Semi-Live - Discovery - CA Coastal - Oct 1, 2022

[LawDog61]

18 hours ago, ebeluga said:

Even at this wee hour 1:10 am, internet is painfully slow on the Discovery!!

Yes, we are onboard now too.   Internet has been unusable all day.    It’s working now- maybe cuz it’s formal night and captain party so not many passengers online.   I will not be buying internet on my next cruise.  For me, it’s worthless and frustrating.   Lots of excuses from staff.  Still overall, a great cruise.    

[cruzin4us]

Yup, the internet is painfully slow again today.  Don’t plan on working if that’s your plan.  You will become extremely frustrated

 

Tonight is formal night and many men are wearing tuxes.  Dinner is really good tonight.  If the average age of people was in their 40’s last week, the average age this cruise is 60+.    Since I fall in the later, I feel more at home.  I’ve only seen a handful of kids. 
 

The sea has been like glass all day.   

[HBCcruiser]

7 minutes ago, cruzin4us said:

Yup, the internet is painfully slow again today

What reasons/excuses are they giving you for this? A New ship should have great internet. 

[cruzin4us]

Some misc pics:

 

seafood pasta

Mahi Mahi 

Greek Salad

Pesto chicken pasta

calm seas

[trbarton]

On 10/6/2022 at 9:52 AM, NownZen said:

With the exception of Princess, have you ever been asked for your vaccination card?

I was on a Carnival cruise in August from San Francisco & we had to show our proof of vaccinations. I have it on my phone which they along with Princess has excepted. 
 

Tom😀

[trbarton]

I’m on the October 22, 2022 Love Boat cruise. Hopefully you’ll be there. 
 

Sorry about the internet. That’s not good. 
 

Thanks for showing us everything. 
 

I've shared this for our cruise. 
 

Tom😀

[travelin.sisters]

1 hour ago, cruzin4us said:

Some misc pics:

 

seafood pasta

Mahi Mahi 

Greek Salad

Pesto chicken pasta

calm seas

thank you for all the lovely photos!

 

[XBGuy]

14 hours ago, cruzin4us said:

 

 

 

WOW.  That Greek salad looks awesome.

[dreaminofcruisin]

On 10/12/2022 at 10:04 AM, cruzin4us said:

The IC no longer will be having the small salads.  They have a multitude of sandwiches and some desserts.  I was informed of this yesterday.   Not sure about other shops, but that’s the case with the Discovery. 
 

 

Wondering if they are just discontinuing dishing up the salads into individual dishes or actually no longer serving salads? We really like the salads in the IC and hope it just means they will be going back to serving it the way they did pre-covid.....

🤔

[NownZen]

14 hours ago, HBCcruiser said:

What reasons/excuses are they giving you for this? A New ship should have great internet. 

The weak link is probably the satellite bandwidth. Get a thousand people streaming and you start needing gigabits per second. The system is probably underdesigned or there is just not that bandwidth available. To be fair, Princess said the best internet at sea and that is relative if others are worse. Better does not seem to mean good.

[HBCcruiser]

9 minutes ago, NownZen said:

The weak link is probably the satellite bandwidth. Get a thousand people streaming and you start needing gigabits per second. The system is probably underdesigned or there is just not that bandwidth available. To be fair, Princess said the best internet at sea and that is relative if others are worse. Better does not seem to mean good.

Royal Caribbean contracted with Musk and Starlink. From what I heard it is amazing. 
 

[NownZen]

2 minutes ago, HBCcruiser said:

Royal Caribbean contracted with Musk and Starlink. From what I heard it is amazing. 
 

Interesting. Musk has put up a lot of satellites which should help both bandwidth and coverage. The ones that Princess uses are aimed mostly at the land masses and are much better closer to the equator.

Maybe Princess should change their motto to "Not the worst internet at sea"/

[HBCcruiser]

1 minute ago, NownZen said:

Interesting. Musk has put up a lot of satellites which should help both bandwidth and coverage. The ones that Princess uses are aimed mostly at the land masses and are much better closer to the equator.

Maybe Princess should change their motto to "Not the worst internet at sea"/

My guess is other cruise lines may jump on the Starlink bandwagon. RCCL will have it on all ships in 2023. With so many people working from home and taking classes online, good internet service is going to become a must have IMO.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

@cruzin4usSorry to be a pest but if you have time and don’t mind would you please post photos showing today’s offerings at the IC along with the signs during lunch or dinner hours?  
 

