Poor Customer Relations and Even Poorer Wi-Fi

[Mynki]

No, I do not need to be connected 24 hours a day. 15 minutes a day is all I need, even at slow speeds.

 

But Celebrity only sells unlimited packages at rates around $23/day. That is quite a bit to pay for 15 minutes, even at sea.

 

And there a number of reasons to have some Internet time while on a cruise:

o Ability to have contact with ill friends and relatives

o Ability to have contact with shore excursion providers

o Ability for your credit card company to contact you if there is a problem (even though you notified them in advance where you would be traveling).

o etc.

 

 

Yep, not everyone has much going off in their life though. Plenty of good stuff out there to keep up with too. Especially on a sea day.

[Fish Lover]

No, I do not need to be connected 24 hours a day. 15 minutes a day is all I need, even at slow speeds.

 

But Celebrity only sells unlimited packages at rates around $23/day. That is quite a bit to pay for 15 minutes, even at sea.

 

And there a number of reasons to have some Internet time while on a cruise:

o Ability to have contact with ill friends and relatives

o Ability to have contact with shore excursion providers

o Ability for your credit card company to contact you if there is a problem (even though you notified them in advance where you would be traveling).

o etc.

 

 

You are comparing Internet service on land with Internet service at sea, and there is no comparison. As to how much is charged, if you think it is too much...then don't buy it. You decide whether there is enough value. If you must be connected, and you think the cost is too high, then vacation on land where higher speed access is available. You have control over your buying choices.

 

I don't think Celebrity has misrepresented the product at all. The OP allowed himself to make uninformed decisions which led him to be disappointed.

[killsport]

You are comparing Internet service on land with Internet service at sea, and there is no comparison. As to how much is charged, if you think it is too much...then don't buy it. You decide whether there is enough value. If you must be connected, and you think the cost is too high, then vacation on land where higher speed access is available. You have control over your buying choices.

 

I don't think Celebrity has misrepresented the product at all. The OP allowed himself to make uninformed decisions which led him to be disappointed.

 

Actually, based on my Silhouette experience in December (Western Caribbean), Celebrity *has* misrepresented the product. Clearly stated is the ability to "Stream must-see shows from your favorite sites like Netflix". I was only able to get 0.5-1.1 MB down and 0.2 MB up. This was enough to send basic emails, browse primarily text-based sites, and such. Many sites timed out. Netflix and Amazon Prime both failed, as did YouTube.

However, I did not let this impact my cruise, as I was able to delegate my work responsibilities to others. Note that some people do not have this luxury and rely on communications network to perform as stated to maintain work or personal requirements while they travel. THad I been in that situation, I probably would have had repeated discussions with the iLounge and customer service to see if there were potential improvements to be made... Maybe relocating to specific locations on the ship, using specific subnets (if made available) that might have lower traffic or higher bandwidth allocation, or other solutions.

Again, based on my experience (and I have the speedtests to prove it), the Xcellerate internet did NOT prove up to par. We did have a great cruise, though :)

[TMaine]

Wow. Good first and only post from the OP.

 

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[Taylor D]

What spoiled my holiday was my grievance about the speed and reliability of the ridiculously expensive wi-fi service on offer. I expressed my concern to the CR staff within 24 hours. No apology but asked to fill in a feedback form. No one contacted us during the remaining 10 days of the cruise to discuss the matter with us. We e-mailed Customer Services and got an automatic response saying that they would respond with 28 days. No one has yet responded. Our grievance is that we felt the "Xcelerate High-Speed Internet" was a seriously misleading description for what turned out to be a very slow wi-fi service. We felt the product was mis-sold to us and are extremely annoyed that no one has contacted us so far to address our concerns. The wi-fi issue, along with the shore excursion costs, made us feel that Celebrity Cruises and more concerned with taking your money rather than responding swiftly the customer concerns. We will not be travelling Celebrity again and will certainly tell all our friends who we discuss our holiday with, about our very expensive mistake in signing up for the very sub-standard wi-fi service.

 

 

I must say everyone has different expectations for a great cruise, last summer on our Europe cruise as we sat down to dinner each night with all the new people we met from around the world and talked about the fun things we saw and did each day I can say for sure that no one ever complained the day was ruined because the WI Fi was slow. But if that's the most important thing to you to make it a great cruise for you I have to say cruising is not for you and just find a resort that has great WI FI.

[sfken1977]

My big issue with the wifi - is Celebrity is touting the ability to stream netflix, FaceTime etc. on their signage. This is not possible with their wifi for the most part. I had unlimited wifi, and given I knew it's limits and its main purpose was to keep in touch with our group on the ship via iMessage and dealing with work emails (a curse of cruising right before tax season) - I'd rate the experience a 7:10 - but I had low expectations.

[jagoffee]

My big issue with the wifi - is Celebrity is touting the ability to stream netflix, FaceTime etc. on their signage. This is not possible with their wifi for the most part. I had unlimited wifi, and given I knew it's limits and its main purpose was to keep in touch with our group on the ship via iMessage and dealing with work emails (a curse of cruising right before tax season) - I'd rate the experience a 7:10 - but I had low expectations.

