WiFi Calling: Is VOOM Surf good enough?

[Chipmoose]

Does anyone know if the classic soda and voom package includes surf & stream or is it just surf?

It is priced similarly to the surf & stream plus soda, but on a recent grandeur cruise it was awful, and the package includes just surf, I would be better off buying the 2 parts separately than in this package.

[Biker19]

5 hours ago, Chipmoose said:

Does anyone know if the classic soda and voom package includes surf & stream or is it just surf?

All reporting seems to indicate that all combo packages (drink+VOOM) have Stream.

[Clarea]

5 hours ago, Chipmoose said:

...  but on a recent grandeur cruise it was awful ...

 

That's just the nature of the service on Grandeur.  Nothing like the service on the newer ships and some of the older ones that have been retrofitted with O3b.

[Wine-O]

3 hours ago, Biker19 said:

All reporting seems to indicate that all combo packages (drink+VOOM) have Stream.

The cruise planner states drinks + VOOM have surf & stream.  🍷

[packedandready]

A dummy question here. If I use WiFi calling and phone is in airplane mode can I text?

[Clarea]

9 minutes ago, packedandready said:

A dummy question here. If I use WiFi calling and phone is in airplane mode can I text?

 

WiFi calling gives the phone full funtionality, as if it's connected to your home cellular network.

 

Note that it's important to remember that point about being connected to your home cellular. If you are on WiFi calling and make a call that would normally cost extra at home, then it will also cost extra on WiFI calling, no matter where you are in the world.

[johnjen]

It worked fine for us on our hemisphere.

 

But the MED is a different story (at least it was two years ago on Brilliance). This is why we aren't getting Internet at all on our med coming soon. I am hoping the med's Internet is now working better on Brilliance. It was horrible then!

[Clarea]

4 minutes ago, johnjen said:

It worked fine for us on our hemisphere.

 

But the MED is a different story (at least it was two years ago on Brilliance). This is why we aren't getting Internet at all on our med coming soon. I am hoping the med's Internet is now working better on Brilliance. It was horrible then!

 

Most likely no noticible change to internet service on Brilliance.

[legaljen1969]

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 11:00 PM, karen_g said:

On past cruises I have bought the Surf & Stream, but I never did stream anything.  I am hoping to save a few bucks by going just with "Surf" speed, as long as my phone calls will go through & will be clear.  Does anyone have any experience with this?

It appears that everyone is saying for the most part getting surf only will be sufficient and with so many being far wiser than I am, I am sure they are spot on. 

However, I do want to add a little something here.

For context, we are taking a 5 day cruise during Christmas week on Brilliance in December.  We will be purchasing the Deluxe Drink Package +Voom (which offers drinks and Voom Surf/Stream) which will run us $356.97 each.

Since we planned to purchase a drink package and a Voom package, it is currently more cost effective for the specific cruise we are on to buy the Drink/Voom.
To purchase them separately- Deluxe drink package ($306.80 pp) and then a separate Voom Surf only ($71.95) = $378.75 pp.

I was weighing all of my options because I didn't think we would want to stream either so we looked at what it would cost to do Drink Package and then Surf only separately. 

 

I know the prices vary by the number of days, dates of the cruise and even by ship.  Just reporting my findings for my specific cruise.  If you are doing a drink package too, you may want to surf and stream if the total package cost is less.

[johnjen]

1 hour ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Most likely no noticible change to internet service on Brilliance.

Yeah Bob. Perhaps....I spent too many hours in a line waiting to see what they could do about the poor quality, I felt bad for the guy from Ukraine who was dealing with some really nasty customers. The chief IT guy on Anthem later on told me that MED voom is worse there....even while in the Navy our satcom and HF access in the med was horrific as well!

[Clarea]

2 minutes ago, johnjen said:

Yeah Bob. Perhaps....I spent too many hours in a line waiting to see what they could do about the poor quality, I felt bad for the guy from Ukraine who was dealing with some really nasty customers. The chief IT guy on Anthem later on told me that MED voom is worse there....even while in the Navy our satcom and HF access in the med was horrific as well!

 

I'm surprised that Anthem would have internet trouble in the Med.  That should be well within the normal service area.

[johnjen]

14 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

I'm surprised that Anthem would have internet trouble in the Med.  That should be well within the normal service area.

I should've reworded that....the anthem cruise was to Bermuda on a cruise after Brilliance in the med, I had asked the chief IT guy about the med issues and he confirmed it....the issues were on Brilliance, sorry for the wording earlier! The root of the problems are satellite coverage in the med vs the atlantic. In the med, the azimuth of the bird isn't quite as overhead as the atlantic, in other words, the satellite is prominently lower toward the horizon in the med whereas the bird over the atlantic is directly overhead. 

Edited June 26, 2019 by johnjen

[Clarea]

2 minutes ago, johnjen said:

I should've reworded that....the anthem cruise was to Bermuda on a cruise after Brilliance in the med, I had asked the chief IT guy about the med issues and he confirmed it....the issues were on Brilliance, sorry for the wording earlier! The root of the problems are satellite coverage in the med vs the atlantic. In the med, the azimuth of the bird isn't quite as overhead as the atlantic, in other words, the satellite is prominently lower toward the horizon in the med whereas the bird over the atlantic is directly overhead. 

 

OK, makes sense now.  I'm guessing Royal's geosync internet provider doesn't have a better satellite to use for ships in the Med.