Is HAL's Premium Wifi Package Useful On An Arctic Circle Cruise

[annandme]

Hello,

 

We are on a 21 day HAL cruise that starts in Amsterdam, goes up the Norwegian Coast above the Arctic Circle to Svalbard, down to Iceland, then over to Scotland before returning to Amsterdam.  It seems to me that pre-purchasing HAL's Premium Wifi Package is a good idea, but, then I started thinking that I would have days on end with no satellite service anyway given our itinerary.  Does anyone have any history with Wifi packages on similar itineraries or advice to help me with my pre-purchase decision?  I.e. Am I just wasting my money buying a package?

 

Thank you.

[TAD2005]

Most ships use geostationary satellites that orbit the earth over the equator.   When the receive terminal on the ship get so far north (or south), the "look angle" to the satellite is only a few degrees above the horizon.  That generates a lot of terrestrial noise in the signal and the data rates get very slow for all services, including TV and internet.   You may experience extremely slow or no internet when you get that far north.   It has nothing to do with HAL, it's the physics of satellite uplinks and downlinks.

[RuthC]

I've been up the coast of Norway more times than I can count, including several times as far north as North Cape, and once to the Polar Ice Cap. 
Reception is absent some of the time, and gets interrupted some of the time it is working. You will get little to no reception while in much of the fjords, and less and less reception the further north you go. 
I don't know that the Premium package will work any better than any of the other packages, and expect it wouldn't, so don't buy that package thinking it will be better in that respect. 

One thing you can do, although it is a lot more expensive, is to purchase per day, on days you know the Internet is going to work. In the very far north there were several days there was no service. 

[TiogaCruiser]

We had no major issues when we sailed Prinsendam last June. We went as far north as Nord Cape.  We had the premium package.

 

(We also didn’t try using it during fiord scenic cruising.)

Edited January 25, 2020 by TiogaCruiser