When will WiFi be free on Celebrity?

[bikerunner]

16 minutes ago, srdancer said:

Celebrity prices are not so much less than Oceania, depending on the itinerary.  We have concierge cabin in Sept. 2019 on Summit for 14 day Canada/New England cruise. Price with 2 perks (we chose classic alcohol package and gratuities) is currently a little over $10,000 and has been at that level for many months. (Luckily we booked it a year ago for a bit under $7300!!)

We are booked on an Oceania Riviera Mediterranean Cruise for next year. It is $8900 for a B1 veranda, 12 days including Internet,  non alcoholic beverages, free specialty restaurants. 2 days less on cruise but actually 1 additional port day since there are only 2 sea days. I don't drink alcohol, DH has a glass of wine or beer with dinner plus something frozen at the pool on sea days, weather permitting. So alcohol expenses are very low.

Also, cabin on Oceania is almost 50 sq.  feet larger than Celebrity cabin.

 

 

 

It does depend on the itinerary.  I looked into Oceania and still came out to more overall on the cruises areas I was looking for, but they are close overall.  The "free" wifi will happen eventually and be added into the cruise costs overall, the technology just needs to get there at a reasonable cost for the lines to switch over to something like that.  For smaller lines it is easier to be more nimble.  With a cruiseline that has over 10 ships by the time they plan it out and put it in, it will be completely outdated overall. 

[Charles4515]

Mc post="56945001" timestamp="1551734864" name="bikerunner" userid="95796"] The "free" wifi will happen eventually and be added into the cruise costs overall, the technology just needs to get there at a reasonable cost for the lines to switch over to something like that.  For smaller lines it is easier to be more nimble.  With a cruiseline that has over 10 ships by the time they plan it out and put it in, it will be completely outdated overall. 

 

 

They will only do if it gives them a competitive advantage or to match the competition. I would not make any predictions. People have started threads like this every year and predicting free WiFi and it has not happened yet. As for the technology, as more low and mid level orbital satellites have been launched the cost has been dropping but that does not mean Celebrity will pass the savings on. Since Carnival is now adapting the new lower orbital services among its brands and fleet, their pricing looks much better than Celebrity’s, more like the Royal Caribbean WiFi pricing, hopefully Celebrity will be forced to at least lower their pricing.

 

 

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[Happy Cruiser 6143]

2 hours ago, broberts said:

 

This may come as a surprise to the thousands of people currently using their cell phone aboard a cruise ship at sea.

The people using their cell phones are using wi-fi, not cellular service.  If they are using cellular service, they will be unpleasantly surprised by a huge bill from their service provider when they return home.

[srdancer]

37 minutes ago, Tourist1292 said:

It is not because it is shorter, it is simply a large increase in price. It was $22 per day last year and it is $32 per day after the 10% off right now.

On my cruise planner for 7 day Bermuda cruise May, 2019: One device package is $224 after a 10 % discount or $249 before the 10% discount.

On my cruuse planner for my Sept. 2019 14 day Canada/New England cruise:  One device package is $287 after a 10% discount or $319 before the 10% discount.

My CC Select status would give me a 25% discount off the non discounted price.

If you talk about year over year, on my Aug. 2018 14 day cruise the Internet cost was also $319 before the discount.

[PTC DAWG]

I don’t want it. Don’t need it. 

[mayleeman]

49 minutes ago, srdancer said:

On our 14 day European cruise on Silhouette this past August and on our upcoming 14 day Canada/New England on Summit, 1 device unlimited Internet package is $319 before our CC discount. On our upcoming 7 day Bermuda cruise on Summit in May, the cost is around $250-260 before CC discount. This makes the daily rate more than 50% higher on the shorter cruise. Why???

When they charge you simply by a daily rate, it likely also includes what is basically an undisclosed equipment charge that is fixed no matter how many days it is used. Purchase more days, that fee is amortized over your total time and thus makes the overall daily rate lower. 

[Tourist1292]

3 minutes ago, srdancer said:

On my cruise planner for 7 day Bermuda cruise May, 2019: One device package is $224 after a 10 % discount or $249 before the 10% discount.

On my cruuse planner for my Sept. 2019 14 day Canada/New England cruise:  One device package is $287 after a 10% discount or $319 before the 10% discount.

