Actual Internet Speeds on Carnival Fascination

[slay]

Just wanted to share my actual observed speeds cruising the Carnival Fascination around Puerto Rico (eastern caribbean) islands this last December. I imagine this would be similar to their other boats since the connection was routed through Florida.

 

I bought the value plan first, did some speed tests at sea, and then immediately upgraded to the Best plan which was significantly better but nowhere near land speeds.

 

Value plan: 103kb/s down, 0 up

Best plan: 736kb/s down, 400kb/s up

 

Where kb/s is kilobits per second. On the value plan, the speed test couldn't even measure the upload speed as it was so slow. Practically speaking, the value plan was unusable even for non-media browsing.

 

The top plan allowed me to make a wonky Skype phone call that dropped after a few minutes and had lots of audio distortion, but was still enough to communicate. It also allowed for websites without heavy images or video to load (eventually).

 

I should note that when docked at ports, the speeds and connection were notably better, but I wouldn't bother with the Value plans.

 

Hope someone finds this useful!

[easyboy]

Thank you for the feedback.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[squierjosh]

We found free WiFi in every port during our recent Fascination cruise. No need to shell out big bucks for lousy ship connection.

[asalligo]

This is great info! Thanks

[hrmkr]

We found free WiFi in every port during our recent Fascination cruise. No need to shell out big bucks for lousy ship connection.

 

We leave on the Fascination this Sunday. can you please explain where you were able to find free wifi in the ports? At nearby restaurants, bars, in the terminal? How close to the actual port?

 

Thank you for the information.

[originalgeek]

Just wanted to share my actual observed speeds cruising the Carnival Fascination around Puerto Rico (eastern caribbean) islands this last December. I imagine this would be similar to their other boats since the connection was routed through Florida.

 

I bought the value plan first, did some speed tests at sea, and then immediately upgraded to the Best plan which was significantly better but nowhere near land speeds.

 

Value plan: 103kb/s down, 0 up

Best plan: 736kb/s down, 400kb/s up

 

Where kb/s is kilobits per second. On the value plan, the speed test couldn't even measure the upload speed as it was so slow. Practically speaking, the value plan was unusable even for non-media browsing.

 

The top plan allowed me to make a wonky Skype phone call that dropped after a few minutes and had lots of audio distortion, but was still enough to communicate. It also allowed for websites without heavy images or video to load (eventually).

 

I should note that when docked at ports, the speeds and connection were notably better, but I wouldn't bother with the Value plans.

 

Hope someone finds this useful!

 

Awesome, thanks for doing this! I've been waiting to see actual speed tests on-board. I knew it was bad but that's even worse than I thought. The top wifi is about half the 3g speeds I consistently got in ports (My T-Mobile treats Mexico and the Caribbean the same as USA. IF I can connect, it doesn't cost any extra. In the ports I could connect I got 2g and 3g speeds with the option in a few areas to upgrade to 4g for an additional fee. But I never bothered with that. I also found various wifi hotspots around ports.)

[jkjmt]

Do they have the Social Media package where you can send messages through Messenger??

[originalgeek]

Do they have the Social Media package where you can send messages through Messenger??

 

the social media package gives you access to facebook, twitter, what'sApp and a few other social media sites. If you mean FB messenger then yes, you can do that with the social media app. It's very limited to those few things but works fine for them if that's all yo need to do.