Starlink

[uneamie]

Joy will be going into dry dock at the end of January into Febuary. Not sure how long. Anyway, Does anyone know if they will be installing "Starlink" during this dry dock? It would be a great opportunity for them to do this. I did read that NCL will be doing this to their ships in 2023 but I have no idea if they started yet or what ships may already have it. Anyone with any of that information?

[fastpitchdad]

I wouldn't hold my breath, even the Getaway has yet to have it turned on (apparently it has been installed) and it was the next ship to get it after the Breakaway. 

[scanr]

15 minutes ago, fastpitchdad said:

I wouldn't hold my breath, even the Getaway has yet to have it turned on (apparently it has been installed) and it was the next ship to get it after the Breakaway. 

Is Starlink active on Breakaway?  If you have individual starlink, will it work onboard?

Thanks

 

[fastpitchdad]

35 minutes ago, scanr said:

Is Starlink active on Breakaway?  If you have individual starlink, will it work onboard?

Thanks

 

 

They tested it on the Breakaway (I assume it is still running), from what I read it worked very well but this was back in April. The Getaway had it installed then but it is still yet to be turned on (which is pretty disappointing since I am sailing on her in 9 days). I very much doubt NCL would give up the revenue and let you use your own account. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by fastpitchdad

[KDebreuil]

Starlink was active on the Breakaway when I was on it in March in the Caribbean.  I don't use internet too much when I'm vacation.  I had some issues connecting to work services as the GeoIP services change depending on what land-based station the signal comes back to.  I feel it's better than the traditional service.

[hallux]

7 hours ago, scanr said:

If you have individual starlink, will it work onboard?

That's not how this works.  You will need to pay for service on the ship.  Starlink is the "backhaul" service.  Think of it like at a hotel - the hotel pays for the internet connection and will either offer it to you for free or will charge you extra.  In this case - they charge extra.

[JamesIowa]

8 hours ago, fastpitchdad said:

from what I read it worked very well

Was on breakaway in Dec 22, this test was run in the theatre on a sea day:
 

[DCGuy64]

3 minutes ago, JamesIowa said:

Was on breakaway in Dec 22, this test was run in the theatre on a sea day:
 

Wow, that's a pretty fast download speed (especially for the minimal internet we use on a cruise).

[sjacobs11]

Hoping it's installed on Viva. Doesn't make much sense to install the legacy system and then just swap it out if they were planning to roll out to all ships. We'll find out in a couple of days when the first passengers board!

[eileeshb]

The original plan was for all ships to have it by October but there was some sort of hiccup that caused that plan to be scrapped and the last update was a second trial run on Breakaway but nothing more was shared since then. 

 

[uneamie]

So it sounds like NCL has many hiccups getting this installed and up and running on their ships. I have to wonder why??? The Joy going into dry dock should be the perfect time to have it installed....my luck it won't be. We are booked for June on the Joy. I can live without it but I talked my son and his girlfriend to book this cruise...they are heavy internet users so I wanted it to be a great "first time" cruise experience for them. 

[BirdTravels]

On 8/8/2023 at 8:50 AM, sjacobs11 said:

Hoping it's installed on Viva. Doesn't make much sense to install the legacy system and then just swap it out if they were planning to roll out to all ships. We'll find out in a couple of days when the first passengers board!

Starlink service would work o.k. in Europe, but is still spotty/non-existent over the Eastern Caribbean. Some reports from the Breakaway was that they needed to switch back to the legacy system when they sailed out of Starlink coverage... I don't know that to be true. 

 

In the olden days, there was not really a business case to provide satellite coverage over ocean areas versus densely populated land areas. No money to be made. 

https://www.starlink.com/map

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Interesting that much of the southeastern US is still on a waitlist for the service.

[scar4711]

Starlink just announced Bahamas went live. so this should fix some things..

 

and crew center had an article on facebook with crew starlink prices for Epic...

 

[DCGuy64]

A friend of mine was on Breakaway just last week and said the Starlink internet was fine. He only complained about the cost, since he upgraded from the FAS to unlimited @ $200 pp. But no issues with the internet itself.

[mking8288]

Aida (part of Carnival brand) cruise ships went live with their conversion & adoption of Starlink fleetwide ... began with 3 ships and apparently, the rest of the ships are done ... can't recall where I read it earlier this week or find the link.  Crew members said to be happy as well to be connected.

https://crew-center.com/aida-cruises-equip-entire-fleet-starlink-broadband-october-2023

 

NCL just - IMHO - dragging their feet with the ongoing test BS - can't seem to make it a win-win situation, apparently 😳 🙄 😤 

[eileeshb]

3 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

A friend of mine was on Breakaway just last week and said the Starlink internet was fine. He only complained about the cost, since he upgraded from the FAS to unlimited @ $200 pp. But no issues with the internet itself.

I pre purchased the premium streaming WiFi months ago when it was first said Starlink was going to be added to all the ships by October as I was worried they’d jack up the charges even more once Starlink went live. Unfortunately that schedule went by the wayside so my pre purchase hasn’t been a saving. 

[bstreep]

We installed Starlink on our own boat earlier this year. We used it continuously on our trip between South Texas and Panama.  It worked nearly flawlessly, even when many hundreds of miles from shore. Our 2 “land stations” were Atlanta and Columbia.  That didn’t mater. Our pings were around 50ms, and 200mps were typical.  We could make phone calls, download video, everywhere.  For us, it was “gamechanging”.

 

We were on Spirit last week, no Starlink. We are on an Alaska return to Vancouver in a week on RC Radiance, that has Starlink. Reports from Radiance aren’t positive. Seems like there may be implementation issues?  Because the product is awesome.  And ships use the same units we have. 

[hallux]

9 minutes ago, bstreep said:

And ships use the same units we have.

But the question is - HOW MANY units?  There would then need to be some kind of load balancing system in place so as not to overload a single connection with too many clients.  How effective is that load balancing?

 

Your one unit with a couple people using it vs. how many receivers with 5,000 people sharing them...

[bstreep]

The pictures I’ve seen with Starlink antennas on them have had dozens.  And you are right, that might not be enough.  But that’s an implementation issue.  The satellites handle it fine.  On RCCL, they offer only one package. Surf and stream. If they are having thruput issues, they should tier price it.

 

Our experience with Starlink is that they aren’t very good at the “customer service “ side of things.  

[fstuff1]

On 8/11/2023 at 11:57 AM, DCGuy64 said:

A friend of mine was on Breakaway just last week and said the Starlink internet was fine. He only complained about the cost, since he upgraded from the FAS to unlimited @ $200 pp. But no issues with the internet itself.

Trade in value for the promo internet minutes is lower on Breakaway class than any other ncl ship, probably because of Starlnk:

 

[D_And_K_gocruising]

Since a lot of their recent launches have been dealing with more "southern" sets.  I have a feeling it'll just keep getting better in the Caribbean / Bahamas etc etc

[kasimir]

Quick update as we just boarded the Prima on the TA cruise and I can confirm that we have Starlink onboard and it’s quite quick for cruise ship standards.

[kasimir]

FYI, we are on the standard unlimited WiFi. 

[mking8288]

3 hours ago, kasimir said:

Quick update as we just boarded the Prima on the TA cruise and I can confirm that we have Starlink onboard and it’s quite quick for cruise ship standards.

I am pulling results just past midnight after doing the unlimited basic upgrade, getting slightly better results than yours with WiFi 6 (ax)   Hardware used by us do help to squeeze that bandwidth 🫢 

 

 

 

Below on tethered iPhone SE 2022

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by mking8288