Bringing Your Own Laptop

[RANDIE]

Someone Told Me That If You Bring Your Own Laptop And It Is A Wireless Card, You Can Get A Connection In Public Areas Around The Ship. Can Anyone Verify This?

[CRUZIN TOM]

It will depend on the ship and the specific locations for wireless. Also remember you will be paying 75 cents per minute for usage. Their are different packages vailable for time.:)

[like2cruise]

We took our laptop on our last NCL cruise (Dream). We bought a package

which was cheaper than paying by the minute. The great part about having the laptop is we could type our messages anywhere. Then we would go to one of the hot spots onboard and connect long enough to send our message and receive any messages. We didn't have to be connected to type or read our messages. :D

[mousey]

We just got our laptop and are not really techies! So, even though our laptop can run on a battery we still have to pay to use it on a ship? Stupid question right? Don't laugh. Okay, I hear you laughing!:D

[garycarla]

You can use your laptop all day long at no charge.

 

You only pay when you are connected to their network. As others have mentioned, depending on the email service you use, you can compose and read your emails while NOT connected. Then log on to send and receive. Saves connection time.

 

By the way, you should do some trial runs connecting to wirelss networks BEFORE you leave home.

 

I am also guessing, just guessing, that you are not using a laptop very much. If you only want to check email once in awhile, you might want to think about just using the ships computers.

 

I always travel with my pc as I do other business related work, do email offline, etc. Depends what you are going to use it for.

[mousey]

Hi Garycarla! Thanks for the response. Yeah, we just got the laptop. We got it mainly so my husband can use it to check e-mail and maybe do some work (though not on this vacation!) while we are away as we travel a lot visiting family and going on vacations. We also want to use it for our son to be able to play games and watch DVDs when we travel. So, here's another question, if I may, if our son wants to play video games does he have to hook up to the ship's program? We did use it at a hotel recently on a ski vacation at our hotel. He just turned it on (using only battery power) and was able to just start playing. Can he do that on the ship? I guess the hubby and I are going to have to educate ourselves a little more before we go onboard. Duh!

[loghomelover]

the only time you pay is when you connect to the internet, weather you are using battery or not. You can use your computer with their electric free, the charge starts when you connect to the internet.

[garycarla]

When you start using it for other things like watching DVDs while on the plane, waiting, etc. it begins to make more sense to take along with you. Be careful that your son does not get hooked into the computer and misses all there is to experience by traveling.

 

Again, you only pay when connected to the internet. If the games are on your computer and do not require a connection to the internet to play, then no charge. There are games that people play on the internet, which is why the answer could easily be yes or no.

 

Think about the whole charge thing this way. You are NOT paying to use or run the computer. You only pay for the INTERNET line or connection. The ship or anybody else for that matter does not care what you do with your computer, only when you want to use their internet connection.

 

My answers regarding the hotel experience are difficult. If he just used games on YOUR computer, then no charge. If he used games via the internet or the TV hookup in the hotel, then that is different. Battery or power cord has ZERO to do with any of this. That is only power, and so far, nobody will charge you for power (until they figure out how).

[NormanW]

With all the pictures we take we usually carry about 32GB worth of CFII cards with us and dump pictures daily to our hard disk array (4.88TB). We have two pro SLR's which need upwards of 50MB per picture (RAW+JPG mode simultaneously).

 

We get free internet access in most places and I'd share some KISMET plots of the Caribbean however it's kind of like the Fight Club and rule one is... :D

 

Of course it's not really "free" if you consider the physical effort required to lug around all those antennas and other things. :eek:

 

Cheers,

 

Norman

[sjbdtz]

With all the pictures we take we usually carry about 32GB worth of CFII cards with us and dump pictures daily to our hard disk array (4.88TB). We have two pro SLR's which need upwards of 50MB per picture (RAW+JPG mode simultaneously).

 

We get free internet access in most places and I'd share some KISMET plots of the Caribbean however it's kind of like the Fight Club and rule one is... :D

 

Of course it's not really "free" if you consider the physical effort required to lug around all those antennas and other things. :eek:

 

Cheers,

 

Norman

 

Ok....gotta ask.....who is "we"? I certainly don't have a 5 TERAbyte hard disk array.... :(

 

 

And....about the free internet access...... ??? :)

 

Stephen

[7SeasLover]

I just bought a new MacBook Pro and it's going everywhere with me. I will buy an Internet access package of 250 minutes for $100 and (or the $50 pacakge). I plan to use it primarily to upload my digital pictures and watch the slideshow in our room every day. I will touch base with our kids stateside every day. I will also use it as a journal. No more writing in my book!

 

I doubt I'll carry it out of the stateroom to any hotspots. I'll hook-up in our stateroom.

[garycarla]

By uploading, hopefully you mean to your PC. Uploading to the internet will be painful due to the connection speed and quality.

 

By the way, can make those long links change from

this:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=254924

to this.

 

Just use that little thing that looks like a globe and chainlink when you edit your signature.