My CC Select status would give me a 25% discount off the non discounted price.

If you talk about year over year, on my Aug. 2018 14 day cruise the Internet cost was also $319 before the discount.

Now that explains the price discrepancy. I looked up the news release in 2016 when the Accelerate was launched, it was $140 for 5-9 day cruise and $199 for 10 days or longer. The per day rate is roughly the same for a 7 day or 10 day cruise but cheaper for longer cruise. People who posted the picture of flyer fron last year with the $21-$22 per day cost could be for 14-day cruise. In other words, the pricing structure is not simply per day. For longer cruise, it is likely to have more people signing up for internet due to the extended stay so more people can share the cost.

[bkbarrym]

1 hour ago, drakes2 said:

I'm with Roger's and roam like home is $7 per day for calls within a 24 hour period.  Assuming I make 1 call per day that's $95 including HST for a 12 night cruise. I think I will opt out of the plan for now and just pay per minute or use an APP but wifi in ports is not the best at times. Just need to call my family. I had an issue last year and Diamonds International let me use their local phone.

Rogers Roam Like Home gives you access to your home plan so you can phone, text, and use your data bucket as if you were at home for $7/day when used in U.S.A. and territories (i.e. Puerto Rico, St. Thomas) or $12/day International (i.e. Mexico, Europe). I use my Rogers phone plan on port days and then we use our complimentary 90 internet minutes (x2) while at sea. Usually get good signal on the ship while it is in port.

[Charles4515]

Rogers Roam Like Home gives you access to your home plan so you can phone, text, and use your data bucket as if you were at home for $7/day when used in U.S.A. and territories (i.e. Puerto Rico, St. Thomas) or $12/day International (i.e. Mexico, Europe). I use my Rogers phone plan on port days and then we use our complimentary 90 internet minutes (x2) while at sea. Usually get good signal on the ship while it is in port.

 

I don’t purchase the Celebrity WiFi with its high prices either anymore. My AT&T plan includes Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Canada and Mexico. International Day Passes at other ports cost $10 a day. I get 240 complementary minutes so I don’t buy any WiFi. On my recent Royal Caribbean cruise the unlimited WiFi was $85 so I did buy that because that is a reasonable price and the cruise had three sea days and I only get one free 24 WiFi day on Royal.

 

 

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[srdancer]

We can pay Verizon $10 per day for our 3 port days and use our regular phone, text and data cell service. We will have regular cell service until we depart on embarcation day. We can live without internet on the other 3 days since we don't have flights/boarding passes to deal with and have no children, grandchildren or elderly parents to worry about.

[Charles4515]

You really can’t compare the free WiFi on Oceania or Viking to Celebrity. If the WiFi was free on a 3000 passenger ship the number of users would slow it to a crawl. With current tech some kind of fee is still needed to ration the bandwidth. I think it should be lower on Celebrity than it is but free would probably make it unusable. Oceania and Viking have far fewer passengers sharing bandwidth.


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[Luvcrusn]

On a 13 night cruise in November/December 2014 on Royal Caribbean, unlimited WIFI cost me under $75. In February of 2016 on Celebrity for a 9 night cruise unlimited WIFI cost $200. This past December 2018 it was $239 for unlimited for a 23 night. The cost has risen exponentially over the past 5 years. I can live without it, but it was nice to have to make WIFI calls to family. I can live with waiting until I'm in port. While it would be nice to have unlimited WIFI for free, I'm of the opinion that there are no "free lunches" and we'll all pay for it in one way or another if the cruise line chooses to "include" it. 

[Paulras]

I try to do the math. If they sell only 1000 internet packages (1 package for every 3 people) on a 1 week cruise times the approx $200 per package, that's $200k per week, per ship. Over $10 million per year. How much did it cost to install? A couple million? How much to keep it up and running? Another couple million a year? They keep the rest. Huge profit on each ship and yet the speed is like something from 15 years ago.

 

Bottom line is that it's too good for their bottom line to make it free. 

 

Oh, and the crew pay for the usage too. Though it's a tiny fraction (like pennies per minute) of what we pay but still more revenue for Celebrity. 

