new address as soon as you get back!

[Travelcat2]

Strongly agree with last two posters!

[MVPinBoynton]

We used the ships WiFi in China and had no issues at all. During our precruise in Bejing, I used my free T-Mobile international data, which worked quite well. Google maps weren't accessible; but the Apple maps worked fine. Apparently Google was being blocked, at least that is what our driver told us.

 

If you are going to Japan, the ship is not allowed to have their WiFi in use while in port. So if you need to access the Internet, you will need a cell data connection.

[corpkid]

I have lots of techie friends who have used their phones/laptops without incident in China. Either way the solution is pretty simple: Don't do anything "sensitive" (banking, etc.). We will change our passwords for email, etc. when we get home and revert the phones/laptops back to a backup taken prior to the trip. It's all a matter of risk-tolerance and common sense. :)