This must vary. As I stated previously I was able to FaceTime reliable on a regular basis on my recent Eclipse 14 day cruise.

[CEOofVacation]

It is called setting realistic expectations wrt to wifi speed on a cruise ship.

 

We ran our business for 8+ years and it was a 24x7 business where we had to be connected and be in communication with our business system and staff all the tme. We did alot of timesharing and zero cruising because we knew that wifi was going to be unreliable and slow on a cruise. We could not afford to not have high speed and reliable internet and we could not risk people's livelihood (complete weekly payroll) and not to be able make real time business decision. We sold our business and the first thing we did was to plan on cruising alot. We still love to be connected to the world by wifi - read our news, surf the web, read email, check on our pets etc. But slow internet is not going to stress us out.

 

Cost of excursions just needs to make up the total vacation budget. All cruise companies charge about the same and some cost more than what Celebrity charges. You can book through external private excursion companies - you just have to weigh the convenience, cost and risks.

[richard1s]

This thread has finally opened my eyes to something I always suspected.

 

Every single time I went to the "Red Lobster" and ordered the "lobster fest" entree, it never, ever looked like the one from the TV commercial. I always thought it was me but I believe that they have been intentionally miss-leading me all these years!

[Lastdance]

this thread has finally opened my eyes to something i always suspected.

 

every single time i went to the "red lobster" and ordered the "lobster fest" entree, it never, ever looked like the one from the tv commercial. I always thought it was me but i believe that they have been intentionally miss-leading me all these years!

 

 

hahahahaha....

[woody14h]

What spoiled my holiday was my grievance about the speed and reliability of the ridiculously expensive wi-fi service on offer. I expressed my concern to the CR staff within 24 hours. No apology but asked to fill in a feedback form. No one contacted us during the remaining 10 days of the cruise to discuss the matter with us. We e-mailed Customer Services and got an automatic response saying that they would respond with 28 days. No one has yet responded. Our grievance is that we felt the "Xcelerate High-Speed Internet" was a seriously misleading description for what turned out to be a very slow wi-fi service. We felt the product was mis-sold to us and are extremely annoyed that no one has contacted us so far to address our concerns. The wi-fi issue, along with the shore excursion costs, made us feel that Celebrity Cruises and more concerned with taking your money rather than responding swiftly the customer concerns. We will not be travelling Celebrity again and will certainly tell all our friends who we discuss our holiday with, about our very expensive mistake in signing up for the very sub-standard wi-fi service.

I have always been leery of 1st posters with bashing comments. Also that the OP never returned. HMMMM!

[ProfessorEFFE]

I am with woody14h!

[STIguy]

Keep in mind that Internet service on cruise ships is somewhat limited by things called the laws of physics. When you access the internet in land many of your connects have very short latency periods (the time it takes a packet to reach its destination. The average ground based latency is 29.6 milliseconds. When you are on a cruise ship you are dealing with satellite communications. That means that the signal has to travel from the ship to the satellite and then back to a ground station where it connects to the ground internet. A satellite latency is 20 times longer or around 680 milliseconds (mostly due to a little limitation called SPEED of LIGHT which is also a limit for radio frequency transmissions). Now normal network communications handshaking means that the sending computer sends a number of packets, then stops sending until it receives an acknowledgement (a bit simplified). So latency dramatically impacts the maximum performance of satellite communications compared to land. There are tricks that will allow the network to do better by modifying of the handshaking is done, changing how acknowledgements are provided, buffering approaches, etc.

 

However, while these help and the Celebrity internet takes advantage of a lot of these approaches, (especially for large downloads vs highly interactive connections), they cannot overcome all of the limitations introduced by satellite communications and as a result ship board wifi and internet will always be slow compared to just about any land based, including cell phones.

 

The new ship based systems are considerably faster than the old systems, they have substantially increased bandwidth. But while you can do things to handle the bandwidth, there are limits in things that can improve latency. So if you are doing things where you initiate a function and then let the computer handle things you will will reasonable performance. If you are doing things that involve frequent operator interactions latency will show up in a big way.

46000 miles round trip..... coupled to official ship business. Reports, financial transactions, maintenance, etc.....

Reminds me of the Louis C K bit about a complainer on an airplane.

"YOU ARE IN A CHAIR IN THE SKY!!!" "MOVING AT 500 MPH!!!"

[beentothere]

Keep in mind that Internet service on cruise ships is somewhat limited by things called the laws of physics. When you access the internet in land many of your connects have very short latency periods (the time it takes a packet to reach its destination. The average ground based latency is 29.6 milliseconds. When you are on a cruise ship you are dealing with satellite communications. That means that the signal has to travel from the ship to the satellite and then back to a ground station where it connects to the ground internet. A satellite latency is 20 times longer or around 680 milliseconds (mostly due to a little limitation called SPEED of LIGHT which is also a limit for radio frequency transmissions). Now normal network communications handshaking means that the sending computer sends a number of packets, then stops sending until it receives an acknowledgement (a bit simplified). So latency dramatically impacts the maximum performance of satellite communications compared to land. There are tricks that will allow the network to do better by modifying of the handshaking is done, changing how acknowledgements are provided, buffering approaches, etc.

