Wifi package on Pride of America and Shores q's

[Tree_skier]

I'm curious to know from those who have sailed Pride of America what their experience has been.  As a regular Royal cruiser this is my first time on NCL.  I'm a heavy internet user while aboard ships.  I need access for work reasons and I typically buy Royal's higher quality service.  I would need to FaceTime, send and receive files and use wifi calling.  The free at sea package give me 250 minutes.  They are offering an upgrade for $179.  I've got a couple of questions.  Since we are just circumnavigating the islands is it possible to stay connected to my carrier (AT&T) for internet service and not need their wifi? I know I'll have access to it when we're docked in port but what about at night?  Also, what is the difference between the wifi I'm given as part of the promotion and the "premium wifi upgrade". Is the  bandwidth better with the upgraded premium wifi?

 

Second, issue is the shore excursions credit as part of the free at sea package.  On the first full day of our cruise my wife would like an excursion that I have no interest in.  My intention was to book it for her and I'd just rent a scooter in town and zoom around on my own.  When I go to book it it appears that the credit can only be attached to first person on the booking. Is there a simple way to overcome this?  My thought was to book it in my name and just have the shore excursion people change it up once on board but then became concerned that that may not be possible since "cancelations" are limited to 48 hours prior. I'd hate for DW to lose out since this excursion is on our first full day and a 48 hour period wouldn't be possible.  

 

I apologize in advance if the answers to these questions are obvious.  For me they weren't.

 

 

[Tree_skier]

No thoughts???

[chengkp75]

22 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

Since we are just circumnavigating the islands is it possible to stay connected to my carrier (AT&T) for internet service and not need their wifi?

Cell signal from land towers generally drops off at about 10-15 miles offshore.  You will be that far offshore most of the nights.

[cruiseny4life]

On 10/14/2022 at 3:48 PM, Tree_skier said:

When I go to book it it appears that the credit can only be attached to first person on the booking.

First, I have absolutely zero experience with this, however I have read multiple times on Cruise Critic about this...so before you read my statement, take it for whatever sprinkling of fairy dust Tinkerbell will give you.

 

Those on the forums state the shore excursion providers don't look at the name on tickets. They just see you have a ticket for their headcount. These same people claim you can book an excursion in your name and give it to your wife. You may or may not be lucky with this approach, though I've never read anyone not scoring with this approach.

 

One way you could possibly get around this issue is by upgrading to Free at Sea Plus. This would provide you and your wifey-poo with a $50 shore excursion credit, each. You'd also have the premium plus beverage package (i.e. drink all the fancy booze, Starbucks, and water you want). Also, you'd receive a couple more meals at specialty restaurants. You'd also receive unlimited Wi-Fi (not the streaming Wi-Fi though). There might be something else I'm forgetting about.

Not sure if Free at Sea Plus if offered on Hawaiian cruises since that ship is a special little one.  

 

Here's what I have experienced in regard to shore excursions - we purchased an excursion in Nassau. My husband gave them the tickets when I wasn't around. I joined the line next to him. There was supposedly some type of waiver we were supposed to sign. The shore excursion people never had us sign the waiver and we were allowed on their boat. That tells me these shore excursion employees (at least) didn't give any tinkerbell dust about names, details, etc., so long as their headcount matched. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by cruiseny4life

[Needz2Cruise]

Just off Pride a little over a week ago. Honestly, one of the things that I would have changed if doing this cruise again is that I wouldn't bother with the internet package. Since this is a port intensive cruise with port overnights and a good portion of the cruising done at night, I found that I didn't use the Wi-Fi package much. And, I found that my 5G data plan with my provider was quite a bit faster than NCL's Wi-Fi, at least on my phone. If, as OP said, you're doing some heavy duty internet while away, you might need one of their packages, but on this particular cruise, I felt it unnecessary...

[CruisinKikster]

I cruised POA in September. I also didn't use NCL's wifi much, but I also didn't have much connection once we left port (maybe around half hour out is when I lost it). I had 150 included minutes, and I used maybe an hour of that, mostly on the last day. It's a port intensive itinerary, so I just used my phone's signal when we were in port. And then I was exhausted from a day of sightseeing so I didn't stay up too much past dinner. If you are working and need more internet than that, you may want a better package. 

 

As for the excursions, I'd just book it under the name of the person who gets the $$ off. The excursion we took did not look at names ever. They just collected tickets and counted heads. 

[steamboats]

I hardly used my internet package. Internet was pretty slow. You only need the package when leaving port. My data plan was much faster in ports.

 

steamboats

[Tree_skier]

Thanks all for the help...  I have booked the upgrade package but I think I'll cancel it.  I forgot about calculating the overnight stops into the equation. I think I'm going to cancel that upgrade and put that money towards something else.