Internet speeds and email downloads

[Kudos2Fly]

We are trying to decide which internet package to get. My husband is an structural engineer and his clients will send PDF plans as attachments, 3-7 pages each. Even though we will be telling everyone not to email us with plans, we will most like have someone send us something when he checks his email. We will not be streaming or doing video calls. We can't completely disappear for 8 days. 

 

Which internet package would be best? I'm thinkin the Premium, but if we can do the cheaper one that would be nice. We will be on Celebrity Equinox.  

[1025cruise]

I would suggest your husband use webmail so he doesn't have to download attachments.

[Kudos2Fly]

13 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

I would suggest your husband use webmail so he doesn't have to download attachments.

 

He doesn't use webmail. He has his own system Chaos Intellect that does his email management for years. 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Kudos2Fly

[Arizona Wildcat]

Really simple.  Get on board and see how the regular service works for you.  If you are within a few hundred miles of land likely regular will be fine.  If on a TA/TP cruise than probably need high speed and at times that will be VERY slow.  Same for cruises to Antarctica and Greenland.

Much of your download speed depends on how close you are to the router.  Since not streaming videos etc, you could move to get the few documents you might need. 

No need to choose now.  Also you might do a search as there are several threads on exactly this recently.

[Kudos2Fly]

1 minute ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

Much of your download speed depends on how close you are to the router.  Since not streaming videos etc, you could move to get the few documents you might need. 

No need to choose now.  Also you might do a search as there are several threads on exactly this recently.

Thank you, we will be in the Caribbean. I think we can upgrade once on board right? I'll search the forum for this. We have gotten the internet on board before for this, just can't remember what we did. It's been a while since we have cruised. 

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

We are trying to decide which internet package to get. My husband is an structural engineer and his clients will send PDF plans as attachments, 3-7 pages each. Even though we will be telling everyone not to email us with plans, we will most like have someone send us something when he checks his email. We will not be streaming or doing video calls. We can't completely disappear for 8 days. 

 

Which internet package would be best? I'm thinkin the Premium, but if we can do the cheaper one that would be nice. We will be on Celebrity Equinox.  

I've done a couple of cruises in the Caribbean relatively recently on Celebrity ships with both plans.

 

I had the premium on the Millie in November.  No Starlink.  Speeds varied from 0.3 mbps to 3 mbps.

 

I had the basic plan on the Summit in February.  We had Starlink.  It seemed that that plan was throttled to keep users from going over 1 mbps as I tested between 0.88 and 0.94 the whole trip.

 

Even with the slowest speed I saw, you shouldn't have much trouble downloading a single .pdf.  It might take half a minute instead of the eye blink you're used to at home.  If that's all you have to worry about, then I'd risk the basic plan.  But YMMV.

[the penguins]

4 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

We are trying to decide which internet package to get. My husband is an structural engineer and his clients will send PDF plans as attachments, 3-7 pages each. Even though we will be telling everyone not to email us with plans, we will most like have someone send us something when he checks his email. We will not be streaming or doing video calls. We can't completely disappear for 8 days. 

 

Which internet package would be best? I'm thinkin the Premium, but if we can do the cheaper one that would be nice. We will be on Celebrity Equinox.  

If you are Elite the free minutes you each get are  Premium. Try that with one package and see how you get on. Once you have used your free minutes you can use your other minutes as a discount on Premium or standard for the remainder of the cruise.

[keesar]

For sending basic emails, the Basic Plan should be fine.  However, if the attachments involve photos or detailed sketches, then both plans would present challenges.  Staff suggested to me that I use Internet services at the ports and they were correct.  Everything was received and went through with no difficulties including photos.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

Get the premium and charge the clients the extra to upgrade for the days he uses it 😉

[petrosh]

On a South American cruise aboard INFINITY in March I had wifi as part of AI deal. The connection was the best ever on a cruise and never let me down. My UK daily paper appeared in the app each day even when off Cape Horn. Delighted with the service.

[1025cruise]

13 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

 

He doesn't use webmail. He has his own system Chaos Intellect that does his email management for years. 

I don't normally use webmail either, but if I have to..... Perhaps his system can be configured to not download attachments?

 

Of course, I'm one of those people that disables my work email from syncing when I'm on PTO.

[Mike07]

19 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

We are trying to decide which internet package to get. My husband is an structural engineer and his clients will send PDF plans as attachments, 3-7 pages each. Even though we will be telling everyone not to email us with plans, we will most like have someone send us something when he checks his email. We will not be streaming or doing video calls. We can't completely disappear for 8 days. 

 

Which internet package would be best? I'm thinkin the Premium, but if we can do the cheaper one that would be nice. We will be on Celebrity Equinox.  