[Jeremiah1212]

 I have no idea what kind of technology they use, but there's a good chance it's priced the way it is for capacity control purposes. Doesn't Edge offer a ~$100 social media/light use package? Presumably, it has newer technology to accommodate the additional traffic. It's also much more in line with where the other mainstream lines price their packages.

[Baron Barracuda]

35 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

You really can’t compare the free WiFi on Oceania or Viking to Celebrity. If the WiFi was free on a 3000 passenger ship the number of users would slow it to a crawl. With current tech some kind of fee is still needed to ration the bandwidth. I think it should be lower on Celebrity than it is but free would probably make it unusable. Oceania and Viking have far fewer passengers sharing bandwidth.


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VO wifi isn't very fast.  They make no attempt to promote it as such.  But all their inclusions (wifi, specialty restaurants, shore excursion in every port, beer and wine with lunch and dinner) are welcome.  And we paid under $250/night for a pv3.

 

Given that X throws in 2 or more "free" percs on most sailings, and wifi for 2 is one of the options, you could say X offers free wifi today.    

Depending on length of cruise the wifi perc can be more valuable than grats or obc however I somehow doubt many choose it.  We always select bev pkg & grats and then buy a one device wifi pkg (taking advantage of our Elite discount).

[grandgeezer]

We each get 240 minutes that comes from being Elite Plus, which is more than enough.

[The_Big_M]

8 hours ago, mfs2k said:

 

I don't understand why any guest would take an opposing view on this and back the cruise line for charging exorbitant rates for wifi..  

 

This is like 15 years ago, someone agreeing with the phone company for charging $1.50 a minute to call from Los Angeles to NYC because the lines are costly.  Now it's free. Change happens. 

 

That change happened because of external changes. Voice content occupies a relatively small proportion compared to data, and fibre optic lines had to be put into to handle much greater data demands. As a result, the cost of voice traffic became negligible, and could be sold cheaply where the main market switched to data.

 

Sure, if in the future, there's some overwhelming technological change that renders the data usage for internet usage at sea negligible, I can see it happening. However, right now, data is the only service using it and has a significant cost of its own. While there have been service upgrades that improve capacity at sea, they aren't free, and they're only provided for the internet capacity itself. Thus, the appropriate option is to let the user pay, rather than charging everyone including those who don't need it. Also, if they were to make it free then usage would ramp up even more, likely exceeding current supply and the service would become poor quality for everyone.

[The_Big_M]

3 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

The people using their cell phones are using wi-fi, not cellular service.  If they are using cellular service, they will be unpleasantly surprised by a huge bill from their service provider when they return home.

 

Depends where you're travelling. I happily use my mobile phone for internet access at sea off the coast, when in range. No huge bill from my service provider afterwards.

[TWG_ag]

I just read this interesting string and wanted to add some data points.

 

First nothing on your cruise (or airline flight, or hotel stay) is "free". It may be included in the base price or charged as an extra, but you are paying for it. I split time between Celebrity and Regent. Luxury lines like Regent, throw the word "free" around a lot, but mostly what they are saying is included. So whether Celebrity gives it to you are tacks on a fee, you will be paying for it. That is the same for "free" internet in hotels or airplanes. BTW, free public Wifi is not really "free", someone is paying for it to entice you to their location.

 

What we are really talking about is marketing. I believe Celebrity often runs promos that include Internet just like booze and specialty dining. So if you want "free" wait a week or so and a promotion will come around.

 

Second, I am actually in the Satellite Internet business and have been for over 10 years. It costs over $100 million to put a modern satellite in orbit, and that does not include the ground stations required to complete the connection to the net. Somebody invested money to do that and they are entitled to a return on their investment. The cost of Internet on a ship is classic supply and demand. There is high demand and very limited supply. Only in the past couple of years have the two main providers started dedicating large amounts of their capacity to ships and planes. It is now their fastest growing segment. Since they can only put a new satellite up every 12 to 18 months, capacity will not come quickly. Supply may catch up but even then, you will never have more than one option on one ship, so internet access is going to have strong marketing value to the lines.

