Ship List--REAL Voom Internet (your help appreciated)

[katepanda]

So, if I have to do an online proctored exam on Freedom of the Seas, it should work without a problem with VOOM?

[Clarea]

16 minutes ago, katepanda said:

So, if I have to do an online proctored exam on Freedom of the Seas, it should work without a problem with VOOM?

 

No guarantees because of ports and/or latency.   I've seen these exam/school sites use non-standard ports all the time. 

[katepanda]

5 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

No guarantees because of ports and/or latency.   I've seen these exam/school sites use non-standard ports all the time. 

 

Any idea on remote proctor?

[steveru621]

2 hours ago, joshuamg said:

Updated

 

SHIP

Adventure--NOT REAL Voom (as of Jan 2019 Thanks @John&LaLa)

Allure--REAL Voom (as of Nov 2017)

Anthem--Coming Soon (Sailing Aug 2019)

Brilliance--NOT REAL Voom (as of Jan 2019)

Empress--NOT REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach and @John&LaLa!)

Enchantment--REAL Voom but potentially slower--ship pipe/bandwidth more limited (Thanks @twangster and @serialcruiser48)

Explorer--

Freedom--REAL Voom (as of Dec 2018)

Grandeur--NOT REAL Voom (as of April 2019 thanks @h20skibum)

Harmony--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach!)

Independence--REAL Voom (as of April 2019)

Jewel--

Liberty--REAL Voom (Thanks @Biker19)

Majesty--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach!)

Mariner--NOT Real Voom (as of July 2019)

Navigator--

Ovation--REAL Voom (except when in Alaska, then terrible internet)

Oasis--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach)

Quantum--

Radiance--

Rhapsody--

Serenade--NOT Real Voom (Thanks @John&LaLa)

Spectrum--

Symphony--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach!)

Vision--NOT REAL Voom (Thanks @Ashland)

Voyager--

 

@serialcruiser48 I'm considering a B2B2B in Jan on the Enchantment. Any first-hand experience on how low the Enchantment internet would dip in terms of bandwidth with the limited pipe?

 

What VPN do you use??

[katepanda]

24 minutes ago, katepanda said:

 

Any idea on remote proctor?

Ports 80 and 443

[serialcruiser48]

4 hours ago, joshuamg said:

Updated

 

SHIP

Adventure--NOT REAL Voom (as of Jan 2019 Thanks @John&LaLa)

Allure--REAL Voom (as of Nov 2017)

Anthem--Coming Soon (Sailing Aug 2019)

Brilliance--NOT REAL Voom (as of Jan 2019)

Empress--NOT REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach and @John&LaLa!)

Enchantment--REAL Voom but potentially slower--ship pipe/bandwidth more limited (Thanks @twangster and @serialcruiser48)

Explorer--

Freedom--REAL Voom (as of Dec 2018)

Grandeur--NOT REAL Voom (as of April 2019 thanks @h20skibum)

Harmony--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach!)

Independence--REAL Voom (as of April 2019)

Jewel--

Liberty--REAL Voom (Thanks @Biker19)

Majesty--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach!)

Mariner--NOT Real Voom (as of July 2019)

Navigator--

Ovation--REAL Voom (except when in Alaska, then terrible internet)

Oasis--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach)

Quantum--

Radiance--

Rhapsody--

Serenade--NOT Real Voom (Thanks @John&LaLa)

Spectrum--

Symphony--REAL Voom (Thanks @Ourusualbeach!)

Vision--NOT REAL Voom (Thanks @Ashland)

Voyager--

 

@serialcruiser48 I'm considering a B2B2B in Jan on the Enchantment. Any first-hand experience on how low the Enchantment internet would dip in terms of bandwidth with the limited pipe?

 

On sea days it slow considerably. What makes matters worse is the Key program which includes WiFi so there are more WiFi users than before the Key program. I was 9 days b2b in July and quite familiar with it’s WiFi. But, that said it’s still much better than ships with Gloom (non 03b). Gloom ships have high orbit garbage and 60 Mbps for the whole ship.