 

 

The basic package should be fine. Email has minimal overhead, and both sending and receiving will eventually go through on the basic plan. It may be slow... like GPRS 2G speed slow at times, but it'll go through.

 

Celebrity wants to make it annoying and slow enough that you feel forced to upgrade.

[CNSfromHI]

19 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

Which internet package would be best? I'm thinkin the Premium, but if we can do the cheaper one that would be nice. We will be on Celebrity Equinox.  

Trust your gut. Go Premium.

 

cjr

[Ken the cruiser]

FWIW we have always upgraded to Premium when we’ve been on any Celebrity cruise since cruising started back up. As folks have mentioned, sending and receiving email with attachments may be slow with the Basic package, but should work. However, for me I’m not able to even access the CC Forums website area if I’m using Basic, which is critical for me as I like to post text and photos to a Live From thread when on a cruise. My DW also upgrades to Premium, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to log onto the multilevel websites like Go Daddy that she periodically needs access to either. 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[Kudos2Fly]

Thanks for the information everyone. Well looks like I'll just upgrade to the Premium service just so we don't have any issues with slow internet. 

[wrk2cruise]

I agree with others that you should try the basic first.  With StarLink I've found the service even at premium is throttled to about 5 mbs.   I suspect you will be fine with basic.

 

[the penguins]

5 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

Thanks for the information everyone. Well looks like I'll just upgrade to the Premium service just so we don't have any issues with slow internet. 

Not sure about you not having any issues but should be fewer.

[jean87510]

8 hours ago, Kudos2Fly said:

Thanks for the information everyone. Well looks like I'll just upgrade to the Premium service just so we don't have any issues with slow internet. 

Use premium.  We were on Equinox in February and Husband had zoom meetings plus other work and was just fine.  I was bingeing HBO shows like Succession with zero issues at the gym.  Don't use Basic for meetings.  The job is important for the extra cost and helps pay for the cruise.

[cangelmd]

We just got off Equinox. We only got off at 2 ports, but I’m extrapolating to other trips.

Starlink is noticeably better, significantly better - I don’t know mps speeds, but I did 2 very similar downloads onboard, one before Starlink and Starlink worked much better.

Always works better in early am, if he can check his email then.

Pretty much every Caribbean port has bars, immediately outside the terminal, with free Wi-Fi aimed at crew members. It should be easy to download pdfs at those bars, and open and respond at leisure. The crew is sitting around Zoom chatting at these bars.

I don’t think Starlink will help for TAs, TPS, Antarctica, etc, but he should be able to get and respond to his email in the Caribbean.

If you get Premium, he will only notice a little slowdown, the regular will work, but he will have to devote more vacay time getting his downloads.

We are gone for a month this summer, and the only amenity upgrades we bought at the last upgrade sale was Premium internet for one device for the entire month. I might not have done that if I had known how well Starlink worked - but if I knew I had work things to do, I would still do premium

[TeeRick]

Go Premium Starlink and don't worry about it.

[Kudos2Fly]

Thanks for the updates. I have already decided to go Premium. If they are using Starlink for Premium then that is a added plus... We're still waiting for our Starlink. 

[arealcheapskate]

One of our colleagues uses the premium internet to report on radiology scans like MRIs/CTs while cruising. Makes 10 grand a day while cruising lol. 

[cruiserchuck]

We were on the Solstice last week, and noticed that the Premium internet speeds varied greatly depending on where we were on the ship.  The ship has Starlink, and the speed was so slow that it was difficult to get email/ access the internet while in our cabin.  However, we found some locations around the ship where the internet was almost as fast as on land.  

[grandgeezer]

23 hours ago, arealcheapskate said:

One of our colleagues uses the premium internet to report on radiology scans like MRIs/CTs while cruising. Makes 10 grand a day while cruising lol. 

I find that hard to believe. My daughter in law is a highly regarded spinal surgeon and doesn’t make anywhere near that.

Two months ago my wife had a MRI on her back and the total cost for the scan and it’s reading was only $1400 according to what the insurance paid.

[arealcheapskate]

1 hour ago, grandgeezer said:

I find that hard to believe. My daughter in law is a highly regarded spinal surgeon and doesn’t make anywhere near that.

Two months ago my wife had a MRI on her back and the total cost for the scan and it’s reading was only $1400 according to what the insurance paid.

These are teleradiologists based in Australia or the UK. He can dictate 10 scans per hour easily. Basically the UK takes over for Australia during night time in Oz. Then during the day the Australian radiologists read UK scans (where it is night there(

 

These folks are making a million plus per year. 

Believe it or not. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by arealcheapskate