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Why Cruise Ships Are My Favorite Remote Work Location (2013)

50 points by syncopatience 10y ago

okket 10y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6697416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6697416 (~3 yrs ago, 311 comments)
samfisher83 10y ago
The internet on cruise ships are super slow and very expensive. So I don't know how to programming on the cruise ship would work if you are connecting to a server.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  He writes about downloading all necessary docs beforehand. Also, it isn't hard to run servers in virtualbox or containers if you need them. That leaves slow internet for occasional searches of stack overflow, which is doable.
  - mrob 10y ago
    If you don't mind slightly outdated data, you can download and browse all the Stack Exchange sites offline: http://stackapps.com/questions/3610/stackdump-an-offline-browser-for-stackexchange-sites http://stackapps.com/questions/3610/stackdump-an-offline-bro... https://archive.org/details/stackexchange https://archive.org/details/stackexchange
- op00to 10y ago
  Not really so much on the newest (mega-)cruise ships. http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/cruise-ships-tech-wifi/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/cruise-ships-tech-wifi/ Latency is tied to the laws of physics, but using stuff like Mosh and Git, you're pretty well set.
jkot 10y ago
This was discussed in DN community a lot. Cruise ships are useless for slow internet.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Cruise ships are slowly being outfitted with high speed spot beam internet access. A friend working on RCCL's Quantum Of The Seas can pull 50-60Mbps off hours.
  - jkot 10y ago
    Shared among hundreds of people... Not really reliable connection.
    - Tiksi 10y ago
      In my experience, these kinds of connections are QoS'd on a per-port/protocol level, so every client gets an equal amount of bandwidth on that port. If you can get a tunnel or vpn connection going on a less used port you'll generally get far more bandwidth. Being on a non-standard port also helps since the systems are often under provisioned for the size of the NAT table they have to hold. That's all assuming you can get an open port between a remote server and you, but usually there's at least some way to get a connection on not 80/443. That said my experience is pretty out of date so it could be different these days. Thinking back, since I figured out that I could tether my motorola v710 for free 10 or so years go, mobile internet has gotten faster and far more reliable, (though a lot more expensive once smart phones made data plans more than an underutilized $5/mo gimmick on feature phones,) I've rarely used public wifi.
  - Darthy 10y ago
    The service is called "VOOM" and it's now offered on every RCCL ship. The speed is impressive - easily fast enough to work at sea imho. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_Networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_Networks
  - fla 10y ago
    Sadly, that is probably a 56k per user in practice.
zeristor 10y ago
I keep thinking about that article, working on a cruise ship. Here's a search of his blog about cruises, it looks like he stopped two years ago[༆] [༆] - http://tynan.com/?search=cruise http://tynan.com/?search=cruise
- alanfalcon 10y ago
  He had a Syndey -> Seattle cruise in the works as of his post two months ago, so I'd wager he's still at it.
iamben 10y ago
Serious question - is the mobile signal terrible if you're cruising on the Med? My data plan is £2 a day for about 500mb (or something like that) when out of the UK. That would probably suffice, assuming there was enough signal to bother tethering...
- jdenning 10y ago
  (Disclaimer: this is just hearsay) I think that most cruise ships have their own cell towers, with their own roaming agreements. So if you try to connect while you're on-board, you'll be on their network and paying their rates.
- narag 10y ago
  Related question: does someone know how expensive is a satellite phone plan? I've seen the terminals are about $1000 a piece and they're hellishly slow but considering this kind of use in a ship or maybe in a distant place, it could be an option if the plan is not terribly expensive.
  - Cerium 10y ago
    Depends on location and provider, but I worked on a remote off grid monitoring station. We uploaded about 30 gigs a month over a satellite dish. The price was comparable to cell phone, but the ping was bad. 300 ms or so, occasionally much worse.
    - narag 10y ago
      Wow! I don't think my ADSL land line would be much better than that. The A is for asymetric, downloading is not too bad. I'm surprised it's not specially expensive. Thank you for the info!