I really like the Enchantment and cruising it again Sep 11. I’m going to miss it when it leaves Galveston. We are getting the Adventure with Gloom and would like to know why this ship did not get 03b during it’s $116000K Amp Up??

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, katepanda said:

Ports 80 and 443

Those should be fine. 

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, serialcruiser48 said:

. We are getting the Adventure with Gloom and would like to know why this ship did not get 03b during it’s $116000K Amp Up??

RCI doesn’t want to spend the recurring costs. 

[zook50]

Very interesting topic!  We have never been on Royal Caribbean, but would like to try it in the future for something different.  We have been on several Celebrity cruises and will have an internet package for the first time on our next one (November 20, 2019 Eclipse, LA to Chile, 16 nights).  I wish you could give us more information about what WE could expect on our ship (speed/efficiency of internet, etc.).  How about a trip over to the Celebrity side😉😉?

[twangster]

Add CocoCay to the list for real O3b Voom.  Work from Captain Jacks, why not?   :)

 

Something to keep in mind regardless of real or fake Voom.  They both come down off the satellite in Miami where it connects to the actual internet.  If Miami has bad weather like strong storms Voom for all ships will be bad at that moment, even a ship is a thousand miles away in sunny skies.

 

Also, O3b only works at +/- 70° latitude so when ships like Ovation are in Alaska they aren't using O3b and the old satellites have very poor coverage that far North.  

 

[Clarea]

5 hours ago, katepanda said:

 

Any idea on remote proctor?

 

Nope, totally dependent on how that site uses port numbers.

[twangster]

6 hours ago, katepanda said:

So, if I have to do an online proctored exam on Freedom of the Seas, it should work without a problem with VOOM?

 

If a heavy rain storm hits the ship during the exam you may lose contact.  Satellite internet isn't perfect by any stretch.  

 

Some proctor systems want to see a live feed from your webcam the whole time.  If all goes well it could work, or it might not.

[motheroftwocats814]

I have no idea what any of the tech stuff means. 

[joshuamg]

18 hours ago, serialcruiser48 said:

 

On sea days it slow considerably. What makes matters worse is the Key program which includes WiFi so there are more WiFi users than before the Key program. I was 9 days b2b in July and quite familiar with it’s WiFi. But, that said it’s still much better than ships with Gloom (non 03b). Gloom ships have high orbit garbage and 60 Mbps for the whole ship.

I really like the Enchantment and cruising it again Sep 11. I’m going to miss it when it leaves Galveston. We are getting the Adventure with Gloom and would like to know why this ship did not get 03b during it’s $116000K Amp Up??

@serialcruiser48 Thanks so much for your additional feedback here and the lovely "gloom" lingo. I'm totally stealing that! 😉 I worked 3 B2Bs from the Brilliance last fall on Gloom and it actually worked out ok for what I needed but of course I'd rather have O3B to ensure better stability for my video meetings (I do 6 hrs of Zoom Video mtgs a day, surprisingly, Gloom on the Brilliance squeaked by!). From your experience, would you suggest a ship with Gloom over a ship with Capped Voom O3B (60mb Enchantment)?

Edited August 23, 2019 by joshuamg

[twangster]

6 minutes ago, joshuamg said:

 From your experience, would you suggest a ship with Gloom over a ship with Capped Voom O3B (60mb Enchantment)?

 

Most Voom is capped to around 4MB down and 2MB up.  Yes there are exceptions that people caught in the wild including myself on Harmony once, but for the most part starting in 2018 they rate limit on all ships, real Voom, gloom or doom.

 

CocoCay doesn't rate limit yet but I suspect that will change too soon enough.

[Biker19]

21 minutes ago, joshuamg said:

 From your experience, would you suggest a ship with Gloom over a ship with Capped Voom O3B (60mb Enchantment)?

I rather have Surf (capped at .5 Mbps) on an O3B equipped ship, vs Stream on a non-O3B equipped ship.

[Sizzlechest]

I believe certainconnections are given more bandwidth than others. On the Anthem, Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube worked great. Slingbox and Teamviewer did not. Do you think this will differ depending on which technology is used?

 

BTW, many people would prefer to use a VPN. You may want to also test for that. If RCL is prioritizing packets, I doubt the VPN is going to work unless they explicitly allow it.

