3 ms·

> RCCL charges, last time I checked, $20/day (which does not seem onerous for access to high speed internet on the ocean) This seems quite high to me. $20/day

> RCCL charges, last time I checked, $20/day (which does not seem onerous for access to high speed internet on the ocean) This seems quite high to me. $20/day for a full working day of access, fine. But for checking my email once a day while on holiday to see if anything urgent has come in? That's excessive!

macksd 4y ago
Also from my recent experience on RCCL, it was not working all day. I would attempt to refresh a messaging app periodically during the day and have it fail half the time.
- CreepGin 4y ago
  This is my experience as well. Just came back from RCCL last week. We bought the "Streaming" package for internet access ($100+ for 7 days). But we couldn't get any connection half of the time.
  - andrew_ 4y ago
    their onboard networks are frequently oversaturated amd. most of the boats in service are over 20 years old and lack the infrastructure, with wifi networks pieced together with cheap consumer grade hardware. The RC cruise I went on for my bachelor party a few years back had el cheapo Netgear routers dotted around the coridoors, ziptied to cat5 cables in turn ziptied to exiting lines and conduits, which gave us a chuckle.
14 4y ago
People will gladly pay $10,$20, $30 dollars without flinching for things line cigarettes or alcohol. I would bet people are more addicted to the internet then those things. Not a lot of people can disconnect easily like us HN crowd /s.
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
It's less than "resort fees" some hotels charge for what is basically wifi access.
kenjackson 4y ago
For that cellular data is fine and cheaper.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- danpalmer 4y ago
  Not in the middle of the ocean.
  - Gare 4y ago
    How many cruises go out of reach of cellular networks for many days? Mediterannean cruises should be within reach od EU cellular networks most of the time.
    - m2fkxy 4y ago
      cellular networks are out of reach during a Helsinki-Tallinn crossing, so I would not deem this to be too rare for most cruise ships.
    - jq-r 4y ago
      Emphasis on the Mediterranean. Right, you have free data roaming in EU, but the world is a much bigger place. Those cruise lines operate all over the world where getting a local SIM card with any amount of data is usually inconvenient or sometimes impossible. Satellite internet is usually the only way you can get online while on a cruise ship in a lot of countries and it is an extremely desired amenity onboard. Have no internet for any reason for an hour (and that happened a lot in some places), thats all fun, don't have it for a day, and you'll get almost a mutiny. Also satellite internet is very much needed for crew and navigation. My point being that having relatively cheap and reliable internet on a cruise ship is a big pro even if your cruise is in Med. I'm sure that absolutely every cruise line is trying to get starlink terminals onboard as soon as possible.
  - kenjackson 4y ago
    There is typically cellular in the sea that you can use. Which is pricey, but for low data usage probably fine.
onion2k 4y ago
But for checking my email once a day while on holiday to see if anything urgent has come in? Saving $20 to not check your email and find out what breaks when you're unavailable is a win win.
- alibarber 4y ago
  They could offer the ‘are you feeling lucky’ package. Free all day every day to check to see if something urgent has come in… $200 an hour to use VPN / Web to fix that something urgent. This is how I managed to break the cycle of checking work things on my latest holiday. Was I actually going to do anything about ‘something urgent’ there and then? No? Well don’t bother checking. Nothing bad happened.
- danpalmer 4y ago
  This assumes you're checking it for work reasons, and not for, say, healthcare, or financial reasons. Plenty of people have reasons to check email that are not about work, and where they could reasonably need to be contactable. It's quite a privilege in many ways to be able to fully disconnect.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    If you're in a situation where you might urgently need to check an email then boarding a boat and going out in to the middle of the ocean as far from an Internet connection as humanly possible is probably an less than optimal IT strategy.
  - alibarber 4y ago
    If you or a loved one has potentially urgent healthcare issues - then a cruise is not sensible. I've had relatives who have had to cancel in the past because of this - travel insurance is a good investment (and there's a reason it gets more expensive the older / sicker you get...) My general point here is, something, anything, urgent has come up. What're you gonna do? Swim to shore? I can think of the convenience of forgetting to pay a bill and then doing it online - in which case it's up to you to figure if whatever internet fee you pay would save you on potential late fees.

macksd 4y ago

Also from my recent experience on RCCL, it was not working all day. I would attempt to refresh a messaging app periodically during the day and have it fail half the time.

