feel like NCL stole $500 from me in Internet fees

[Pens fan]

We were on an Eastern Med cruise a few years ago and the internet was typical for a cruise - sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  However whenever we were near a Greek port, the internet pretty much just shut down.  It was unusable.  I had a lot of cell phone issues when in Greek ports, as well.  One night I went down to see the internet manager and you could tell the poor guy had been inundated with complaints.  I just asked him if there was any certain part of the ship where it worked better.  His reply?  No - it sucks everywhere!  (that's literally what he said) I thanked him for his honesty and walked away.  As I was leaving a guy started making a scene about how bad the internet was and the manger replied, "if we knew what was wrong, we'd fix it, sir".  

 

We've cruised a lot, and one thing I've come to accept is that the internet is probably going to suck at some point - maybe at a lot of points.  It's why when I upgraded to the unlimited internet on our next cruise I didn't go for the one that included streaming.  I don't trust that it will actually work well enough for that, so just having the unlimited time will be good enough for me.  Lower you expectations and you'll rarely be disappointed 😂.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Pens fan

[old nutter]

I forgot to mention fact that all the main comms satellites are on the equator, so they go beyond the horizon if there are mountains close and south of the ship, so this can be an issue when moored in some places.  The effect is particularly bad in northern latitudes like Alaska, Norway and Iceland.  And it affects Kotor badly,  killing the Internet completely when the ship is in the inner fjord.

 

Different Related Communication Issue - If you are using your land-based mobile phone on the ship when the land is in sight, be careful which country it connects to, especially in the Med.  Two good examples are when sailing between Corsica and Sardinia where your phone will switch between France and Italy when you cross sides on the ship and on Rhodes when your phone keeps changing between Greece and Turkey

Edited July 28, 2022 by old nutter

[LaCal]

Plain and simple you don’t use the service all week and not once complain about it or at the minimum inquire why it’s so slow etc and then expect a refund 

 

That would be like me eating at Cagneys and finishing all the food on my plate but once home wanting a refund because my steak was really rare but I ate it anyway 🤣🤣

Edited July 28, 2022 by LaCal

[mandwcruise]

3 hours ago, Homosassa said:

OP, if you are new to cruising, here is some other useful information for you .

 

You have already learned that internet service can be slow and unavailable on a cruise ship depending on number of users and the ship's location. 

 

It is not only on the open sea where there may be dead spots for satellite coverage.  If you are cruising where the signals may be blocked by  the surrounding terrain, such as mountains, you will find any communication based on satellite feed to be unavailable. 

 

This means the TV in your cabin will also not be useable.

 

I understand you may be angry because your assumptions about internet service on the ship compared to land based service were wrong. However, chalk your experience up to learning something new and move on.

 

If you continue to cruise on any cruise line, on any itinerary, in the future you now have the  experience to realistically set your expectations 

 

 

This point of view summarizes what a lot of people are saying, and in light of these comments, I just might have to take the L and chalk it off as a learning experience.

 

What I think some people are missing out on is that my beef isn't this was slower than land internet (nobody here in this thread had that expectation) - rather it was slower than what they explicitly advertised, which was that it supported streaming e.g. Netflix. Not once in 10 days did Netflix load. And I wasn't the only one that felt that way - multiple guests on the ship who had sailed with NCL and other lines numerous times were also shocked at how bad the internet was.

 

In conclusion, the learnings are:

 

1. don't bank on having strong internet, no matter what marketing says

2. if there's a complaint, resolve it while on-ship 

3. some people think very narrowly how others should travel

 

[phillygwm]

4 hours ago, hallux said:

For 4 simultaneous devices on the top tier plan.  Single device plans are $35 per day, $25 if you don't need streaming or VPN.  Price is higher on board.

Or you get the FAS+ for $49 so you can post to social media whilst sucking down Veuve.  What could possibly go wrong? 😁

Edited July 28, 2022 by phillygwm

[hallux]

25 minutes ago, phillygwm said:

Or you get the FAS+ for $49 so you can post to social media whilst sucking down Veuve.  What could possibly go wrong? 😁

Isn't it $49 per person per day...

[phillygwm]

8 minutes ago, hallux said:

Isn't it $49 per person per day...

Yes.  For a solo it's actually $42 because they obviously wouldn't get the benefit of a second $50 excursion credit.  But if you're paying $25 per person for Internet alone, why not spend another $24 for the dinners, premium booze, and the extra excursion credit...assuming you use any of those.

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 hours ago, mandwcruise said:

This point of view summarizes what a lot of people are saying, and in light of these comments, I just might have to take the L and chalk it off as a learning experience.

