Regal Princess TV / Internet issues

[DougH]

Hi

 

Am just about to finish the Regal Princess TA from Ft Lauderdale to Copenhagen. Cruise itself has been nice, with decent weather.

 

What is totally unacceptable has been the TV and Internet service aboard ship. It was fine for the first day or two with the internet about as fast as I've ever seen it. Then the problems started with slow connections and spotty service. We had many days where it would not connect at all, even the last few days when we were docked in port.

 

Even worse was my in cabin TV. This would not work at all for basically the entire cruise. The only thing that would work is Live TV, which amounts to 3 news channels and a sports channel with mostly soccer. Any recorded content (Movie/ TV onboard shows) would start, play for 30 seconds then stop with a message that "content was unavailable" This included the daily Wake show and ALL recorded shows movies etc. I called probably 1/2 dozen times with the only answer "we are aware there are problems" I even came back to the cabin one day and the screen on the telephone said "searching for connection"

 

Totally unacceptable for any cruise let alone a TA where 8 or our first 9 days were sea days. I've been on 60 Princess cruises and have never encountered such a wide spread mess. My guess it is all related to the Ocean Medallion upgrade mess.

[moki'smommy]

We had 2 days without TV on the Caribbean Princess April 1 cruise. We each received a coupon good for one complimentary drink as compensation.

 

Sounds like they are having some serious tech issues.

[Thrak]

Please be sure to not only comment on this when you fill out the survey but also send a separate note to customerrelations@princesscruises.com

 

That's the correct email address to use in order to voice your concerns and dissatisfaction. You will "probably" receive a phone call in a week or two regarding the issue and may well receive compensation.

[boca7]

Hi

 

Am just about to finish the Regal Princess TA from Ft Lauderdale to Copenhagen. Cruise itself has been nice, with decent weather.

 

What is totally unacceptable has been the TV and Internet service aboard ship. It was fine for the first day or two with the internet about as fast as I've ever seen it. Then the problems started with slow connections and spotty service. We had many days where it would not connect at all, even the last few days when we were docked in port.

 

Even worse was my in cabin TV. This would not work at all for basically the entire cruise. The only thing that would work is Live TV, which amounts to 3 news channels and a sports channel with mostly soccer. Any recorded content (Movie/ TV onboard shows) would start, play for 30 seconds then stop with a message that "content was unavailable" This included the daily Wake show and ALL recorded shows movies etc. I called probably 1/2 dozen times with the only answer "we are aware there are problems" I even came back to the cabin one day and the screen on the telephone said "searching for connection"

 

Totally unacceptable for any cruise let alone a TA where 8 or our first 9 days were sea days. I've been on 60 Princess cruises and have never encountered such a wide spread mess. My guess it is all related to the Ocean Medallion upgrade mess.

The Regal is our favorite ship & have only compliments on both the Internet since they made the changes the TV has always been great with all the new movies shown onboard..

[Coral]

Totally unacceptable for any cruise let alone a TA where 8 or our first 9 days were sea days. I've been on 60 Princess cruises and have never encountered such a wide spread mess. My guess it is all related to the Ocean Medallion upgrade mess.

 

Don't hold back - tell us how you really feel :evilsmile:

 

Have a good flight home! Hope entertainment was good on the ship!

[neverbeenhere]

Even worse... your only choice was to go to the Voice and Comedian.

[beckntom]

My husband will be "fit to be tied" if TV coverage is that poor on the return Transatlantic on the Regal in September. :(

[Thrak]

We had 2 days without TV on the Caribbean Princess April 1 cruise. We each received a coupon good for one complimentary drink as compensation.

 

Sounds like they are having some serious tech issues.

 

We were on the cruise just before yours - disembarked on April 1. We didn't have any issues with the TV but the last two days there was no Internet or even intranet. That meant that there was not only no Princess@Sea but there were also a bunch of people who wanted to take care of their flight check-in and such who weren't able to do so. I'm often boggled by the level of "expertise" involved with the Princess IT team.

[moki'smommy]

We had internet but it was very slow and no one in our party was satisfied with it. Unfortunately this resulted in a somewhat negative opinion of Princess for a first time cruiser in our group. We didn't even try the TV and thus didn't know that it wasn't working until we got the drink coupons! We were pleased to see the movies on the PPV system were the same as those on MUTS because on two occasions the sound at MUTS was such that we couldn't hear the movie.

 

It sounds like I'm grumbling a lot--that's not the point. Overall we had a decent cruise with a few glitches.

[Ofmyheart]

Oh dear PLZ let the wifi be better on the Regal this fall crossing than it was on the Crown going over this spring!!! We wanted to book the fall cruise and internet was so iffy it took days to book another cruise!!

[geoherb]

I'm also hoping that our TV works on the trans-Atlantic on the Royal in September. We only have four sea days in a row. We really liked the improved internet speed on the Regal when we sailed in February.

[paradiselivin1]

Posted by another cruiser on same TA:

 

I earlier wrote about new fast internet. That lasted 4 days until we got in mid Atlantic and then then can’t get a good European satellite so it went back to being extremely slow and we have had various complete outages lasting up to five hours. They have never tried the so called ***** Internet out in Europe and looks like they will need a lot of work to get it up and fast and consistent. I felt

Obliged to let people know who will be in Europe for summer,,,all is not well. Mike

[Haboob]

Posted by another cruiser on same TA:

 

 

I earlier wrote about new fast internet. That lasted 4 days until we got in mid Atlantic and then then can’t get a good European satellite so it went back to being extremely slow and we have had various complete outages lasting up to five hours. They have never tried the so called ***** Internet out in Europe and looks like they will need a lot of work to get it up and fast and consistent. I felt

Obliged to let people know who will be in Europe for summer,,,all is not well. Mike

 

Well, now you know where the expression "(b)leading edge" came from.

