Voom and Stream question...

[Pete's Girl]

I am sure there are other posts on this subject so forgive me for asking something I'm sure is redundant. (I've scrolled down some of the posts, and haven't found what I'm looking for.)

 

We are sailing Mariner in 12 days.  I am seriously considering the Voom and Stream package as it says you can stream movies, etc.  I wouldn't be opposed to watching Netflix at night instead of the countless repeat television shows they offer.  My first question is.....is it worth it?  Is it really fast enough to stream Netflix?  I don't care about social media while we're away...we like to turn off from family, friends, and life back home while we're gone.  But watching movies is definitely attractive.  Have any of you done this and how successful has it been?

 

Second question...how low have you seen the price drop prior to the cruise?  Right now, it's $13.99/day for one device...which we're cool with.  But if that has shown to go down further, I'll hold out for a few more days.

 

Thanks in advance!!

 

Jay 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Pete's Girl

[Clarea]

Since Mariner does not have the faster, lower latency O3b service, I would expect video streaming to have buffering periods.

 

Prices change all the time, no pattern.

[Pete's Girl]

Hmm.....okay.  Thanks.  

[orville99]

It would be~ $17.99pd onboard if that is a 30% pre cruise discount. $17.99 pd is what we paid last week on Oasis. Not sure what O3b is, but we streamed Netflix with no problems on Oasis last week.

Edited February 6, 2019 by orville99

[Clarea]

1 minute ago, orville99 said:

It would be $17.99 onboard if that is a 30% discount. $17.99 pd is what we paid last week on Oasis. Not sure what O3b is, but we streamed Netflix with no problems on Oasis last week.

 

O3b is the faster, higher capacity internet service that is on all Quantum and Oasis class ships.  O3b has only been retrofitted to a handful of older ships, none of which is Mariner.

[dpostman]

8 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

O3b has only been retrofitted to a handful of older ships, none of which is Mariner.

 

Would Brilliance by any chance be among that handful of ships?

 

dp

[orville99]

1 minute ago, dpostman said:

 

Would Brilliance by any chance be among that handful of ships?

 

dp

Based solely on our internet experience on Brilliance in November - probably not.

[Clarea]

39 minutes ago, dpostman said:

 

Would Brilliance by any chance be among that handful of ships?

 

dp

 

No.  As far as I can remember, there are no Radiance class ships that have been upgraded to O3b. 

 

I believe Majesty and Freedom have O3b, and maybe one or two others.

[norway olin]

1 minute ago, Host Clarea said:

 

No.  As far as I can remember, there are no Radiance class ships that have been upgraded to O3b. 

 

 

So on Radiance ships is there much difference between Voom and Voom+Stream if streaming is going to be wonky anyway?

[orville99]

17 minutes ago, norway olin said:

So on Radiance ships is there much difference between Voom and Voom+Stream if streaming is going to be wonky anyway?

It was a bit wonky, but it worked. The buffering wasn't that bad that we couldn't watch what we wanted on our iPads.

[Ocean Boy]

Streaming was horrible on Adventure. Non-streaming was horrible on Adventure. Basically, the internet service is horrible on Adventure.

[Clarea]

39 minutes ago, norway olin said:

So on Radiance ships is there much difference between Voom and Voom+Stream if streaming is going to be wonky anyway?

 

Yes, there is a difference, Surf is limited to around 0.5 Mbps and Stream is limited to around 5 Mbps.  However, the total bandwidth available to the ship is much lower than O3b ships, so there is a much greater chance of being oversubscribed on a non-O3b ship.

[SRF]

On Grandeur two summers ago, we were seeing 5 mbps stream pretty much any time.  People were video chatting fine.

 

Pings are HORRIBLE though.

[dpostman]

1 hour ago, Host Clarea said:

 

No.  As far as I can remember, there are no Radiance class ships that have been upgraded to O3b. 

 

I believe Majesty and Freedom have O3b, and maybe one or two others.