CreepGin 4y ago
This is my experience as well. Just came back from RCCL last week. We bought the "Streaming" package for internet access ($100+ for 7 days). But we couldn't get any connection half of the time.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  their onboard networks are frequently oversaturated amd. most of the boats in service are over 20 years old and lack the infrastructure, with wifi networks pieced together with cheap consumer grade hardware. The RC cruise I went on for my bachelor party a few years back had el cheapo Netgear routers dotted around the coridoors, ziptied to cat5 cables in turn ziptied to exiting lines and conduits, which gave us a chuckle.

14 4y ago

People will gladly pay $10,$20, $30 dollars without flinching for things line cigarettes or alcohol. I would bet people are more addicted to the internet then those things. Not a lot of people can disconnect easily like us HN crowd /s.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

It's less than "resort fees" some hotels charge for what is basically wifi access.

kenjackson 4y ago

For that cellular data is fine and cheaper.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danpalmer 4y ago
Not in the middle of the ocean.
- Gare 4y ago
  How many cruises go out of reach of cellular networks for many days? Mediterannean cruises should be within reach od EU cellular networks most of the time.
  - m2fkxy 4y ago
    cellular networks are out of reach during a Helsinki-Tallinn crossing, so I would not deem this to be too rare for most cruise ships.
  - jq-r 4y ago
    Emphasis on the Mediterranean. Right, you have free data roaming in EU, but the world is a much bigger place. Those cruise lines operate all over the world where getting a local SIM card with any amount of data is usually inconvenient or sometimes impossible. Satellite internet is usually the only way you can get online while on a cruise ship in a lot of countries and it is an extremely desired amenity onboard. Have no internet for any reason for an hour (and that happened a lot in some places), thats all fun, don't have it for a day, and you'll get almost a mutiny. Also satellite internet is very much needed for crew and navigation. My point being that having relatively cheap and reliable internet on a cruise ship is a big pro even if your cruise is in Med. I'm sure that absolutely every cruise line is trying to get starlink terminals onboard as soon as possible.
- kenjackson 4y ago
  There is typically cellular in the sea that you can use. Which is pricey, but for low data usage probably fine.

onion2k 4y ago

But for checking my email once a day while on holiday to see if anything urgent has come in? Saving $20 to not check your email and find out what breaks when you're unavailable is a win win.

alibarber 4y ago
They could offer the ‘are you feeling lucky’ package. Free all day every day to check to see if something urgent has come in… $200 an hour to use VPN / Web to fix that something urgent. This is how I managed to break the cycle of checking work things on my latest holiday. Was I actually going to do anything about ‘something urgent’ there and then? No? Well don’t bother checking. Nothing bad happened.
danpalmer 4y ago
This assumes you're checking it for work reasons, and not for, say, healthcare, or financial reasons. Plenty of people have reasons to check email that are not about work, and where they could reasonably need to be contactable. It's quite a privilege in many ways to be able to fully disconnect.
- onion2k 4y ago
  If you're in a situation where you might urgently need to check an email then boarding a boat and going out in to the middle of the ocean as far from an Internet connection as humanly possible is probably an less than optimal IT strategy.
- alibarber 4y ago
  If you or a loved one has potentially urgent healthcare issues - then a cruise is not sensible. I've had relatives who have had to cancel in the past because of this - travel insurance is a good investment (and there's a reason it gets more expensive the older / sicker you get...) My general point here is, something, anything, urgent has come up. What're you gonna do? Swim to shore? I can think of the convenience of forgetting to pay a bill and then doing it online - in which case it's up to you to figure if whatever internet fee you pay would save you on potential late fees.