Explorer WiFi is a rip off

[orville99]

4 minutes ago, tallgirl97 said:

Whoa, really - no Voom within 9-12 miles of land? 

 

We bought Voom for an upcoming Alaska cruise, which I assume will hug the coast most days. Did we waste that money? I assumed we'd be connected whenever we are on the ship (and recognize that it may be slow/spotty as we get further north).

You won't be close enough to any coast. The ship's systems cut off within a few miles of port, but not anywhere other then when actually coming in to a port. And, Voom is not Cellular. It does not shut off while in port.

[Guest TopoChico]

2 minutes ago, orville99 said:

You won't be close enough to any coast. The ship's systems cut off within a few miles of port, but not anywhere other then when actually coming in to a port. And, Voom is not Cellular. It does not shut off while in port.

Isn’t Voom a wireless network? 

[orville99]

1 minute ago, TopoChico said:

3 minutes ago, orville99 said:

AT&T also offers a 30-day package designed specifically for use on cruise ships. This is different from their "international" package which simply allows roaming phone calls and texts in most countries at domestic rates.

Expand  

If you read the details, it does not cover all locations and that is a very expensive data overage charge.

Which is why I specifically stated "most". If you purchased the international plan instead of the cruise plan, you purchased the wrong plan.

[orville99]

Just now, TopoChico said:

Isn’t Voom a wireless network? 

Yes, but a WiFi wireless network and a Cellular satellite service are two completely different technologies, which is why you can turn cellular off but leave WiFi on and make WiFi phone calls and send WiFi texts while on board.

[Guest TopoChico]

1 minute ago, orville99 said:

Which is why I specifically stated "most". If you purchased the international plan instead of the cruise plan, you purchased the wrong plan.

Where does it list where it doesn’t cover?  I don’t see any details and ATT agent was not able to locate…He was going to backdate the cruise package and switch out the international but said it would not reduce charges any more than what he did if I was in locations not covered. 

[orville99]

Just now, orville99 said:

Yes, but a WiFi wireless network and a Cellular satellite service are two completely different technologies, which is why you can turn cellular off but leave WiFi on and make WiFi phone calls and send WiFi texts while on board.

We have taken eight cruises since the restart, and have used our iPads to stream without any shut off issues regardless of whether we were at sea, coming into a port, or docked. Our phones, on the other hand, have switched between services in the middle of phone calls as we entered or left a port.

[orville99]

3 minutes ago, TopoChico said:

Where does it list where it doesn’t cover?  I don’t see any details and ATT agent was not able to locate…He was going to backdate the cruise package and switch out the international but said it would not reduce charges any more than what he did if I was in locations not covered. 

ON the AT&T website.

Enjoy AT&T Passport for International Travel - Wireless Customer Support.pdf

[Guest TopoChico]

Again, this thread is for two types of people, those going on Explorer of the Seas assuming taking the Voom Surf Stream package will work as advertised.  It does not. 
The second group I’m attempting to help are those people like myself who are not

well-versed in cell technology, or frequent cruisers who know the ins and outs of when, where and how to turn on/off which features and what to enable and disable. 
 

Just trying to help.   

[tallgirl97]

Thanks for your comments - I still have questions so I'll start my own thread, so as not to hijack this one.

[Guest TopoChico]

2 minutes ago, tallgirl97 said:

Thanks for your comments - I still have questions so I'll start my own thread, so as not to hijack this one.

You can ask here.  I’m done with it. 😊

[smokeybandit]

27 minutes ago, orville99 said:

AT&T also offers a 30-day package designed specifically for use on cruise ships. This is different from their "international" package which simply allows roaming phone calls and texts in most countries at domestic rates.

And that package is a huge ripoff because because it's so easy to rack up data overages and there's no guarantee the cellular service on a ship will even work.

[smokeybandit]

33 minutes ago, tallgirl97 said:

Whoa, really - no Voom within 9-12 miles of land? 

 

We bought Voom for an upcoming Alaska cruise, which I assume will hug the coast most days. Did we waste that money? I assumed we'd be connected whenever we are on the ship (and recognize that it may be slow/spotty as we get further north).

That's not true. It's the Cellular at Sea that's disabled within 12 miles of land.  

[Guest TopoChico]

I’ll just leave this here.  This is from Royal Caribbean’s web page, which I used to determine whether or not to purchase
24 hour access - not even close

Fastest at sea - no

Misleading- yes

Worth $252 dollars - no

 

[orville99]

52 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

And that package is a huge ripoff because because it's so easy to rack up data overages and there's no guarantee the cellular service on a ship will even work.