kinkdr 10y ago
Why not an all inclusive hotel/resort? Same benefits + reasonable Internet.
- andrewfromx 10y ago
  Way cheaper on a crusie to get all meals included. Try and find a same price per day for a benefit by benefit equal land cruise. They don't exist. You are getting free meals because most people on ships make up for it with buying alcohol and other high margin vacation purchases.
  - kinkdr 10y ago
    I see. I have always associated cruises with expensive, but it looks like this is not the case anymore.
    - nameless912 10y ago
      Yeah, cruises can be dirt-cheap these days. Especially if you live near a big cruise ship port, you can get last minute deals on 7 day cruises for a couple hundred bucks. You have to be flexible, but it can be ridiculously inexpensive. And note, that's food included.
legohead 10y ago
Recently took a vacation on a cruise ship. I heard mixed reviews from everyone I talked to. Some loved it, some hated it. I loved it and can't wait to do another one. We got a balcony, and I loved just sitting out on the balcony and watching the ocean. I kept thinking how I wish I had my laptop and could do work this way. The free food, balcony, and exploring the ports were my favorite parts. I don't drink, or party, so that wasn't part of the fun for me -- but it seemed like most of the other people on the ship were there for that reason. The only thing that I didn't like were the people on the ship, and I felt bad at how lowly paid the crew were.
- danielvf 10y ago
  The crew, though, is paid more than they would be earning at home - that's why many sign up for multiple contracts in a row. Also, if you can make friends with some crew, it's a blast.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >I don't drink, or party, so that wasn't part of the fun for me -- but it seemed like most of the other people on the ship were there for that reason. >The only thing that I didn't like were the people on the ship, You were on the wrong ship. Let me guess, Carnival? Different cruise lines cater to different crowds. To get the best cruise experience, it's important to realize this and select a cruise line that lines up well with your expectations and that you'll fit into well. Carnival caters to the drunks and partiers. There's a reason that every time you hear about some drunk cruise-goer falling overboard, it's a Carnival ship. You never hear about this with, for instance, Disney Cruises, or Norwegian or Royal Caribbean. I've only been on one cruise, Norwegian, about 9 years ago. It was pretty fun overall, though I'm not wild about doing it again for various reasons. But I did not see much drinking or partying, even in the casino. The crowd was pretty tame, so I can't say I disliked the people on the ship at all. A lot of them seemed to be Germans actually. The ports of call were fun (it was a Caribbean cruise) for the most part, and there was an interesting event on the ship one day where some artwork was being shown (maybe sold, I forget now), and they showed a video of a short film that was a collaboration between Disney and Salvador Dali which was really interesting to watch. At the time, it was supposedly only recently released IIRC. The dining experience varies a lot between cruise lines too. Now remember a lot of my information is almost a decade old, but at the time, Norwegian had very open dining rules: basically you could go to the buffets whenever they were open (which were pretty generous hours) and grab free food, and sit anywhere you like. The dining rooms cost more and needed a reservation, but you could do the whole cruise at the buffets for nothing. By contrast, I was told that on Royal Caribbean, there was assigned seating and assigned eating times, so unless you were part of a group, you usually ended up stuck eating with strangers you didn't know. On Norwegian, alcohol was pretty expensive, so I didn't see people drinking much. I was told that on Carnival, alcohol was free or cheap, so that would explain drunkenness on those ships. Anyway, do your research on cruise lines and their policies and pricing before you go, and look at what kind of crowds they cater to, and also what kind of on-board events they'll have. You're likely to have a much more pleasant experience if you pick carefully.
dTal 10y ago
Blimey, how rich are all of you? If I scraped together enough money for a cruise I sure wouldn't want to waste the experience working.
- danielvf 10y ago
  You can cruise on good ships for less than $100 per day, if you shop carefully and wait for the right opportunity. The advantage is the combination of extremely plesant, varied work environments, with no distrations from clients, coworkers, or the internet. The ability to sustain concentration lets do something hard in a week that might take you three months at home.