[7SeasLover]

I don't have a PC, I have a Mac. I do mean upload. I can web publish easily.

[garycarla]

Sorry, I use PC and MAC interchangeably (sp?)

 

Anyway, I publish to the web quite often, but on three cruises I found that the onboard connections are very slow. It got to the point that many of the sites I normally would check in (like this one) did not happen due to the slow connection.

 

YMMV -Your mileage may vary.

[mousey]

Wow! You guys know your stuff! We probably won't use it very much at all while on the ship. My husband will have to figure it out if he wants to get on the internet for anything. Me, I'm outside partying!:D My son won't get on it unless he can't find anything else to do and that is not likely. Just read two really great reviews about the Dream today! I'm ready to sail! Thanks for all the info!:)

[johnql]

I agree with garycarla. Uploading photos (or any substantial amount of data) via a ship's internet connection is probably not a very good idea. The connection speed is not that great and you'll end up running up a huge bill, not to mention the frustration at the slowness. The ship's internet cafe is probably best used for email.

[7SeasLover]

Mac member websites are very easy. Upload photos to your Mac, click a button that says "web page" click another button that says publish. Voila! Done!

 

Now maybe I'll find the "publish" function sluggish, but I won't know until I get there and try it. I'll likely buy the 250 plan. I won't be doing anyting other than sending e-mail to our kids, and transferring pics from my camera to the Mac. Of course, I do plan to publish to the web and send the link to my kids.

 

Now if after I hit publish I find than that we can have dinner and return before it finishes... I won't be publishing much! :D

[MidtheNight]

Mac member websites are very easy. Upload photos to your Mac, click a button that says "web page" click another button that says publish. Voila! Done!

 

Now maybe I'll find the "publish" function sluggish, but I won't know until I get there and try it. I'll likely buy the 250 plan. I won't be doing anyting other than sending e-mail to our kids, and transferring pics from my camera to the Mac. Of course, I do plan to publish to the web and send the link to my kids.

 

Now if after I hit publish I find than that we can have dinner and return before it finishes... I won't be publishing much! :D

 

Depending on the file size of your pics I would tell you not to even attempt to upload your photos. Unless of course it's only 10-15 of them and they are all under 300kb. Doesn't matter if it's a mac or a pc...upload bandwidth is the same for all. During periods of high usage it will be even slower as all those people have to share the same max bandwidth....I'm assuming that the ship has it segmented....x percentage for ship critical communication, x percentage for crew use and x percentage for guest useage. Imagine it like the days of the 56k dialup and all you could get logged in was 52k....that's how slow it can be and is sometimes.

[mandotsan]

We are going on a Transatlantic cruise and will be at sea for 5 days before our first port so we are bringing our Lap Top and some DVDs and Cd's to use while at sea. My question..which may sound stupid..we will be carrying the Disk on a carry on bag and I would like to know if the X-Ray machines at the Airport will cause any damage to them or will they even show up on the screen since they are plastic and in plastic jewel case's, or would I be better just packing them in my checked in baggage, not sure how safe that is either.:confused:

[johnql]

We are going on a Transatlantic cruise and will be at sea for 5 days before our first port so we are bringing our Lap Top and some DVDs and Cd's to use while at sea. My question..which may sound stupid..we will be carrying the Disk on a carry on bag and I would like to know if the X-Ray machines at the Airport will cause any damage to them or will they even show up on the screen since they are plastic and in plastic jewel case's, or would I be better just packing them in my checked in baggage, not sure how safe that is either.:confused:

The x-ray machines will not affect DVDs or CDs at all. One suggestion: you might want to consider buying a CD album. Music stores (or Circuit City/Best Buy-type stores) sell all different sizes of albums - you can take the CDs/DVDs out of their cases and just slip the disks into the album. It will be a lot more compact and eliminating the jewel cases/DVD cases will cut down significantly on the weight.

[mousey]

Here's a tip! You can get CD DVD albums at about $3 or $4 at Ross For Less!

[garycarla]

Those hard plastic cases tend to crack when in the checked bags. We have seen that with CDs. We carry our DVDs with carry on because we sometimes want to watch them when we are on long flights or delayed at the airport. Make sure you have two headsets and a "Y-jack". They are about $3 at Walmart of Radioshack. $10 at the airport, but worth it when you are stuck for hours.

 

And, yes, X-rays are no problem. That is only with film which is entirely different.

[mandotsan]

I knew you CC folks would come through for me! Thanks to everyone who gave their advice.. it is well taken.:D

[firsttimer2]

We just got back from the Spirit. We bought a package for 55 dollars for 100 minutes. There were many spots on the ship that had access. Staterooms were not one of them. Pool Deck, Grand Centrum, Library, Internet Cafe all had access. Hookup was kind of slow. We emailed about 5-6 pictures daily and it did take quite a while. We weren't always able to log into certain sites such as hotmail, yahoo etc. We still enjoyed having it and liked the convenience of being able to type emails before connecting to save time. Hope this helps!