Internet on Divina

[mollygirl]

Will be cruising soon on Divina.  I have the option of purchasing 3.5 GB of standard Internet for $74.90 for an 11-night cruise.  My questions:

 

1. 3.5 GB of data translates to how much Internet time?  Minutes?  Hours?  Most cruise lines give a time amount and not GB.

2. Cost of $74.90 for standard Internet for up to 2 devices.  So can just one of us purchase the plan, or are both required to purchase?

3. Is the Internet worth having on this ship?  Is it terribly slow?  Or adequate?

 

Thanks all!

[neptuno]

We did not use the internet package because we heard frustration from other passengers, some who were charged for going over their limit without any warning.

[Brew01]

1.  3.5GB translates to watching about 3-4 full length movies so that's quite a bit of data.  If  you're just surfing reading news etc you would have a hard time running out.  Just avoid videos, close apps when not in use, or better yet turn devices off when not in use.

 

2.  Only one would need to purchase to use two devices.

 

3.  Can't answer.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Brew01

[Zephyr173]

3. The speed of the connection depends on how many users are using the bandwidth at the same time. This is a satellite connection, so it will be nowhere near what you can expect at home. Still, the connection is usually good enough to do FaceTime, and certainly good enough to download the newspaper. 

 

The connection is always satellite, even in port.  So there is no difference between being at sea or in port. 

[mollygirl]

We have recently been on the Caribbean Princess and Regal Princess.  They claim to have the fastest WiFi at sea now with their new MedallionNet.  Anyone on this board that has recently cruised on one of those Princess ships and also had internet on the Divina?  If so, how did the two compare?  I found the Princess speed to be quite good.  Thanks.

[Brew01]

2 hours ago, mollygirl said:

We have recently been on the Caribbean Princess and Regal Princess.  They claim to have the fastest WiFi at sea now with their new MedallionNet.  Anyone on this board that has recently cruised on one of those Princess ships and also had internet on the Divina?  If so, how did the two compare?  I found the Princess speed to be quite good.  Thanks.

 

Your question simply cannot be definitively answered.  Zephyr above has given you the best answer you can get.

 

Though the previous cruise you were on offered the fastest speed "available" That speed is divided by the number of people using it at any given time.  You may find the "speed" on Divina to be 10x faster at times or 10x slower at times depending on the number of people currently using it.

[mollygirl]

Thanks everyone- You guys (and gals) are great at answering questions!

[Hlitner]

We spend 21 days on the Divina in December and thought the Internet service was very good (for a cruise ship).   There is no reasonable way to equate gigabytes of data with time as the real answer would depend on how you are using that time :).  Keep in mind that if you purchase 3.5 gigs and find that it is not going to be enough, you can either cut-back (horrors) on your usage or purchase additional gigs.  We found onboard Internet service fast enough that we were even able to regularly use Facetime with few problems.  This is rare on cruise ships.

 

Hank

[CruisingFox27]

We had no issues with Wi-Fi, yes, sometimes it's slower than others but as said above it is dependent on how many people are using it and what you may be trying to do. We only use to check emails and the internet. 

Each time you log on it shows you the amount of your allowance remaining, you're responsible for keeping an eye on this.

[casnet]

On board the Divina, does it have an on-board app for communications between people or checking show times etc.  I saw the MSCforME but didn't list the Divina.  We sail Carnival last year and they had the on-board app.  Really handy when traveling with a group to track down people...

[Hlitner]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 11:58 AM, mollygirl said:

We have recently been on the Caribbean Princess and Regal Princess.  They claim to have the fastest WiFi at sea now with their new MedallionNet.  Anyone on this board that has recently cruised on one of those Princess ships and also had internet on the Divina?  If so, how did the two compare?  I found the Princess speed to be quite good.  Thanks.

I can actually answer your question :).  We were on the Regal for her crossing from Copenhagen in September and again on the Regal on Nov 1 for her 10 day cruise from NYC to Ft Lauderdale.  And then we went on the Divina (Yacht Club) at the end of November for 21 days.  During our Copenhagen to NYC cruise on the Regal, the Internet service was fantastic (the best we have had on any ship).  By home standards you might say it was slow, but by cruise ship standards it was amazing with relatively little lag.  The service on the Divina was almost the same (we did not actually do any testing).  On both ships we were able to use Facetime with no problem and data flowed quite nicely for a ship.   Ironically, when we again cruised on the Regal (Nov 1 from NYC) the Internet service was not nearly as good as it was 3 weeks earlier.  Go figure.

 

As to equating Gigabytes to speed, it is just not a valid comparison.  If the speed is slow, you are going to use fewer Gigs per minute.   We do think that getting packages based on Gigs is a lot fairer then paying for time.  But as to how many Gigs you need, it will depend on what you do and for how long.  If you want to stream videos it will quickly eat up your time.  If you are simply using E-Mail, make a few phone calls (via Internet), and do some browsing...those Gigs will go a long way.  If you are a young person who must spend every waking second on social media.....nothing will satisfy you other then unlimited :).

 

More and more lines are changing to a Gig standard or unlimited packages.  Time packages make little sense on ships since it can sometimes take 5 minutes to simply log-in.  What I really liked about MSC was that we could buy a package that covered multiple devices so DW and I could be online at the same time.  But we do not cruise to spend our time online, so we actually left the ship with several Gigs of unused data.  I should add that we have T-Mobile which works on just about every island and in most countries.  So, when we were close to or on an island we simply used shore-based servers (which cost us nothing  extra with T-Mobile).

 

Hank

[mollygirl]

16 hours ago, Hlitner said:

I can actually answer your question :).  We were on the Regal for her crossing from Copenhagen in September and again on the Regal on Nov 1 for her 10 day cruise from NYC to Ft Lauderdale.  And then we went on the Divina (Yacht Club) at the end of November for 21 days.  During our Copenhagen to NYC cruise on the Regal, the Internet service was fantastic (the best we have had on any ship).  By home standards you might say it was slow, but by cruise ship standards it was amazing with relatively little lag.  The service on the Divina was almost the same (we did not actually do any testing).  On both ships we were able to use Facetime with no problem and data flowed quite nicely for a ship.   Ironically, when we again cruised on the Regal (Nov 1 from NYC) the Internet service was not nearly as good as it was 3 weeks earlier.  Go figure.

 

As to equating Gigabytes to speed, it is just not a valid comparison.  If the speed is slow, you are going to use fewer Gigs per minute.   We do think that getting packages based on Gigs is a lot fairer then paying for time.  But as to how many Gigs you need, it will depend on what you do and for how long.  If you want to stream videos it will quickly eat up your time.  If you are simply using E-Mail, make a few phone calls (via Internet), and do some browsing...those Gigs will go a long way.  If you are a young person who must spend every waking second on social media.....nothing will satisfy you other then unlimited :).

 

More and more lines are changing to a Gig standard or unlimited packages.  Time packages make little sense on ships since it can sometimes take 5 minutes to simply log-in.  What I really liked about MSC was that we could buy a package that covered multiple devices so DW and I could be online at the same time.  But we do not cruise to spend our time online, so we actually left the ship with several Gigs of unused data.  I should add that we have T-Mobile which works on just about every island and in most countries.  So, when we were close to or on an island we simply used shore-based servers (which cost us nothing  extra with T-Mobile).

 

Hank

Thanks Hank. Great response!