NCL streaming internet vs princess plus internet

[brovol]

Currently sailing on sky princess and have princess plus package, which includes its internet, which is amazingly excellent, and has allowed me to, among other things, stream live football games, and do very clear video chats with family back home. We are on the Breakaway in March, and I purchased the high speed streaming internet. Wondering if anyone has had experience with that, and whether it is comparable to the princess internet, which is actually incredible, considering we are at sea? 

 

What princess has with its medallion internet is a game changer. But I think the technology is available to any of the cruise lines, and I am hoping it is the same for NCL.

 

Has anyone had experience with NCL streaming internet? If so, please share your experience, particularly with streaming live events and video chats.

[brovol]

Nothing???  Come on folks.  Help a guy out.

[cruiseblues2013]

It's been about 3 years since we have been on NCL with internet, but will let you know, we will be on the Bliss Christmas week.  I can tell you Princess has the best internet at sea we have come across while cruising.

[fastpitchdad]

NCL Internet sucks for streaming unless it is very early or very late. I was a able to stream a Seahawk game a few years ago on a Baltic cruise because it didn't start until 1am (I wouldn't bother this year 😞 ). This past August I had to work a lot on an Alaskan cruise that was 50% full and couldn't turn video on with Teams/Webex/Zoom very reliably after 9am. 

[coastcat]

15 hours ago, brovol said:

Currently sailing on sky princess and have princess plus package, which includes its internet, which is amazingly excellent, and has allowed me to, among other things, stream live football games, and do very clear video chats with family back home. We are on the Breakaway in March, and I purchased the high speed streaming internet. Wondering if anyone has had experience with that, and whether it is comparable to the princess internet, which is actually incredible, considering we are at sea? 

 

What princess has with its medallion internet is a game changer. But I think the technology is available to any of the cruise lines, and I am hoping it is the same for NCL.

 

Has anyone had experience with NCL streaming internet? If so, please share your experience, particularly with streaming live events and video chats.

I cruised Princess in September (Majestic Princess in Alaska, Princess Plus package) and NCL in October (Bliss in the Mexican Riviera, upgraded to unlimited internet with streaming).

 

Absolutely no contest. Princess streaming was steady, reliable, and fast. No problem watching livestreams on YouTube and Twitch. On NCL I had to disconnect/reconnect repeatedly when trying to do ANYTHING on the internet; when connected I could watch livestreams but with decidedly more buffering than on Princess.

[mking8288]

RCL, in addition to Carnival & its Princess lines - have superior satellite tech, better & faster because their partner, SES, deployed hybrid, medium orbit networks to handle voice & data traffic, and priced it lower compared to Norwegian.  NCL has partnered with Cellular At Seas, MTN, and most recently Golden Eagle using hybrid, high orbit networks, SpeedNet was previously at relatively lower speed of 5 to 8 Mbps.  NCL also partnering with DeCurtis Corp in 2018 to launch "Cruise Freedom"  Satellite broadband speed & latency on the newer mega and refurbished mid-sized ships with the upgraded hardware, servers, corporate grade (Cisco & Lenovo) routers delivered better and improved speed for the end users, but still chasing their maritime competitors as a whole.  

 

As noted above, basic web surfing, email & browsing, and non-demanding apps generally are usable and much improved but HD live streaming and video intensive demands were often hit and miss, with varying results.  Pre-Covid, I've measured the onboard speed to be variable between 1 or 1.5 Mbps to 3 to 3.75, seldom better than 4 Mbps on downloads but sometimes, better with uploads - depending on time of the day/hours consider busy/peak usage or off-peak/low demand times ... as it is dynamically shared, cached & priorities given to ship's navigation, safety & operations (business ops) first, with crew use & passengers allocated accordingly.  

 

Nieces and friends that cruise with RCL and Princess all basically preferred their satellite package, pricing and end results using theirs over NCL, and refused to spend extra to upgrade, purchase unlimited bundles when cruising Norwegian.  Individual CC'ers do sometimes reported & share their positive experience using NCL's satellite WiFi-based products onboard for their needs, but that seemed to be inconsistent and not reliable or solid indications of how good it is.  