 

What I think some people are missing out on is that my beef isn't this was slower than land internet (nobody here in this thread had that expectation) - rather it was slower than what they explicitly advertised, which was that it supported streaming e.g. Netflix. Not once in 10 days did Netflix load. And I wasn't the only one that felt that way - multiple guests on the ship who had sailed with NCL and other lines numerous times were also shocked at how bad the internet was.

 

In conclusion, the learnings are:

 

1. don't bank on having strong internet, no matter what marketing says

2. if there's a complaint, resolve it while on-ship 

3. some people think very narrowly how others should travel

 

You forgot the most important learning item: Read the T&Cs and your Ticket Contract.

[HBCcruiser]

11 hours ago, mandwcruise said:

We went on a 10 night cruise with NCL and paid for a premium internet package (advertised as strong enough to allow "unlimited streaming"). Half the time, the Internet would not allow us to log on. When it did load, the "streaming" was non-existent. I couldn't load low-res YouTube videos, Netflix simply didn't work, and my Zoom meetings were suffering so badly I cancelled them all within minutes. Why would I pay $500 for 

 

The problem started when I sought a refund. NCL denied my request for a refund on the basis that:

 

1. their records showed no problems with the internet

Every passenger I talked to complained about the slow internet. So they're saying they never read the guest surveys? Or that the guest surveys were wrong?

 

2. the internet must have been working if I downloaded 17GB of data

They sold me an unlimited data plan, not a 17GB plan. How much I downloaded has no bearing on the times where the internet wasn't available. Maybe I would have downloaded 40 or 100gb if the internet wasn't trash. It's what I paid for, but did not receive.

 

3. I didn't complain while I was on the ship

So the policy is you can only collect refunds for things while you're on the ship, instead of resolving matters post-cruise? It's somehow the customer's fault that the Internet desk was unmanned 20+ hours a day? 

 

 

 

After the cruise ended, a sales rep called me to see if I wanted to book another cruise. There is another 10 night cruise I'd love to book with NCL, but there's something that rubs me the wrong way about giving thousands of dollars to a cruise line which ripped me off on the previous cruise and tried to gaslight me when I emailed customer service.

 

Before I take further steps, I want to hear from the CruiseCritic community if they've run into similar problems, if my reaction is legitimate, and what should I do?

 

I am considering going on the next cruise and screenshotting every single time i have trouble logging in or experiencing impossible download speeds to document clearly where they have failed to provide services.

 

 

 

You may want to look into Royal Caribbean. They are partnering with Elon Musk and plan to use Starlink on their ships. This is from a recent trial run:

 

"It was instantly clear that this internet service was above and beyond what Voom typically offered.

The Surf package showed a download speed of 9.01 Mbps and upload speed of 20.34 Mbps. The Surf & Stream gave a download speed of 77.03 Mbps and upload speed of 15.72 Mbps.

On both devices, we tried watching YouTube videos and Netflix shows to see how they would work. Both packages allowed us to instantly start watching the videos, with no lag or buffering time."

 

Read more HERE

Edited July 28, 2022 by HBCcruiser

[BirdTravels]

9 hours ago, Philob said:

 I had a crisis at work and spent the night in the internet café trying to resolve it. The IT person at the café told me this was the best place for Wi-Fi for us pax and late at night for the best uplink.  

Yes. You are sharing a satellite uplink with 4000 of your fellow passengers and crew and ship's operations. And you're stuck with passengers who downloaded 17 GB of TikToc during the cruise. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by BirdTravels

[ChiefMateJRK]

5 hours ago, old nutter said:

One of the problems with connecting using satellites between a ship and a long distance place in different places on the earth is that the distance travelled by your signal is so far that even though it is travelling at the speed of light it will typically take between 120 and 140 msecs to do each leg of the journey to go up to the satellite and back down to your target ground station depending how far you are from the point immediately below the satellite.  That means that without any equipment delays it can take the better part of between a quarter and a third of a second multiplied by two (up and down there and up and down back) for a simple ping signal on this type of link to go round and back. So a single-hop "ping time" cannot be less than between 480 msec and 560 msecs, so near enough half a second.  The other limitation on that ping is that even though the satellite is around 36,000 kms above the earth, the horizon is such that it can only see about a third of the world at best, usually more like a quarter in practice.  So for instance if for example you are sailing around Japan and the target of your ping is in Florida, you cannot communicate in one hop, so with two hops the minimum round trip ping could take more than a second!  UK to Australia is typically three hops.