 

Finally, I just want to address a recurring theme in this thread. The belief of some people that access is somehow necessary or required on a cruise ship. (Others may be correct in arguing if it is the essential necessity the OP originally stated, but I will leave that to them.) I have been cruising since 1982. There have always been ways to get ahold of friends or family in an emergency. I cruised with a Tulsa Oilman in 1985 (pre-internet) that was signing leases  from the Song of America in the Eastern Caribbean, long before we all had iPhones. Still, I do not see the requirement of a cruise line to do anything other than give you a great vacation. Running your business from vacation seems like a waste of your vacation. To the OP, if that is a requirement for you, then you made a practical decision moving to land based resorts. That is the great thing about vacations, it is your choice to make the best decision for yourself.

 

Anyway, thanks for an entertaining read, and safe sailing to you all.

TW

[Ken the cruiser]

7 hours ago, Cruise Junky said:

Oceania added free wifi last year. It used to be a perk, but now it's a standard offering.  With Celebrity's current pricing, Oceania isn't that much higher.

We were on the Oceania Riviera for 45 days this summer after they gave every cabin free internet without updating their routers and the service was horrible. Besides having extremely slow bandwidth speeds, you would frequently lose connection to the area router you were connected to while you were downloading email because there were simply too many devices continually requesting connection to the router that didn't have enough ports to accomodate them all, except maybe in the middle of the night or on port days when everyone was ashore. BTW don't be fooled, you're paying for that unlimited service in the price of the O cruise. X just gives you the option through their perk promotions if the internet is important to you like it is for us.

 

IMHO, if you want unlimited internet on a X ship, select that perk when you book your cruise and all is good.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[broberts]

5 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

The people using their cell phones are using wi-fi, not cellular service.  If they are using cellular service, they will be unpleasantly surprised by a huge bill from their service provider when they return home.

 

While some may use WiFi calling, ships do offer CSM, UMTS,  LTE, and 4G-LTE support. Some cellular providers offer fairly reasonable call and text rates aboard cruise ships, although data remains rather expensive.

[mazza]

11 hours ago, Toftwood said:

I was shocked on our last cruise to see so many people reading and sending emails at breakfast in the MDR. I am sure most of it was unnecessary.

Ah, but some of us who cruise run our own businesses - and answering emails whenever they come in is a necessity, even when on a cruise. It's a fact of my life - I have to stay in touch with people if I want to earn a living. So it's not about wasting a cruise - far from it - but keeping everything in balance. Now I don't answer emails in the MDR at breakfast (only in the stateroom), but if people do, I don't assume that what they are doing is unnecessary or an inappropriate use of time - I have no idea and my view is that it's their business how they spend their cruise time.

Edited March 5, 2019 by mazza

[mazza]

1 hour ago, broberts said:

 

While some may use WiFi calling, ships do offer CSM, UMTS,  LTE, and 4G-LTE support. Some cellular providers offer fairly reasonable call and text rates aboard cruise ships, although data remains rather expensive.

Our phone provider offers a 'use your phone as you would at home' service for $5 each day that you use your phone. No use, no charge. So no hidden surprises anymore - for either calls or data.

 

[volk904]

We just got off the Edge.  Before the cruise I saw the WiFi prices as way out of my budget.  I had decided to buy a few days for work and make due.  Once in the ship I found out I could buy the week for 1 device for $99 it was not fast enough to stream but plenty good for email and normal internet. Faur price I think. 

[Miaminice]

I second the question „Why would they?“ 

As long as they are making good money on it, why would they do it for „free“? As long as passengers feel it is so important that they pay those prices... good on the cruise lines.

 

Plus, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If they dropped the cost, they would just distribute the expenses and lost revenue on all of us. And personally I don’t feel like paying for other people’s „essentials“.

 

Also, contrary to the OP, I do not think internet is essential. It has become an addiction, just like many years ago smoking was a generally excepted addiction - deemed essential by many. It has become an addictive habit to post everything on social media and to constantly be somewhere else in your mind. People have lost the ability to log out and enjoy the moment without the need of letting everyone else know about it.

 

I know now there will be people reading this saying: but I have to stay connected. No, you don’t! It worked before and it works now to be without internet.

I am the CEO of a company. I, and every one of our employees deserve time off. Our employees are not allowed to do work on vacation. When I am on vacation, my assistants know how to reach me - in an emergency only.

 

For the very rare time that I need to log in to help, I use other devices (such as Skyroam) which are less expensive. Since they are set to work on a daypass basis, I am also not tempted to be connected every day just because „I could“.

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Miaminice