avoid Regal Princess - internet speed is slow - 3 mps

[BamaVol]

25 minutes ago, ExploringTheGlobe said:

The only gripe I have about this post is the title stating to avoid the Regal.  So the OP is telling us what to do based on his/her/their wants/needs.  It would have been better received if it was just a FYI post. 

And an acknowledgment that YMMV.  Others on the same cruise are reporting an internet that functions adequately for all that the OP wants to do.  
 

I too have an issue with thread titles that predict doom and gloom for all of humanity when the issue turns out to be limited to one cabin and one cruiser’s experience.  
 

It’s admirable to post warnings. But be very certain of what you’re posting.

Edited October 10, 2023 by BamaVol

[beshears]

Brovol and Exploring the Globe, I agree completely with Brovol as at MY age I never dreamed I would have one of THOSE phones, but I do. I never figured I would learn how to use it, but my d-i-l taught me and as a lady older than I said, it HAS a wealth of information. I find the difference between my generation and the generation of today, I do NOT carry/keep it on my body! I tell people if they need me and I don't answer, just leave a message and I will get back with them.

As for what Exploring the Globe said, I agree completely about the "title", as that caught my attention, and I think the big word AVOID the Regal really made it sound like it was a bad ship. Actually I am LOOKING forward to cruising on it for the first time in February.

[Greytgrey]

On 10/5/2023 at 12:00 PM, ExploringTheGlobe said:

I'll be on the next cruise after you.  I'm excited for the cruise, slow internet or not.  No avoidance necessary.

Exactly! We always plan on hotels having iffy internet, and DEFINITELY cruises. In fact, we'll be on the Regal Princess in February and aren't doing the internet package at all, because... why. If you're not working during a vacation, I don't understand why people can't go a few days without being infinitely reachable. AND I've left a very young adult child at home alone before. It's fine. 

 

I'm looking forward to being able to direct my kiddo to the kids' club when he would otherwise be chilling with YouTube! Then I can go to an adult-only area and read for a while. Super excited with you! Hope you have a great cruise!

[beshears]

Greytgrey, I don't know what "date" you are doing the Regal in February, but we are doing the Regal the 25th of February. 🙂

[Greytgrey]

19 hours ago, beshears said:

Greytgrey, I don't know what "date" you are doing the Regal in February, but we are doing the Regal the 25th of February. 🙂

Aww, man, you'll be getting on the day we leave! Hope you have a great trip!

[Arizona Wildcat]

On 10/5/2023 at 9:27 AM, jrblach said:

we are on Regal for 25 days Southampton to Fort Lauderdale. sailed Sept 29. internet speed is like dial up - only 3 mbs.  ship will not fix it even though we bought all these plus packages.  we we were on sky in August and internet was fast = like at home. 

Are you aware that 3mps is what you will get on a TA on pretty much all cruise ships.  Starlink has reduced bandwidth. 

[jrblach]

update. we are still in Europe and internet is like dial up. ship refuses to fix it. it was blazing fast on sky princess aug 19 for 2 weeks. that is the reason for our complaint. otherwise, the ship and cruise has been awesome.

[jrblach]

some background. Princess has put high speed internet on all new ships and retrofitted older ships. Princess continually send emails extolling high speed internet. we had it on sky. we just want what was promised.

[Guest ldtr]

was on Regal TA in spring. Internat was 3 to 5 mb. You indicated that it was 3 mb which is normal for a cruise ship and certainly not dial up. Should be adequate for most things including video calls, streaming etc.

 

Might not work for highly interactive functions such as on line gaming due to latency, not bandwidth.

 

Nothing to fix because it is operating as expected.

 

What exactly are you trying that 3mb is not sufficient?

Edited October 13, 2023 by ldtr

[Hagenn]

I’m on the same cruise (Southampton to Ft. Lauderdale) and I’m seeing the same speeds — 3 mbps down, 0.7 mbps up. So far, it’s handled most of my tasks without trouble, so I’m happy. 

Taking a technical bent:

— Regal Princess was using SES service 2 years ago, and it was getting about 0.3 mbps.

— Regal has since switched to Starlink, which appears to be holding 3.0 mbps pretty consistently.

— Compare this with Sun Princess, which was built with Starlink. The speeds are better there because it was designed with that in mind.

— Speeds will depend to some degree on latitude. Ruby Princess (still on SES until this month’s drydock service) was getting speeds above 5.0 mbps in the tropics, but down to as little as 0.1 mbps in the North Sea. I trust Starlink will be more consistent, but should also improve as SpaceX launches more rockets. 

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Hagenn said:

I’m on the same cruise (Southampton to Ft. Lauderdale) and I’m seeing the same speeds — 3 mbps down, 0.7 mbps up. So far, it’s handled most of my tasks without trouble, so I’m happy. 

Taking a technical bent:

— Regal Princess was using SES service 2 years ago, and it was getting about 0.3 mbps.

— Regal has since switched to Starlink, which appears to be holding 3.0 mbps pretty consistently.

— Compare this with Sun Princess, which was built with Starlink. The speeds are better there because it was designed with that in mind.

— Speeds will depend to some degree on latitude. Ruby Princess (still on SES until this month’s drydock service) was getting speeds above 5.0 mbps in the tropics, but down to as little as 0.1 mbps in the North Sea. I trust Starlink will be more consistent, but should also improve as SpaceX launches more rockets. 

Hard to compare with Sun Princess considering it will not even launch for a few months yet.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Hagenn said:

I’m on the same cruise (Southampton to Ft. Lauderdale) and I’m seeing the same speeds — 3 mbps down, 0.7 mbps up. So far, it’s handled most of my tasks without trouble, so I’m happy. 

