Once I first started writing about cruising three a long time in the past, the everyday web connection at sea wasn’t simply gradual. It was glacial. You’d click on on an internet site solely to expertise many seconds of frustration. Possibly the web page would come up. Possibly it would not. Possibly the cruise would finish when you had been nonetheless sitting there.
Fortunately, these days are lengthy gone. Web service on cruise ships in recent times has gotten a lot quicker — and cheaper, as well. Certainly, if you have not been on a cruise in just a few years, you is likely to be shocked at how a lot quicker the Wi-Fi speeds are on cruise ships than throughout your final crusing — and the way way more reasonably priced web packages have turn out to be in some instances.
Whereas there nonetheless are some ships and a few cruising places the place browsing the web takes important endurance, excruciatingly gradual web speeds on cruise ships are more and more a factor of the previous.
That is the excellent news. The unhealthy information is that Wi-Fi on cruise ships nonetheless is not as quick or dependable as what you could have at dwelling.
Here’s a have a look at the ins and outs of Wi-Fi on cruise ships, together with 5 issues it’s best to know in regards to the web at sea.
Wi-Fi on cruise ships won’t ever be as quick (or dependable) as dwelling
Sure, all cruise ships in the present day provide an web connection, nevertheless it may not be the seamless expertise you have come to anticipate on land.
Whereas the web state of affairs on ships has improved considerably in recent times, you will nonetheless discover pace and reliability points when browsing the net on some ships in some places all over the world.
Associated: 16 mistakes cruise ship passengers make on disembarkation day
Why aren’t web speeds and reliability the identical on ships as they’re on land? One apparent cause is that there isn’t a cable wire operating to your cruise ship. On cruise ships, each packet of knowledge you’re downloading onto your telephone or pc, for essentially the most half, is coming over a satellite tv for pc, which isn’t a fast or cheap proposition.
Reward your inbox with the TPG Every day e-newsletter
Be part of over 700,000 readers for breaking information, in-depth guides and unique offers from TPG’s specialists
In recent times, maritime communication corporations specializing in offering web connections to ships have been attempting to hurry issues up. Options have included including extra satellites and linking their techniques to land-based towers that join with ships as they close to shore.
However, in the long run, there are limits to simply how effectively a satellite tv for pc system can work. For starters, a ship wants a transparent “line of sight” to a satellite tv for pc to trade information, one thing that is not all the time the case. Cruise ships touring by way of the famed Norwegian fjords, as an illustration, can lose their satellite tv for pc sign as a result of peak of surrounding mountains.
And there are specific elements of the world the place satellite tv for pc protection is simply too skinny or nonexistent to permit for web entry on cruise ships — although this has been altering quick. Throughout a crusing within the Russian Arctic on a Hapag-Lloyd Cruises ship, I used to be compelled to reside with out web for a part of per week attributable to an absence of satellite tv for pc protection within the space (one thing that, I need to say, was sort of great).
So whereas onboard cruise Wi-Fi speeds are getting higher, they’re going to possible by no means be as quick as at dwelling, the place a tough wire brings the sign straight to your router.
Onboard web pace is getting a lot quicker
On some cruise ships, the sign has turn out to be a lot quicker that you simply now can stream Netflix from the consolation of your cabin — one thing that might have been unthinkable just some years in the past.
New satellite tv for pc techniques, paired with multimillion-dollar investments in shipboard know-how, are making issues higher in an enormous manner. A turning level got here simply over a decade in the past, in 2014, when cruise large Royal Caribbean partnered with satellite tv for pc firm O3b Networks to create a brand new onboard web system that it claimed was six instances quicker than the rest at sea. Known as Voom, the system tapped into satellites operated by O3b that would shoot their beams instantly at ships as they moved.
Extra just lately, Royal Caribbean — like many different cruise strains — has switched to utilizing SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc service for its web service at sea, which is even quicker. Nonetheless, it is all relative.
Once I ran a speed test of Voom on Symphony of the Seas in 2024, I discovered the service normally provided obtain speeds of simply 9 megabits per second. At no time throughout the cruise did I discover obtain speeds exceeding 10 Mbps, however at instances, they dropped to as little as 4 Mbps. Evaluate that to the obtain speeds of round 400 Mbps that I get at my dwelling in North Carolina by way of my cable supplier, Spectrum.
