Wifi cost

[gymfreak]

We are cruising for 12 nights in November.

I was trying to calculate the cost of Wifi but have forgotten the formula used to do this.

We are Discoverer Plus and in a normal Veranda.

Anyone know the cost for one of us to upgrade from our loyalty minutes to unlimited access?

Thank you

[Grandma Cruising]

Discoverer plus gives you 75% of a full package.Full package Wifi is $19.95 a day, so for a 12 day cruise $239.40. You would pay 25% of that which is $59.85.

[crzrr]

When we were on the Onward in January we were so impressed with the internet speed.  The ship had been upgraded to Starlink.  We were just on the Journey in September.  Even though the Journey uses Starlink as well, the internet speed was awful.  I noticed an ad in the daily program to upgrade the internet speed at a cost of $8.95/day.  As we were in ports every day and have international coverage, we didn't do anything about upgrading.  However, with 3 days left of the cruise a port was cancelled, our ships excursion was cancelled and we found ourselves with OBC and nothing we wanted to buy.  So, we decided to upgrade the internet for the last 3 days.  In speaking with guest services we learned that it is a pilot program and if we had any feedback we should put it on our end of cruise survey.

The upgraded speed was exactly what we had experienced with the basic package in January on Onward.  Needless to say, we gave quite a bit of feedback.  There has been quite a bit of complaining about internet speed lately on all of the ships.  I can't help but feel that they are limiting the basic package speed in hopes that people will pay more for better speed.  Not my idea of what a premium cruise line should be doing.  

So, if you are budgeting and need a higher speed, you should probably plan on another $8.95/day.  Currently, there is no discount for loyalty on this upcharge - another thing that guest services recommended that I comment on.

[fruitmachine]

8 minutes ago, crzrr said:

When we were on the Onward in January we were so impressed with the internet speed.  The ship had been upgraded to Starlink.  We were just on the Journey in September.  Even though the Journey uses Starlink as well, the internet speed was awful.  I noticed an ad in the daily program to upgrade the internet speed at a cost of $8.95/day.  As we were in ports every day and have international coverage, we didn't do anything about upgrading.  However, with 3 days left of the cruise a port was cancelled, our ships excursion was cancelled and we found ourselves with OBC and nothing we wanted to buy.  So, we decided to upgrade the internet for the last 3 days.  In speaking with guest services we learned that it is a pilot program and if we had any feedback we should put it on our end of cruise survey.

The upgraded speed was exactly what we had experienced with the basic package in January on Onward.  Needless to say, we gave quite a bit of feedback.  There has been quite a bit of complaining about internet speed lately on all of the ships.  I can't help but feel that they are limiting the basic package speed in hopes that people will pay more for better speed.  Not my idea of what a premium cruise line should be doing.  

So, if you are budgeting and need a higher speed, you should probably plan on another $8.95/day.  Currently, there is no discount for loyalty on this upcharge - another thing that guest services recommended that I comment on.

It's unsustainable for them to provide unlimited data volumes at full Starlink speeds for the reduced or free cost of the current Internet package. Your (and my) experience on Journey is that they have chosen to limit speed, and now have a pilot option to lift that at additional cost.  An alternative would be for them to limit data volumes (xxx MB or GB per day/week/cruise) and charge for more.  This is exactly how most mobile phone contracts work. 

 

As I said in April, I won't be surprised if they also test that option.

[beatnix]

Do they have this trial only on Journey?

In May on Pursuit the speed was ok - but we only used the included minutes. And we will be back in November on Pursuit for nearly 4 weeks and a lot of sea days so we plan with unlimited internet package. 

[excitedofharpenden]

1 hour ago, crzrr said:

When we were on the Onward in January we were so impressed with the internet speed.  The ship had been upgraded to Starlink.  We were just on the Journey in September.  Even though the Journey uses Starlink as well, the internet speed was awful.  I noticed an ad in the daily program to upgrade the internet speed at a cost of $8.95/day.  As we were in ports every day and have international coverage, we didn't do anything about upgrading.  However, with 3 days left of the cruise a port was cancelled, our ships excursion was cancelled and we found ourselves with OBC and nothing we wanted to buy.  So, we decided to upgrade the internet for the last 3 days.  In speaking with guest services we learned that it is a pilot program and if we had any feedback we should put it on our end of cruise survey.

The upgraded speed was exactly what we had experienced with the basic package in January on Onward.  Needless to say, we gave quite a bit of feedback.  There has been quite a bit of complaining about internet speed lately on all of the ships.  I can't help but feel that they are limiting the basic package speed in hopes that people will pay more for better speed.  Not my idea of what a premium cruise line should be doing.  

So, if you are budgeting and need a higher speed, you should probably plan on another $8.95/day.  Currently, there is no discount for loyalty on this upcharge - another thing that guest services recommended that I comment on.

Thank you for posting this. Very interesting. 

 

Phil 

[crzrr]

3 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

It's unsustainable for them to provide unlimited data volumes at full Starlink speeds for the reduced or free cost of the current Internet package. Your (and my) experience on Journey is that they have chosen to limit speed, and now have a pilot option to lift that at additional cost.  An alternative would be for them to limit data volumes (xxx MB or GB per day/week/cruise) and charge for more.  This is exactly how most mobile phone contracts work. 

 

As I said in April, I won't be surprised if they also test that option.

It's possible, but given everyone who purchased internet had unlimited speed with a full ship on Onward in January, it didn't seem to be a constraint.  I suspect if they made it totally free and unlimited speed, that could be an issue.  Perhaps they should test providing constrained speed free for all and unlimited speed for the purchased packages.  An additional charge would certainly limit the number of people using it.  With the low speed you could certainly still text and email.

[fruitmachine]

2 minutes ago, crzrr said:

It's possible, but given everyone who purchased internet had unlimited speed with a full ship on Onward in January, it didn't seem to be a constraint.  I suspect if they made it totally free and unlimited speed, that could be an issue.  Perhaps they should test providing constrained speed free for all and unlimited speed for the purchased packages.  An additional charge would certainly limit the number of people using it.  With the low speed you could certainly still text and email.

I suspect that Starlink are not giving Azamara unconstrained speed and volume.  Folk were praising how they could stream HD movies, run video conferencing, and generally behave like they had a wired Internet connection.  That kind of capacity costs a lot.  Just like mobile phone companies do, Starlink will be charging by the GB or TB (perhaps with an "included" allowance) and Azamara quite possibly  had a very large bill with the early deployment on Onward.

 

I can see no other credible reason for the speed-choke we experienced on Journey in April, but which they can now miraculously lift if you pay a premium charge (I never bought the excuses that the slow speed was due to poorer onboard networking technology).

 

It's going to be a balancing act, and we should expect Azamara (and other cruise lines) to go through an iteration of potential options until they find a balance between cost and income, whether that income comes from inclusion in the base fare or a direct charge for speed or quantity uplift.

[gymfreak]

Thank you all for the great information. Just got back from work and read all the posts.

Many thanks