Taking a technical bent:

— Regal Princess was using SES service 2 years ago, and it was getting about 0.3 mbps.

— Regal has since switched to Starlink, which appears to be holding 3.0 mbps pretty consistently.

— Compare this with Sun Princess, which was built with Starlink. The speeds are better there because it was designed with that in mind.

— Speeds will depend to some degree on latitude. Ruby Princess (still on SES until this month’s drydock service) was getting speeds above 5.0 mbps in the tropics, but down to as little as 0.1 mbps in the North Sea. I trust Starlink will be more consistent, but should also improve as SpaceX launches more rockets. 

At Alta Norway, well north of the Artic Circle  Island Princess was doing 1.8 mbps

[ExploringTheGlobe]

9 hours ago, jrblach said:

update. we are still in Europe and internet is like dial up. ship refuses to fix it. it was blazing fast on sky princess aug 19 for 2 weeks. that is the reason for our complaint. otherwise, the ship and cruise has been awesome.

So the cruise has been awesome for you with the exception of wanting faster internet?  So why did you title the thread Avoid Regal Princess?  For a lot of people, internet isn't that big of a deal, especially when several people have chimed in on the ship they haven't had any issues using the internet.

[Grego]

On 10/5/2023 at 1:00 PM, ExploringTheGlobe said:

I'll be on the next cruise after you.  I'm excited for the cruise, slow internet or not.  No avoidance necessary.

What did people do before WiFi?  We personally don't use the internet that much but do use the ship's intranet for things more important to the actual voyage the we are taking.

[BamaVol]

1 hour ago, Grego said:

What did people do before WiFi?  We personally don't use the internet that much but do use the ship's intranet for things more important to the actual voyage the we are taking.

What did people do before cars?  Or antibiotics?  Or spellcheck?

 

Life was lived differently. And it wasn’t necessarily better.

 

Before reliable internet was available on cruise ships, some people would have stayed home.  How wonderful that reliable communication channels make the experience available to them now! 
 

 

[jrblach]

we get a spinning circle in top left hand corner of browser - chrome and brave. takes 1 minutes before email or web page shows up. takes  1 minute to open each email.

[deliver42]

The first thing I do when we get in our cabin is find the safe to put away our passports and phones.

[MissP22]

1 hour ago, Grego said:

What did people do before WiFi?  We personally don't use the internet that much but do use the ship's intranet for things more important to the actual voyage the we are taking.

They mailed postcards from each Island they visited. 😉

[Guest ldtr]

Just now, jrblach said:

we get a spinning circle in top left hand corner of browser - chrome and brave. takes 1 minutes before email or web page shows up. takes  1 minute to open each email.

So in other words latency not bandwidth.  You are dealing with a shared satellite system anytime you initiate an interactive action it takes time to que the request, as well as transit time from the ship to the satellite to the ground station  then the return. allin addition to the normal latency of the ground network. At home you only have to deal the land part of the latency. Latency for a satellite system might be as long as a second, 20 times longer when compared to 50ms for a land connection. How fast it responds to a command depends upon how the systems communication protocols are set up.

 

The difference in latency due to distances and basic physics (speed of transmission of radio waves between earth to satellite back to earth)

 

If you are running a VPN they can also add significantly to the delay during interactive actions.

 

 

You don't have a mail system that downloads to your phone or PC?

 

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by ldtr

[Grego]

21 hours ago, MissP22 said:

They mailed postcards from each Island they visited. 😉

Thank you!  It is a vacation and a time to get away from the everyday life for a brief period.  

[Grego]

21 hours ago, deliver42 said:

The first thing I do when we get in our cabin is find the safe to put away our passports and phones.

Exactly, although I do keep my phone out to use the Medallion App and the ship's intranet.

[Crashe]

Just one of those topics that affects people differently.  If I have it, I enjoy it…if not, make do. 

[beg3yrs]

On 10/14/2023 at 6:38 AM, ldtr said:

So in other words latency not bandwidth.  You are dealing with a shared satellite system anytime you initiate an interactive action it takes time to que the request, as well as transit time from the ship to the satellite to the ground station  then the return. allin addition to the normal latency of the ground network. At home you only have to deal the land part of the latency. Latency for a satellite system might be as long as a second, 20 times longer when compared to 50ms for a land connection. How fast it responds to a command depends upon how the systems communication protocols are set up.

 

The difference in latency due to distances and basic physics (speed of transmission of radio waves between earth to satellite back to earth)

 

If you are running a VPN they can also add significantly to the delay during interactive actions.

 

 

You don't have a mail system that downloads to your phone or PC?

 

 

Latency issues are especially true for geosynchronous satellite Internet systems with the birds sitting out at 22,500.001 (approximately 😉) miles up. Starlink uses low earth orbit (LEO) satellites at roughly 342 miles. While they do cross-link with each other to get data to and from the nearest ground stations, the distance traveled (and thus the latency) is almost two orders of magnitude reduced.

[Rick&Jeannie]

On 10/14/2023 at 9:26 AM, MissP22 said:

They mailed postcards from each Island they visited. 😉

How true!  "Having a great time! Wish you were here!"

[Russell in MD]

The only thing we do on the web is to check email in the morning then off to do whatever.  We do print out our SW boarding passes the bay before disembarkation.

 

I think I still have a dot matrix printout of the AP news headlines from my first cruise.  Thats how you got information back then. 

 

Three channels on the TV I think looping movies. A spicy channel if you wanted to upgrade.😁

 

R