 

Suffice to say, once we are within range of "non" home cellular towers in foreign ports, preference is for us to switch on to use roaming 4G / LTE signals ... can't wait to use 5G services early next year with our planned return to cruising at sea.  As always, other's results and yours - a matter of YMMV.  

 

P.S.  Golden Eagle, like other ISP & satellite providers that specialized in maritime and aviation communication technologies, filed for Chapter 11 during the past year, since emerged ... but will need to invest, prioritize and focus on getting LEO (low earth orbit) satellites as they offer wider, broader & better coverage - further out into the middle of nowhere in that vast ocean.  Think of these other providers as being on FiOS tiers vs. cable ISP.  

Edited November 25, 2021 by mking8288

[kylenyc]

I would say prepare for disappointment and maybe you'll be surprised. The alternative is not paying for the upgrade and not having it and being stuck with zero streaming ability.

 

On Breakaway, it was overall usable for me for streaming video, VOIP, and zoom/webex (voice only, not screen sharing, it might work for you, i just didn't try.). Based on your experience, the Princess internet is superior. Like any business, it takes time for ships to refresh their tech every few years.

 

I used streaming video on the lowest setting of "low bandwidth" <500kbps. Occasionally it would pause and buffer for 15 seconds. It didn't affect my enjoyment. VOIP once I had to redial because the receiver couldn't hear me. Zoom without video was 100% fine. I didn't try video or screen sharing.

 

I'm guessing the bandwidth is < 1 Mbps but I didn't run a speed test.  I believe satellite internet has about a 500 to 1000 millisecond latency (delay). This is apparent with any app that you expect to respond to you in realtime such as online games.

Edited November 25, 2021 by kylenyc

[TheAdventureSeeker]

I just got off the Breakaway a few days ago and it was the worst internet service I have had in years. Every website was taking about a minute to load and it kept going down almost every 5 minutes where it had to reset itself which again took about another 5 minutes. Every single person I spoke to on the ship had the same problem and the internet manager was not that very friendly that you were disturbing him for complaining, I could not get any work done at all it was that bad that even making a mobile hotspots when we were in some ports using the cell towers was way better. There were days where we had clear sunny days with no clouds and the satellite would not work for hours. The NCL internet is a ripoff for the huge amount of money you are paying especially the unlimited package. I love NCL so much but my goodness I wish they finally upgraded their system to low-orbit systems just like Princess, Carnival and RCL did which is super fast and very worth the money. NCL really should invest into upgrading their system to high speed low-orbit since more people are now moving towards working online, NCL is one of the last major cruise lines to have the most slow and outdated slow terrestrial satellite systems while all others made the big upgrade to high speed satellite systems. Come on NCL let's finally upgrade those systems cause the company you are using is slow and a rip off for the money and getting any work done or even checking a simple email takes ages to load. 

Edited November 25, 2021 by TheAdventureSeeker

[Beachbumfla]

We have to have remote access for work even while cruising. NCL is better than it was in say 2014 but still not close to as great as Princess.  One of the primary reasons we switched to Princess over NCL is because the Princess internet is way better and much cheaper! Needing unlimited access adding $30 a day to NCL cruises is a lot especially for one connection at a time. As we tend to do longer cruises the difference in cost NCL vs Princess is significant.  The "free wifi" is a limited amount of minutes on NCL. We also are at the status to get half price unlimited internet on Princess. At full price I believe it is only $15 a day for a couple of connections on Princess.  While NCL is okay for our work needs (when it is working okay and not overloaded)  it is not good enough for streaming regularly. We do not have to Zoom just emails, file uploads etc.  I also have Google Fi so often sit on the deck connected to the data of the country we are near or on port days. Using my phone as a hotspot is much faster than NCL but does not help when doing an ocean crossing.