 

However, while these help and the Celebrity internet takes advantage of a lot of these approaches, (especially for large downloads vs highly interactive connections), they cannot overcome all of the limitations introduced by satellite communications and as a result ship board wifi and internet will always be slow compared to just about any land based, including cell phones.

 

The new ship based systems are considerably faster than the old systems, they have substantially increased bandwidth. But while you can do things to handle the bandwidth, there are limits in things that can improve latency. So if you are doing things where you initiate a function and then let the computer handle things you will will reasonable performance. If you are doing things that involve frequent operator interactions latency will show up in a big way.

 

The above are very interesting statements. My credentials are a masters degree in physics from the university of paris and a final degree in mathematics and statistics from a US very respected university.

Now the above person missed a very fundamental set of mathematical rules that the celebrity system software programming during my cruises was managing the user's allocation of processing capacity. This management in

my calculations applied what appeared to be a governor so that response time would continuously show degradation. My measurements revealed that a 15mb upload would or could take more than 24 hours to perform. But through

my manipulation I could achieve the 15mb transfer in less than one minute of chargeable time.

 

The above repeated on numerous transatlantic crossings with 20 to 30 repetitions per cruise. How can the above rules permit this experience?

[richsea]

Call me stupid, but Professor Irwin Corey comes to mind.

[FastandFurious]

OK I am obviously not a techi! How is the signal distributed throughout the ship? By hard wires strung throughout the ship. Or are their "nodes" or transmitters/receivers in specific places. Where are the best places to obtain a strong signal. It seems as if being in the cabin(s) is not the fastest location. Acceptable but as others have noted I don't expect the same speed as at home sitting within 10 feet of the modem.

[Hydrokitty]

Call me stupid, but Professor Irwin Corey comes to mind.

 

 

Thank you.....I thought it was me....but then I majored in languages and cannot balance a check book. That's one of the reasons I got married. :D

 

But in response to vanishing OP....I get the software package IF I get a good price for it. How much it gets used is based on whether we're cruising during football or baseball season. My "in house accountant" is a sports fanatic....me? I use it to play games and read while sitting on my balcony....but I agree it's over-priced. I wonder if OP ever actually went to customer relations for help because I had a terrible time on my last cruise (during World Series) and it took 2-3 visits to get it working reliably.

[beentothere]

First sailing on Celebrity: Inagural on Zenith

 

First transatlantic: The France

 

First Carribean: Carla C 1953?

 

 

 

Generally worst response time rooms are the ends of ship and the pie shaped veranda rooms where the signal which travels in a straight line cannot make the bend.

 

Also better in remote areas next to antenna. Find out from staff where they are.

 

Off times can be worse and crew signs on.

 

Absolute worst experience, no cell signal with family relative dying.

Second was on Sil when entire internet went out and they claimed it was

the satellite location, when it was the on board computer, so they finally said.

 

For my own use here is the issue that I have a workaround:

 

Say you want to upload or email a picture.

 

a 1/4 mb file will transfer in x seconds

a 1/2 mb file will transfer in 16x seconds

a 1 mb file will transfer in 256x seconds

a 2mb file will transfer in ...come back tomorrow.

 

and so forth, were similar to my measurements.

 

read my above post.

 

When in preferred angles to satellite will also be better, shorter distance means faster transmission. Sometimes the upstairs entertainment rooms

at off hours can offer better service.

 

Log off and on frequently if systems are not in overload. If they are, you

are not likely to find the service satisfactory anyway.

 

Its still finite resources divided too many ways. As they give us more,

our appetite explodes with communication wants and needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with every

[RickT]

Another rant by a First Time/Last Time poster. I belong to another Forum and the mods review/approve the first post prior to making it visible. Maybe CC needs to do that?

[beentothere]

did anyone read my detail about the response time slow down and the suggestion

of regular log outs?

[crusinthrough]

I sailed on both RC and Celebrity. I disagree with anyone who said wifi would not be as fast as at home and/or it's a cruise ship so it would be slower. The wifi on the Oasis class ships is outstanding and as fast as it at home. However, the same does not hold true for RC other ships. When I booked a Celebrity cruise on the Silhouette I asked about the wifi in comparison to RC (only because RC is the parent company). I was told it's just as fast. Simply this is not a true statement. The wifi on the Silhouette was okay. It was not horrible but definitely not great. One crew member told me that Celebrity and RC wifi should be comparable but they use different companies.

 

To each their own on how they spend a vacation connected or unconnected. Positive social media is free advertising for any company. Celebrity can do better with their wifi connection or lower the price.

 

 

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[Cruising from Mississauga]

Sorry to hear that your vacation was ruined by this one portion of your overall experience. For many, this would not escalate to the point of ruination for their entire cruise, but of course this would certainly vary by person. And thank you for

spreading the word amongst your friends, this will certainly help to shorten the lines in front of me. I hope your next experience is more to your liking.