50 points by syncopatience 10y ago

okket 10y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6697416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6697416 (~3 yrs ago, 311 comments)

samfisher83 10y ago

The internet on cruise ships are super slow and very expensive. So I don't know how to programming on the cruise ship would work if you are connecting to a server.

mixmastamyk 10y ago
He writes about downloading all necessary docs beforehand. Also, it isn't hard to run servers in virtualbox or containers if you need them. That leaves slow internet for occasional searches of stack overflow, which is doable.
- mrob 10y ago
  If you don't mind slightly outdated data, you can download and browse all the Stack Exchange sites offline: http://stackapps.com/questions/3610/stackdump-an-offline-browser-for-stackexchange-sites http://stackapps.com/questions/3610/stackdump-an-offline-bro... https://archive.org/details/stackexchange https://archive.org/details/stackexchange
op00to 10y ago
Not really so much on the newest (mega-)cruise ships. http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/cruise-ships-tech-wifi/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/cruise-ships-tech-wifi/ Latency is tied to the laws of physics, but using stuff like Mosh and Git, you're pretty well set.

jkot 10y ago

This was discussed in DN community a lot. Cruise ships are useless for slow internet.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Cruise ships are slowly being outfitted with high speed spot beam internet access. A friend working on RCCL's Quantum Of The Seas can pull 50-60Mbps off hours.
- jkot 10y ago
  Shared among hundreds of people... Not really reliable connection.
  - Tiksi 10y ago
    In my experience, these kinds of connections are QoS'd on a per-port/protocol level, so every client gets an equal amount of bandwidth on that port. If you can get a tunnel or vpn connection going on a less used port you'll generally get far more bandwidth. Being on a non-standard port also helps since the systems are often under provisioned for the size of the NAT table they have to hold. That's all assuming you can get an open port between a remote server and you, but usually there's at least some way to get a connection on not 80/443. That said my experience is pretty out of date so it could be different these days. Thinking back, since I figured out that I could tether my motorola v710 for free 10 or so years go, mobile internet has gotten faster and far more reliable, (though a lot more expensive once smart phones made data plans more than an underutilized $5/mo gimmick on feature phones,) I've rarely used public wifi.
- Darthy 10y ago
  The service is called "VOOM" and it's now offered on every RCCL ship. The speed is impressive - easily fast enough to work at sea imho. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_Networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_Networks
- fla 10y ago
  Sadly, that is probably a 56k per user in practice.

zeristor 10y ago

I keep thinking about that article, working on a cruise ship. Here's a search of his blog about cruises, it looks like he stopped two years ago[༆] [༆] - http://tynan.com/?search=cruise http://tynan.com/?search=cruise

alanfalcon 10y ago
He had a Syndey -> Seattle cruise in the works as of his post two months ago, so I'd wager he's still at it.

iamben 10y ago

Serious question - is the mobile signal terrible if you're cruising on the Med? My data plan is £2 a day for about 500mb (or something like that) when out of the UK. That would probably suffice, assuming there was enough signal to bother tethering...

jdenning 10y ago
(Disclaimer: this is just hearsay) I think that most cruise ships have their own cell towers, with their own roaming agreements. So if you try to connect while you're on-board, you'll be on their network and paying their rates.
narag 10y ago
Related question: does someone know how expensive is a satellite phone plan? I've seen the terminals are about $1000 a piece and they're hellishly slow but considering this kind of use in a ship or maybe in a distant place, it could be an option if the plan is not terribly expensive.
- Cerium 10y ago
  Depends on location and provider, but I worked on a remote off grid monitoring station. We uploaded about 30 gigs a month over a satellite dish. The price was comparable to cell phone, but the ping was bad. 300 ms or so, occasionally much worse.
  - narag 10y ago
    Wow! I don't think my ADSL land line would be much better than that. The A is for asymetric, downloading is not too bad. I'm surprised it's not specially expensive. Thank you for the info!