 

Sympathies.

[caribill]

The Regal is our favorite ship & have only compliments on both the Internet since they made the changes the TV has always been great with all the new movies shown onboard..

 

Unless you were on the cruise that the OP was on, your past experience does not apply in this case.

 

Looks like Princess IT decided "it it ain't broke, break it."

[whatcruiseisnext]

Just disembarked the Regal TA as well and I totally agree with the OP. The Regal is marketed as having Medallion.net and being advertised as the fastest internet at sea. It did not work well once leaving the USA.... on on the TA portion nor in any of the ports. The Internet and ***** need lots and lots of work before it functions as they claim it will. We had a great cruise but was very disappointed in the technology aspect of the cruise. The Captain even apologized several times about the poor internet service and our room steward apologized regarding the TV issues. IT person said problems with the new system and European satellites. Don’t know anything about that.... just stating what he said.

 

We had the free unlimited internet but if I had paid I would have requested a refund!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Haboob]

So... MedallionNet works great with satellites that it's worked out its bugs with, but

faceplants with satellites it's never seen before.

 

I'm shocked, I say. I'm shocked!

[Astro Flyer]

Unless you were on the cruise that the OP was on, your past experience does not apply in this case.

 

Looks like Princess IT decided "it it ain't broke, break it."

Agree & in another recent ***** discussion there were posts from passengers on the Regal who said the ***** techs were departing the ship until the Regal returns to the US. If that’s accurate it’s possible that these problems will exist throughout the European season & the TA back to the US.

 

Hopefully such basics as an operating TV system & internet/intranet will be fixed and they should not wait until returning to the US to fix the problems.

 

Six months into ***** on the Regal & things are worse than before but they’ve made sure that ***** works in the casino & gift shops...what a boondoggle!

Edited April 29, 2018 by Astro Flyer

[whatcruiseisnext]

Agree & in another recent ***** discussion there were posts from passengers on the Regal who said the ***** techs were departing the ship until the Regal returns to the US. If that’s accurate it’s possible that these problems will exist throughout the European season & the TA back to the US.

 

Hopefully such basics as an operating TV system & internet/intranet will be fixed and they should not wait until returning to the US to fix the problems.

 

Six months into ***** things are worse than before but they’ve made sure that ***** works in the casino & gift shops...what a boondoggle!

 

 

The captain told us on the crossing that they would not be working on ***** until the ship returns to the US.

 

***** worked in the casino but not fully in the shops. If you are elite... it didn’t give you the 10% discount. Purchase needed to be voided and then done manually.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Astro Flyer]

The captain told us on the crossing that they would not be working on ***** until the ship returns to the US.

 

***** worked in the casino but not fully in the shops. If you are elite... it didn’t give you the 10% discount. Purchase needed to be voided and then done manually.

Thanks...it was probably your previous posts that I remembered & hopefully there are techs working on the MedallionNet problems.

 

Also recall reading about the problems with getting the elite 10% discount which since it costs Princess money isn’t a top priority to quickly fix.

[pablo222]

If you are elite... it didn’t give you the 10% discount. Purchase needed to be voided and then done manually

 

I wonder how princess will spin that? It certainly doesn't seem like the usual "we didn't realize ships were made of metal"

will cover it.

 

In another thread, a poster reported that this happened in November/December, so it's nothing new.

[PrincessLuver]

Unless you were on the cruise that the OP was on, your past experience does not apply in this case.

 

Looks like Princess IT decided "it it ain't broke, break it."

 

We were on this cruise and internet signal was lost several times.... they more then made up for it with unlimited usage too...we do not watch tv on a cruise but we never heard any of our friends complaining about the TV....the TV’s were working in the health club every morning....just cannot understand the constant Princess bashing on CC....everything was working great last nite and this morning!

[whatcruiseisnext]

We were on this cruise and internet signal was lost several times.... they more then made up for it with unlimited usage too...we do not watch tv on a cruise but we never heard any of our friends complaining about the TV....the TV’s were working in the health club every morning....just cannot understand the constant Princess bashing on CC....everything was working great last nite and this morning!

 

 

 

Not Princess bashing but just reporting on ***** and Medallion.net. Not delivering as promised. I love Princess. We just completed our 49th cruise with them.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Lynniepoo]

We were on the Regal in December and the internet was super fast and always connected..of course, this was in the Caribbean so maybe it's different.

 

We are on the Regal again in July, and I really hope that the issues are resolved. I need reliable internet in one form or another to keep in touch at work.

[Haboob]

Agree & in another recent ***** discussion there were posts from passengers on the Regal who said the ***** techs were departing the ship until the Regal returns to the US. If that’s accurate it’s possible that these problems will exist throughout the European season & the TA back to the US.

 

I heard that about the Ocean Medallion folks, too... Caribbean Princess? Look out! ;p

 

But the OceanMedallion tech and techs have nothing to do with getting Regal's

spiffy new MedallionNet internet to play nicely with a new set of satellites the first

time that new equipment sees them.

 

 

BTW, Regal's 2019 eastbound trans-Atlantic is still branded a "***** Vacation".

[mbglib]

I was on the Regal in early March and paid for WiFi. It was quite slow and unreliable. The “tech” person told me that they slowed princess.com on purpose as everyone could access it free. I asked how this was supposed to help those that wanted to search for a cruise to possibly book onboard. He shrugged his shoulders and walked back to his desk.