[Biker19]

11 minutes ago, Sizzlechest said:

 Do you think this will differ depending on which technology is used?

Nope.

[twangster]

20 minutes ago, Sizzlechest said:

BTW, many people would prefer to use a VPN. You may want to also test for that. If RCL is prioritizing packets, I doubt the VPN is going to work unless they explicitly allow it.

 

Some VPN is more tolerant to the traffic shaping that is done on all satellite internet traffic.  Cisco AnyConnect works fine, other's do not.  YMMV.

 

Satellite internet is a lot more than just a pipe in the sky.  They perform a lot of forward error correction, compression and other magic to make it work as good as it does.  That magic is designed with general browsing, email and some streaming in mind but it isn't always friendly to every application out there.

Edited August 23, 2019 by twangster

[serialcruiser48]

On 8/23/2019 at 12:47 PM, joshuamg said:

@serialcruiser48 Thanks so much for your additional feedback here and the lovely "gloom" lingo. I'm totally stealing that! 😉 I worked 3 B2Bs from the Brilliance last fall on Gloom and it actually worked out ok for what I needed but of course I'd rather have O3B to ensure better stability for my video meetings (I do 6 hrs of Zoom Video mtgs a day, surprisingly, Gloom on the Brilliance squeaked by!). From your experience, would you suggest a ship with Gloom over a ship with Capped Voom O3B (60mb Enchantment)?

 

 My preference would be capped 03b over Gloom.  Gloom ships have the same bandwidth as capped 03b.

[lovesthebeach2]

Radiance in May on the way to Vancouver. 

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by lovesthebeach2

[Crism]

Symphony fail currently while enroute to Nassau with Surf+Stream. It was MUCH better a few days ago even on Surf. 😢

[sunsetme]

this stuff is way over my head but on my recent HArmony cruise the internet was slow. I thought internet on Royal princess in So America was faster.

[JerryAndMindy]

Glad I found this thread, we just got off the Mariner of the Seas, and were VERY disappointed in VOOM offering.  Not only was the speed awful, but the price increased since our last RCCL trip on the Enchantment of the Seas.  

 

I’ve attached 3 pictures, 1st shows all SpeedTest results done on this 4 day cruise with the “Surf and Stream” package.  The 2nd is from the ship docked at Coco Cay showing “Speedcast Communications”, and the 3rd one from Captain Jacks on Coco Cay showing “O3b”. 

 

1st> (all Speedtest results)

2nd (on ship docked in Coco Cay):

3> (at Capttain Jacks on Coco Cay)

 

This is the first VOOM ship we’ve been on that wasn’t “O3b” and also the first ship that we had complaints about the internet speed.  The speed and internet experience was slower than basic “Surf” packages we’ve tried before.  For one of the newly refurbished “Amped” ships, RCCL should feel embarrassed that they didn’t upgrade the Internet to O3b Networks and chose this inferior “Speedcast”, then has the nerve to charge the same rate as the O3b ships!!!

      #.     #.     #.     #.     #      #.     #.     #.     #.     #

Below represents the “One Device” pricing we’ve seen since our 1st VOOM voyage when it was introduced in 2017:

 

• Mariner 9/16/2019 sailing:
  $17.99 - Surf
  $21.99 - Surf + Stream
• Enchantment 4/8 & 4/29/2019 sailings:
  $15.99 - Surf
  $19.99 - Surf + Stream
• Oasis10/28/2018 sailing:
  $12.99 - Surf
  $17.99 - Surf + Stream
• Oasis 2/12/2017 sailing:
  $9.99 - Surf + Stream
  (BTW- only option was “Surf + Stream” and Speedtest results showed close to 30mb/up 15mb/down)
   

[Biker19]

3 hours ago, JerryAndMindy said:

 The speed and internet experience was slower than basic “Surf” packages we’ve tried before.

The speed on all ships is roughly the same, but the latency is much better on O3B ships. Yes, you can have an overall better performance (depends on what you are using internet for) using Surf on an O3b ship vs. Stream on a non O3b ship. 
 

Biker, who doesn’t think RCI is ever embarrassed by any of their cost cutting moves.