So be careful how you expect a satellite internet service to work and remember that even the speed of light is finite when your internet has to go intercontinental!

Wow!  I'll bet you hooked up your own stereo too!  (old movie, old joke 🤣 - who gets it?  Buehler, anyone, anyone....)

[Dave994]

6 hours ago, mandwcruise said:

This point of view summarizes what a lot of people are saying, and in light of these comments, I just might have to take the L and chalk it off as a learning experience.

 

What I think some people are missing out on is that my beef isn't this was slower than land internet (nobody here in this thread had that expectation) - rather it was slower than what they explicitly advertised, which was that it supported streaming e.g. Netflix. Not once in 10 days did Netflix load. And I wasn't the only one that felt that way - multiple guests on the ship who had sailed with NCL and other lines numerous times were also shocked at how bad the internet was.

 

In conclusion, the learnings are:

 

1. don't bank on having strong internet, no matter what marketing says

2. if there's a complaint, resolve it while on-ship 

3. some people think very narrowly how others should travel

 

you lose me a bit here. You clearly tried multiple times to get Netflix to work over the 10 days of the cruise. Discussed this failure with other guests to solicit their thoughts and yet not once did you go to guest services to mention this or ask them what could be done about it. You get home and then would like a refund. 
 

It’s hard to justify that I am sure in their mind, especially since they could tell you that you were logged in and active many times during the cruise. 

[mkkao924]

14 hours ago, hallux said:

A few things - 

"Unlimited" is time, not data.  Yes, data is a factor, but they count you based on time.

"With streaming" just means they open the ports needed for streaming services.  IS it actually faster?  Maybe, but it's the same uplink.

When were you online?  This is a factor.  As somewhat noted by another responder - if you were on during a peak time then you were sharing with 3,000 other people, it's not going to work NEARLY as well as at home.

 

Where the cruise was may also impact internet speed.  Some have reported unreliable connectivity during TA cruises.

I beg to differ.

 

The scenario you describe is for business to provide FREE WIFI. When people like OP is being charged for $500, he has every right to expect a premium service, like the package name suggests. 

 

If airline WiFi goes down, they refund. Why can't cruise line do that? I remember one time I was on JetBlue flight, the FREE WiFi went down. Even though it was a short flight and I didn't even use the internet, JetBlue offer all passengers travel voucher as compensation.

[hallux]

5 hours ago, mkkao924 said:

I beg to differ.

 

The scenario you describe is for business to provide FREE WIFI. When people like OP is being charged for $500, he has every right to expect a premium service, like the package name suggests.

and yet, as the poster right before you suggests the OP never tried to get any kind of compensation while on board.  I can see where the post-cruise customer service might be coming from.  The OP was able to utilize 17 GB of bandwidth, at the speeds available on a cruise ship that's actually a decent amount of usage.

 

Honestly, if I have any idea I want to try watching Netflix on a cruise I'm going to download the content I want to watch so I can watch it offline.  Netflix allows that, and it would make for a MUCH better experience.  I realize Netflix isn't the only complaint, but there's a way to improve the experience with a little planning ahead.

[Laszlo]

Hard to believe out of the 10 days you didn't have time to address the problem you were having while ON the ship. Sorry but its your fault for not addressing the problem when it was happening. 

[jsn55]

I read all about internet on river and ocean cruises years ago.  So I've never expected anything at all.  When I'm able to check email occasionally in port, I'm happy.  BUT that doesn't mean advertising a service that doesn't exist is right on NCL's part.  It's unethical and merely serves to generate revenue for the cruise line. 

 

In my eyes, this thread has highlighted a very common problem these days ... a traveller needs to be super-informed.  We cannot assume that buying an 'unlimited internet package' will allow us to use the internet whenever we want.  When I research a trip, I assume that I'll be cheated and disappointed if I don't do my homework.  It's the only way to avoid disappointment.  I don't want to spend precious travel time arguing with Guest Services, that 'ruins my day'.  If I expect nothing, I'll be happy with anything. 

[EllieinNJ]

I have prepaid the unlimited wifi for two European Carnival cruises for next May and June because the prices were going up.  I have also read on the Carnival forum that those who were complaining that the wifi was unusable were going to the service desk and getting full refunds for the wifi.  Does NCL do this?

[DirtyDawg]

On 7/28/2022 at 5:12 PM, mandwcruise said:

In conclusion, the learnings are:

 

1. don't bank on having strong internet, no matter what marketing says. Also goes for almost all marketing by cruise lines! As for the marketing folks at the cruise lines, think Herb Tarlek from WKRP in Cincinnati!

