Connect At Sea

[gregg4]

Leaving on the Summit on April 23. The last thread I could find on this subject was dated early 2005 and was not very complimentary. I was wondering if anyone has used Celebrity's Connect at Sea program. Their site talks about renting a connection and a package rate for minutes. Does anyone know what the costs are and is the service still as slow as dial up? I am thinking of taking my laptop and wondering if it is worth it or to just use the internet joints on land. Anyone have any recent personal experience on board?? Thanks for any response.

[tuggers]

If you are talking about the in cabin service, I can't help you. If you are talking about the regular, go use their computer in the hallway kind of thing, I can.

Just got off Mercury and it was 75 cents per minute, the pkg I got was 200 minutes for $120. It is still very slow and you are charged whether you ever get to do anything or not. The only good thing is, you can go into the class room tab and write in Word, then log on and send. I highly recommend doing that with any of your emails.

It is frustrating at best and even with the pkg I found internet cafes in ports and paid like $2 for 30 to 45 minutes.

I'm glad X has this feature but it is a work in progress!

[jb_yvr]

I used my laptop with WiFi on the Infinity and I could get a good to excellent signal from my balcony - depending on your location - it may or may not work for you.

 

Even if you take your own laptop to the computer lab or a lounge you are at least using your own stuff i.e. not something touched by other dirty fingers.

 

I found that it worked best for me to compose my email offline in my email app (Thunderbird) and then quickly sign in, send a bunch and sign off.

 

If you are lucky and things work well, you can send your email in a min or two and end up paying maybe $1.50 per day or so. My bill was much higher as I sent lots of pics etc.

 

One word of warning with the WiFi - check your stateroom account as soon as you are done - I was once charged for many more minutes than I thought I had used - I was not properly logged off. The charge will be on your bill as soon as you disconnect.

 

On our trip we had many days where there was no satellite communication so no internet.

[nhoj]

April 23rd, you are doing the Hawaii trip. We just retuned from Summit 2 weeks ago and I was able to use my notebook WiFi any time. We were in cabin 9133 then 8149 and the signal was easily workable in either cabin. Anywhere near midships or the stern on Deck 10 worked fine.

 

I purchase their "best value!" package, 500 minutes for $250.00. If you use WiFi make sure you logoff properly as mentioned before as the minutes would keep on ticking. If you use your own computer I recommend occasionaly checking your minutes used on one of the Internet Cafe computers.

 

I've used the "Connect at Sea" kit before and its really like a Dial Up, very slow. Its $10.00 per day in addition to your connect time charges.

 

My Blackberry also worked well the whole trip. I turned off the phone function but email, PINing & text messaging allways worked. The onboard carrier was Cingular (GSM/GPRS).

 

JE

[number5858]

I have a Cingular data only blackberry. How do you get charged for using it on the ship? I have an unlimited minute plan, but is there some kind of supplement for using it on the ship?

[nhoj]

I haven't received the invoice yet but the published rates are here.....

http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=1504&MNC=CING

 

They seemed to turn the shipboard system off in ports. The shore based coverage was Cingular or T-Mobile, mostly Cingular.

 

JE

[CruisinGerman]

Since the shipboard GSM service is relatively new and charges $4.99 per minute for voice (as opposed to roaming in most countries for about $.99 for voice), both Cingular and T-Mobile have a feature for Blackberry called Unlimited International E-mail.

 

T-Mobile charges an extra $19.99 per month for this feature, which you can activate and then remove to match your travel dates.

 

This means that even aboard cruise ships, if you have this feature activated with your wireless carrier, one should not be charged ANYTHING extra for sending and receiving e-mail with a Blackberry.

 

I wonder if it actually works this way. When those $19.99 per month supplements were developed, shipboard GSM did not exist and I don't know if it is the carrier's intention to include shipboard sending and e-mail for Blackberry within this same supplement, although it is really nothing more than international roaming -- so I wonder if it is actually included.

 

Does anyone know the answer?

 

Thanks.

 

Gunther and Uta