Thank you again for posting and sharing your cruises with us all.  

[ebeluga]

4 hours ago, NownZen said:

The weak link is probably the satellite bandwidth. Get a thousand people streaming and you start needing gigabits per second. The system is probably underdesigned or there is just not that bandwidth available. To be fair, Princess said the best internet at sea and that is relative if others are worse. Better does not seem to mean good.

We were on Discovery doing the same Coastal cruise in April.  The internet was good then with 40-50% pax load, so I think the issue is that the designed system capacity is inadequate and it failed miserably under a stress load.  Terrible if someone depends on it for work email, let alone doing any zoom meeting!!

Edited October 17, 2022 by ebeluga

[dcrow72]

On 10/12/2022 at 10:28 PM, MsSoCalCruiser said:

I have never had a problem with the internet while in the Mexican Rivera so hopefully it will be fine for you.  

have you sailed since they switched to the cheaper satellite provider in April?  Not much internet anywhere now.  

[dcrow72]

19 hours ago, LawDog61 said:

Yes, we are onboard now too.   Internet has been unusable all day.    It’s working now- maybe cuz it’s formal night and captain party so not many passengers online.   I will not be buying internet on my next cruise.  For me, it’s worthless and frustrating.   Lots of excuses from staff.  Still overall, a great cruise.    

well hopefully if enough people complain over and over again, they will bring back the provider that actually had streaming speeds in February.  Same ship 2 months later and zero internet the whole week. Thank God it was a port intensive cruise so I could touch base with work.  I was more than angry.  To save a few bucks they screwed everyone and went back on their advertised "fastest internet at sea".  Slowest now. 

 

[travelin.sisters]

26 minutes ago, dcrow72 said:

have you sailed since they switched to the cheaper satellite provider in April?  Not much internet anywhere now.  

 

20 minutes ago, dcrow72 said:

well hopefully if enough people complain over and over again, they will bring back the provider that actually had streaming speeds in February.  Same ship 2 months later and zero internet the whole week. Thank God it was a port intensive cruise so I could touch base with work.  I was more than angry.  To save a few bucks they screwed everyone and went back on their advertised "fastest internet at sea".  Slowest now. 

 

They changed providers in April? That was nowhere in the list of contradictory reasons why I had so much worse internet in the Mex Rivera in Sept/Oct than in Jan/Feb...there were a whole long list of reasons the only one of which made any possible sense was that the provider had too many clients for their capability. I did get a refund (without asking, he offered) when I said it was not what Princess was advertising...no way I could have streamed a video, not that I wanted to just wanted to do my live & email & download photos from my phone).

 

Thank you @cruzin4us for struggling through to keep the updates coming...having a lovely time 'sailing' with you

[MsSoCalCruiser]

53 minutes ago, dcrow72 said:

have you sailed since they switched to the cheaper satellite provider in April?  Not much internet anywhere now.  

We were on the Discovery, March inaugural cruise and also the second cruise in April. When did they change the Internet provider? And why? I do know Royal Caribbean was having problems with their televisions and also slow Internet due to the new 5G?  I went on two cruises with them out of LA and never had television service.

[gvre]

23 hours ago, LawDog61 said:

Yes, we are onboard now too.   Internet has been unusable all day.    It’s working now- maybe cuz it’s formal night and captain party so not many passengers online.   I will not be buying internet on my next cruise.  For me, it’s worthless and frustrating.   Lots of excuses from staff.  Still overall, a great cruise.    

We were on the Majestic in August and November also the Grand in February. These cruises were about 60% capacity and internet was really good.

Able to work the whole time

Just got off the Island it was non-existent the whole 10 days. Totally frustrating, worst ever.

We will be on the Discovery in 12 days and agree I will just give work a break.

 

[cruzin4us]

[cruzin4us]

Veal stuffed ravioli with sage sauce -Gigi’s 

Eggplant stuffed with Angel hair pasta -Gigi’s

other pics of main dining room food- Princess does pasta well 

[cruzin4us]

Today’s options at the International Cafe 

[toofewcruises]

51 minutes ago, cruzin4us said:

Today’s options at the International Cafe 

Yum!

[julie3fan]

Sandwiches on pretzel rolls?  Be still, my heart! 🥨💖