NCL Joy premium upgrade internet does not work

[kenzie]

prepaid to upgrade in our current 16 cruise, paid $364 to enable streaming - absolutely rubbish internet, cannot even watch a video on Facebook  never mind stream movies, if we try to see a video the quality is so bad you cannot even see anything, complained to internet manager and guest services- will do nothing but cancel for rest of cruise - I believe a refund is due as they cannot provide a service but took my money - guest services said it’s a different itenery so satalite is different - waiting for general manager response to our complaint  

[rockfsh]

Which itinerary /cruise were you on?

[ncl757]

5 hours ago, kenzie said:

prepaid to upgrade in our current 16 cruise, paid $364 to enable streaming - absolutely rubbish internet, cannot even watch a video on Facebook  never mind stream movies, if we try to see a video the quality is so bad you cannot even see anything, complained to internet manager and guest services- will do nothing but cancel for rest of cruise - I believe a refund is due as they cannot provide a service but took my money - guest services said it’s a different itenery so satalite is different - waiting for general manager response to our complaint  

Strangely, I am on the Joy right now as well, and have been thinking the Premium Internet was better than that of any ship I have have been on before. Have even been able to FaceTime and WiFi Call without much of an issue.  
 

Did you upgrade after you first used the package? I wonder if trying on a different device or location on board would show any improvement.

[Love my butler]

7 hours ago, kenzie said:

prepaid to upgrade in our current 16 cruise, paid $364 to enable streaming - absolutely rubbish internet, cannot even watch a video on Facebook  never mind stream movies, if we try to see a video the quality is so bad you cannot even see anything, complained to internet manager and guest services- will do nothing but cancel for rest of cruise - I believe a refund is due as they cannot provide a service but took my money - guest services said it’s a different itenery so satalite is different - waiting for general manager response to our complaint  

Been there, done that.  The best they would offer us after a long cruise of rubbish internet was $50 credit.  Seriously.  The internet manager even admitted the service didn't work at all for many days and poorly on the other days, yet she still would not budge more than 50 bucks.  Disgraceful.  NCL doesn't deliver a product you pay big money for, admits it and then refuses a refund.

 

For your convenience of course....

 

Edited January 25, 2020 by Love my butler

[dolita22]

3 hours ago, rockfsh said:

Which itinerary /cruise were you on?

 

It's a 16-day Panama Canal cruise from LA to Miami. I have family on the same cruise.

[BirdTravels]

7 hours ago, kenzie said:

prepaid to upgrade in our current 16 cruise, paid $364 to enable streaming - absolutely rubbish internet, cannot even watch a video on Facebook  never mind stream movies, if we try to see a video the quality is so bad you cannot even see anything, complained to internet manager and guest services- will do nothing but cancel for rest of cruise - I believe a refund is due as they cannot provide a service but took my money - guest services said it’s a different itenery so satalite is different - waiting for general manager response to our complaint  

If you have an issue, you must resolve now while you are still onboard. Don’t wait until the cruise ends and expect anything. Cancel the service. Live without internet. 
 

We actually had pretty good premium unlimited service on the Joy to Alaska a few months back. 

[kenzie]

Hi - Thanks for your interest, the internet was terrible, I bought the upgrade pre cruise, internet manager would do nothing, the streaming on premium did not exist -they advertise it that you can stream movies etc but you could not even watch a facebook video as it stopped after a few seconds, I needed the upgrade to unlimited but the additional amount for premium, being additional $5 pd was my complaint, I took my complaint to the General Manager who overrode the internet manager and gave us $100 OBC which satisfied my complaint. They should not however offer the service if they cannot provide it.

My experience of internet is on the larger ships of RCC, Princess and obviously NCL, NCL is clearly the worst and slowest service, but we still need it, RCC with Voom is brilliant, just wish this was available on all ships. 

[BirdTravels]

On the Anthem, my review concluded that VOOM did not go Vroom and the streaming service was unusable. We upload a lot of pictures during our cruises and on the RCL Anthem, we could not get that to work. We have had o.k. VOOM service on other big ships like the Allure, Harmony and Symphony. NCL is hit and miss depending on what kind of passengers are on board. As I previously said, we had pretty good premium unlimited service on the Joy to Alaska late last year. 

[Turtles06]

We were just on the Gem's 20-night Panama Canal cruise.  I'd upgraded our 250-minute "free" minutes to the unlimited package, pre-cruise.   I was surprised when we got on board to find out that I could not use WiFi calling on my iPhone, since NCL's info said that all you could not do with the unlimited plan was stream videos (which we had no interest in doing).  I spoke to the Internet Manager on board, who told me that NCL blocks WiFi calling unless you have the premium package.  I pointed out to her that this is not stated in any of their materials, and that the unlimited plan was already absurdly expensive, and she gave me a very hefty discount to upgrade to the premium plan.

 

Internet access was really hit or miss throughout the cruise.  There were several days in a row when there was no access at all.   It was so bad that staff members (including the Cruise Next director) were complaining about it, because it affected their ability to do their jobs.     

 

NCL's internet is very expensive (more than on Celebrity), and I think it's a pretty crappy product. 

[mking8288]

NCL's vendor EMC took over MTN Communications, and continued to use high orbit satellite technologies, unlike Royal, Princess & others using newer/faster LEO satellites with better latencies.  Like cable ISP, it's shared bandwidth and with heavy usage & users connected, congestion & sluggish results are given, no matter how it's dynamically cached & managed.  The others have a firm hold on their bandwidth and can deliver results at lower costs vs. NCL.  I have benchmarked NCL's satellite WiFi over the years with speedtest results, and it was clear that streaming in nothing more than a pipe dream, except in rare instances while the rest of the passengers might be ashore or asleep.  Of course, you can get lucky in successfully streaming contents once the business/ship's administrative functions aren't being prioritized for their operational needs.

 

Now, for your convenience, multi-users discontent are offered for staying connected online at all times.  Blocking TCP/UDP ports needed for WiFi or VoiP calling, except for premium unlimited users, is purely ------------ (whatever you feel like calling).  Broken promises and not as advertised. 

 

MedallionNet on Carnival's Regal Princess is claiming to be capable of achieving 1.5 Gbps speed over satellite, that is hundreds of times faster/better than NCL - "a bandwidth capacity of 1.5 gigabits per second will give guests unprecedented Wi-Fi access that equates to more than 6,000 users concurrently surfing the internet; or 1,500 Netflix or Hulu subscribers streaming TV shows or movies"  Source - here

 

NCL - time to catch up against the competition.  

[Turtles06]

12 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

NCL - time to catch up against the competition. 

 

Agreed!  And I very much appreciate the technical explanation you gave, confirming what I as a non-expert concluded from my recent experience on the Gem and a cruise a few months ago on Celebrity.