Absolutely, and that is why we never purchase it, and why we turn our phones off and store them in the safe for the entire cruise. All it takes is a few clouds to disable ship-to-anywhere-by-any-means service.

[splashsmom]

I don't know if it is that class of ship generally that has poor wifi, but we were recently on Mariner with Surf and Stream and it was very poor, often non-existent, coverage.  We then moved over to Independence and had terrific results with Surf and Stream.

[PTC DAWG]

Not sure why anyone would think WiFi on a ship is going to be anywhere near as good at a land based WiFi…

 

re the AT&T plan, it works well, within its limits.  

[PTC DAWG]

11 minutes ago, orville99 said:

Absolutely, and that is why we never purchase it, and why we turn our phones off and store them in the safe for the entire cruise. All it takes is a few clouds to disable ship-to-anywhere-by-any-means service.

Exactly, that is my plan 95%+ of the time, I guess I’m not all that important. 🙂

[PTC DAWG]

55 minutes ago, TopoChico said:

I’ll just leave this here.  This is from Royal Caribbean’s web page, which I used to determine whether or not to purchase
24 hour access - not even close

Fastest at sea - no

Misleading- yes

Worth $252 dollars - no

 

Most folks report that on average, it is the best internet at sea…key words being “at sea”.  Sort of like being the fastest turtle. 

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, TopoChico said:

I wish I knew that before the trip

Virtually every thread about Voom and phone use has this warning in it.

 

Your thread, while educational, will be forgotten by tomorrow when it goes off the front page.

[Guest TopoChico]

8 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

Not sure why anyone would think WiFi on a ship is going to be anywhere near as good at a land based WiFi…

 

re the AT&T plan, it works well, within its limits.  

Because that’s what is being touted and sold.  If it said shoddy service with 3.5 hour unreliable access, People wouldn’t buy it.  It’s not like it’s a rowboat with a Best Buy router. It’s a modern world class cruise ship that if updated properly would actually provide what they’re selling. .  

[Biker19]

10 minutes ago, TopoChico said:

Because that’s what is being touted and sold.

One needs to only have some context, get some education on sat internet and read a few threads here about Voom to quickly realize that like many other marketing schemes, reality is not quite what RCI is selling.

[ONECRUISER]

58 minutes ago, orville99 said:

Absolutely, and that is why we never purchase it, and why we turn our phones off and store them in the safe for the entire cruise. All it takes is a few clouds to disable ship-to-anywhere-by-any-means service.

Agree, Hard Rain was my issue last month. Otherwise use my Cell/Laptop's all the time including 29 Days on Ship in April, Air Mode and never any issues or extra charges. Funny thing is first time used my Cell while on Ship's Deck(in port) from PR and was on Explorer in 2001. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by ONECRUISER

[Rogueperson]

24 hour access:  Most of the times, but not 100%

Is it the fastest "at sea".  Maybe.  I have never seen "faster" other than the newer systems on the newer ships and even then, its not that fast, but barely fast enough for normal use and streaming sometimes.  The one princess cruise I was on was strange because there was someone was on an earlier cruise and posted speeds that were in line with the newer Royal Caribbean ships' O3B, but when i got on, my speeds were on par with the older system, liked they turned off the O3B antenna and reverted to the older system.

Is it worth it?  Depends on your situation.   its not cheap for what you get.  The best price i got it for, was in 2017 and I scored it for 8.99/day, but those days, the "normal" pre-cruise price hovered around 12.99/day.  Now, the "normal" pre-cruise price is 21.99, and you *might* see a sale price of 18.99 now.

 

Also, I should note that a while back, Apple tried something with a setting where if you have weak/slow wifi, it automatically seeked out a cellular signal to compensate.  The result was chaos because people were getting nailed with overage fees and throttle downs because they thought they were on wifi, but were instead streaming large content over cellular.  I forget what it was called.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Rogueperson

[Biker19]

1 minute ago, Rogueperson said:

I have never seen "faster" other than the newer systems on the newer ships and even then, its not that fast, but barely fast enough for normal use and streaming sometimes. 

Pretty sure all ships in the fleet are limited to the same 4Mbps down for Stream and .5Mbps for Surf. The big diff is that you get a very noticeable improvement in performance with O3B equipped ships due to much lower latency.

 

 When originally launched, we had several reports of at least 25Mbps down on some O3B ships - that didn't last long.

[orville99]

5 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

equipped ships due to much lower latency.

And less “jitter”