2. if there's a complaint, resolve it while on-ship Resolve all issues before they have all your money! Cruise lines have a very tight hold on their own  wallets!

3. some people think very narrowly how others should travel Welcome to Cruise Critic!

 

I took the liberty to add some comments to your lessons learned. 😉

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by DirtyDawg

[Homosassa]

On 7/28/2022 at 7:30 PM, BirdTravels said:

Yes. You are sharing a satellite uplink with 4000 of your fellow passengers and crew and ship's operations. And you're stuck with passengers who downloaded 17 GB of TikToc during the cruise. 

Based upon the answer given by the Captain during a bridge tour of a NCL ship, we were told that the satellite link for the ship's operations is separate from that used for passengers' internet and TV channels.

 

 

[BirdTravels]

On 7/29/2022 at 12:07 AM, mkkao924 said:

I beg to differ.

 

The scenario you describe is for business to provide FREE WIFI. When people like OP is being charged for $500, he has every right to expect a premium service, like the package name suggests. 

 

If airline WiFi goes down, they refund. Why can't cruise line do that? I remember one time I was on JetBlue flight, the FREE WiFi went down. Even though it was a short flight and I didn't even use the internet, JetBlue offer all passengers travel voucher as compensation.

The difference is expectation.

 

When you are on a cruise ship using satellite internet shared by 4000 of your fellow passengers (like at a hotel and sharing a internet link with all the guests in the hotel), you're not going to get the speed you would at home on your dedicated connection. Every bit needs to travel from the ship to the satellite and then back down. For a geostationary satellite, that's 23,000 miles up and 23,000 miles down introducing several seconds in latency in response time. All of this is "normal". This is "expected"

 

If you are streaming a video, you may get enough buffered data that it appears to be "o.k.".

 

If you are surfing consecutive web pages, the ship has a cache server to pre-fetch web pages, so you may have a appearance of good response time. 

 

If you are scrolling through tiktoc, or hitting random web pages, you will probably have poor response times. This is "expected"

 

If you are trying to surf the web on a sea day, good luck, everyone else on the ship is doing the same thing. This is "expected"

 

The OP got what they paid for. The wifi did not "go down". The OP got what is "expected".

[Sailing12Away]

100% agree that you need to speak up while on board. To complain after the fact just says you have buyers remorse.

 

Speaking to someone while you're on board means you just want it to work and are disappointed in what you got vs what you paid for. They can fix that. Afterwards, not so much.

 

Even if the specific 'internet complaint desk' isn't manned, guest services is nearly 100% of the time. They know how to get in touch with people, and at a minimum could have flagged your account to register the issue.

[jsn55]

12 hours ago, EllieinNJ said:

I have prepaid the unlimited wifi for two European Carnival cruises for next May and June because the prices were going up.  I have also read on the Carnival forum that those who were complaining that the wifi was unusable were going to the service desk and getting full refunds for the wifi.  Does NCL do this?

Has anyone used a SkyRoam (now Solis maybe) portable hot spot?  I think I paid $50 for the unit and a 24-hour pass was $10.  I bought one years ago, tested it with my laptop and it worked fine ... but I never had to use it while travelling.  I'm thinking that it might be worth it to just chuck the whole ship's internet and use my own hot spot.   Curious to see if anyone has any experience with SkyRoam/Solis on a cruise. 

[hallux]

@jsn55 is that one that supports satellite service?  If not, you're not going to get ANY coverage.

[old nutter]

It works on 4G mobile not satellite so you need to be in reach of land to get it.  It looks like it "piggy backs" onto whichever 4G network is in reach. The terms are pretty restrictive, particularly since the "unlimited" offer has a "fair use policy" that would not get you anywhere near 17G and some countries do not even allow it to access their 4G networks with it.  Great for worldwide email and web browsing, but is not recommended for steaming.  It avoids having to either pay for mobile roaming on your phone or buying a local SIM card.  It has it's uses as long as you understand the limitations (yet again!)

[LGW59]

1 hour ago, old nutter said:

It works on 4G mobile not satellite so you need to be in reach of land to get it.  It looks like it "piggy backs" onto whichever 4G network is in reach. The terms are pretty restrictive, particularly since the "unlimited" offer has a "fair use policy" that would not get you anywhere near 17G and some countries do not even allow it to access their 4G networks with it.  Great for worldwide email and web browsing, but is not recommended for steaming.  It avoids having to either pay for mobile roaming on your phone or buying a local SIM card.  It has it's uses as long as you understand the limitations (yet again!)

but what about 5G and I wonder about when 6G becomes available?