kinkdr 10y ago

Why not an all inclusive hotel/resort? Same benefits + reasonable Internet.

andrewfromx 10y ago
Way cheaper on a crusie to get all meals included. Try and find a same price per day for a benefit by benefit equal land cruise. They don't exist. You are getting free meals because most people on ships make up for it with buying alcohol and other high margin vacation purchases.
- kinkdr 10y ago
  I see. I have always associated cruises with expensive, but it looks like this is not the case anymore.
  - nameless912 10y ago
    Yeah, cruises can be dirt-cheap these days. Especially if you live near a big cruise ship port, you can get last minute deals on 7 day cruises for a couple hundred bucks. You have to be flexible, but it can be ridiculously inexpensive. And note, that's food included.

legohead 10y ago

Recently took a vacation on a cruise ship. I heard mixed reviews from everyone I talked to. Some loved it, some hated it. I loved it and can't wait to do another one. We got a balcony, and I loved just sitting out on the balcony and watching the ocean. I kept thinking how I wish I had my laptop and could do work this way. The free food, balcony, and exploring the ports were my favorite parts. I don't drink, or party, so that wasn't part of the fun for me -- but it seemed like most of the other people on the ship were there for that reason. The only thing that I didn't like were the people on the ship, and I felt bad at how lowly paid the crew were.

danielvf 10y ago
The crew, though, is paid more than they would be earning at home - that's why many sign up for multiple contracts in a row. Also, if you can make friends with some crew, it's a blast.
Grishnakh 10y ago
>I don't drink, or party, so that wasn't part of the fun for me -- but it seemed like most of the other people on the ship were there for that reason. >The only thing that I didn't like were the people on the ship, You were on the wrong ship. Let me guess, Carnival? Different cruise lines cater to different crowds. To get the best cruise experience, it's important to realize this and select a cruise line that lines up well with your expectations and that you'll fit into well. Carnival caters to the drunks and partiers. There's a reason that every time you hear about some drunk cruise-goer falling overboard, it's a Carnival ship. You never hear about this with, for instance, Disney Cruises, or Norwegian or Royal Caribbean. I've only been on one cruise, Norwegian, about 9 years ago. It was pretty fun overall, though I'm not wild about doing it again for various reasons. But I did not see much drinking or partying, even in the casino. The crowd was pretty tame, so I can't say I disliked the people on the ship at all. A lot of them seemed to be Germans actually. The ports of call were fun (it was a Caribbean cruise) for the most part, and there was an interesting event on the ship one day where some artwork was being shown (maybe sold, I forget now), and they showed a video of a short film that was a collaboration between Disney and Salvador Dali which was really interesting to watch. At the time, it was supposedly only recently released IIRC. The dining experience varies a lot between cruise lines too. Now remember a lot of my information is almost a decade old, but at the time, Norwegian had very open dining rules: basically you could go to the buffets whenever they were open (which were pretty generous hours) and grab free food, and sit anywhere you like. The dining rooms cost more and needed a reservation, but you could do the whole cruise at the buffets for nothing. By contrast, I was told that on Royal Caribbean, there was assigned seating and assigned eating times, so unless you were part of a group, you usually ended up stuck eating with strangers you didn't know. On Norwegian, alcohol was pretty expensive, so I didn't see people drinking much. I was told that on Carnival, alcohol was free or cheap, so that would explain drunkenness on those ships. Anyway, do your research on cruise lines and their policies and pricing before you go, and look at what kind of crowds they cater to, and also what kind of on-board events they'll have. You're likely to have a much more pleasant experience if you pick carefully.

dTal 10y ago

Blimey, how rich are all of you? If I scraped together enough money for a cruise I sure wouldn't want to waste the experience working.

danielvf 10y ago
You can cruise on good ships for less than $100 per day, if you shop carefully and wait for the right opportunity. The advantage is the combination of extremely plesant, varied work environments, with no distrations from clients, coworkers, or the internet. The ability to sustain concentration lets do something hard in a week that might take you three months at home.