 

Thanks Bob, that is what I thought,

 

I did purchase the 2 device S&S package back on Black Friday for the same price as Stream is available during current sale, so I won't bother downgrading, but it there was a substantial $ difference, I'd probably just got with stream.

 

dp

[Ocean Boy]

7 minutes ago, dpostman said:

 

Thanks Bob, that is what I thought,

 

I did purchase the 2 device S&S package back on Black Friday for the same price as Stream is available during current sale, so I won't bother downgrading, but it there was a substantial $ difference, I'd probably just got with stream.

 

dp

You can't just go with stream. Surf is the slower connection, surf and stream is the faster. If you get stream you also get surf. They are not bought separately.

[Clarea]

5 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

You can't just go with stream. Surf is the slower connection, surf and stream is the faster. If you get stream you also get surf. They are not bought separately.

 

Yet another confusing term invented by Royal.

 

It's like they have a whole department dedicated to creating confusing terminology.

[dpostman]

25 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

You can't just go with stream. Surf is the slower connection, surf and stream is the faster. If you get stream you also get surf. They are not bought separately.

 

oops... I knew that,  Thanks for the correction.  I meant to say Surf.

 

dp

[dpostman]

20 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Yet another confusing term invented by Royal.

 

It's like they have a whole department dedicated to creating confusing terminology.

 

Exactly Bob,

Technically speaking, in English, to me if we were talking about water... Surf is much bigger than a Stream

 

dp

[Jasukkie]

You can download many Netflix programs to your device ahead of time, no need to have an internet package onboard and no worries about streaming quality. I do this every time I fly or cruise, it works really well. It just takes some advance planning while you are on wifi before your cruise.

[dpostman]

38 minutes ago, Jasukkie said:

You can download many Netflix programs to your device ahead of time, no need to have an internet package onboard and no worries about streaming quality. I do this every time I fly or cruise, it works really well. It just takes some advance planning while you are on wifi before your cruise.

 

I do the same thing.  I probably would not even have onboard internet were it not that the Kids and dog are staying behind at home while we are in the Baltics for 2 weeks.  But since we will have it, hopefully, it will be mostly used for pre-planning our "On our own" port excursions

[SciFiGuy1960]

1 hour ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Yet another confusing term invented by Royal.

 

It's like they have a whole department dedicated to creating confusing terminology.

[Mama24]

On Serenade last March, I used Netflix a lot.  If there was buffering, it was minimal.

[Rogueperson]

The internet is wonky on the ship.  They have their own quirks which are somewhat unexplainable, even by the IT professionals onboard.  I've been able to stream on Grandeur and Navigator with Netflix, Hulu and I *think* Amazon prime.  I don't use it that often.  Xfinity will not work as it is too slow for them.  On Anthem, Xfinity did work.

 

Problems I have found.  Internet can kick you off for no reason (had that happen to me on one of my three grandeur trips).  Some decks get better data than others even at full wifi connection (On Navigator, I could not stream data from the top decks for some reason even though I had full connection with the wi-fi).  On Anthem, I got data, but it would not stream.  I could speed scan the video, but it would not play.  IT manager replicated the problem on his device but was clueless at why it was happening.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Rogueperson

[jean87510]

I had very few problems streaming Netflix on the jewel last November during our transatlantic. And also when just on the vision in January in the Caribbean. Xfinity was difficult but I used HBO go which worked and YouTube. I only get the surf and stream.

[brookmill18]

We have typically found the surf and stream on sale but this year are thinking of just doing the surf package.  Just wondering if there is much of difference in quality?  We'll be on Anthem, and in the past we have found we already can iMessage and read emails thru the ship's free wifi.  We use the package to read media on line and the kids use it for snapchat and instagram.  Not really interested in streaming movies/shows.  Anyone have experience using just the surf package--strong enough to read media on line (NYT and Washington Post) and for social media?

 

Thanks!