Nonetheless, whereas considerably slower than many dwelling connections, the 9 Mbps that I acquired on Symphony of the Seas was nonetheless quick sufficient to get pleasure from Netflix and different streaming video providers, although I did expertise just a few hiccups.
A few instances throughout the cruise, I misplaced the web connection fully for a spell. The pace additionally appeared to briefly decelerate at instances and sometimes freeze.
Royal Caribbean nonetheless claims Voom is the quickest and greatest Wi-Fi possibility on cruise ships in the present day, however we’re skeptical — not as a result of the Wi-Fi is slower than said, however as a result of different cruise strains, like Carnival Cruise Line, are rapidly catching up. Many now use the exact same Starlink service that Royal Caribbean makes use of, with related outcomes.
Cruise web prices have gone down
Not too a few years in the past, you needed to pay a small fortune for the privilege of accessing the web on a cruise ship. The bottom charge for onboard Wi-Fi for years began at round 75 cents a minute. That is $45 for a single hour on-line!
The previous pay-by-the-minute system, which might go away even modest web customers with sky-high payments, has given technique to less complicated and extra reasonably priced “all-you-can-browse” plans on most strains in recent times.
How a lot does Wi-Fi price on a cruise in the present day? Whereas it varies by line, you’ll be able to anticipate to pay round $15 to $30 per day for web service on many ships. That is for one gadget. If you wish to hook up a number of units, you will usually pay much less on a per-device foundation.
Royal Caribbean’s Voom connection, as an illustration, usually prices round $27 per day for one gadget. Within the previous days of 75 cents-a-minute pricing, that very same sum of money would have gotten you simply 40 minutes of internet time.
Associated: 15 ways that cruising newbies waste money on their first cruise
The $27-a-day-or-so charge at Royal Caribbean is the speed you will get primarily based on shopping for the service for your entire cruise. You’ll be able to’t get that charge in the event you simply need web entry for a single day. Single-day packages price extra.
However you will get a fair higher value — usually 20% to 30% off the common value — in the event you purchase your web upfront of a Royal Caribbean crusing.
In the meantime, maybe the most important improvement in cruise web prices in recent times is that many higher-end strains have begun providing web entry for — get this — free. Viking, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Silversea Cruises are among the many strains now together with limitless web time within the base price of a voyage. At a few of these strains, corresponding to Regent, you’ll be able to pay additional for quicker service.
One other technique to get free or cheaper web time on ships is to hitch cruise line loyalty programs. Some provide free cruise Wi-Fi or discounted bundle pricing to prospects who hit mid- to upper-tier ranges.
At Celebrity Cruises, as an illustration, the highest Zenith tier within the line’s Captain’s Club loyalty program comes with limitless free Premium-level web (the quickest plan on the line). At Princess Cruises, prospects can get 50% off MedallionNet web packages after reaching the Platinum stage within the line’s Captain’s Circle loyalty program (to qualify, you will want to finish both 5 cruises or 50 cruise days).
On Royal Caribbean, the trail to free web on a cruise is thru its high-end suites. Guide a room in a Sky Class or Star Class suite (all suites above the junior suite stage), and you may obtain free Voom.
Apps provide a substitute for paid cruise Wi-Fi
In recent times, a rising variety of cruise strains have rolled out free apps to your telephone that can allow you to make reservations for onboard eating places, spa therapies and different providers with out ever leaving your pool deck lounge chair. On some ships operated by Carnival, you’ll be able to even order beer and pizza to be delivered wherever you occur to be utilizing an app.
Many of those apps additionally will present you a schedule of every day actions, provide ship deck plans and generally port maps that will help you get round, and allow you to verify your onboard account assertion in actual time. On Celebrity Edge and different Celeb Cruises Edge Class ships, you’ll be able to even use an app to remotely open your cabin door, change channels on the TV and switch off the lights.
Whereas all these apps work off cruise ship Wi-Fi, the excellent news is that they do not require the acquisition of a plan to make use of. Nor do they arrive with another kind of charge — at the very least, for many options.
At Carnival, you will pay $5 (per consumer, per cruise) so as to add a “chat” function to the road’s in any other case free HUB app. This function will allow you to talk through textlike messages with different app-enabled passengers.
Cruise web tip: Use airplane mode to keep away from undesirable fees
Whether or not or not you are buying a Wi-Fi plan on a cruise ship, I’ve one very sturdy piece of recommendation: Put your telephone in airplane mode the second you step on board the vessel and go away it that manner throughout the crusing.
That is the most secure technique to keep away from undesirable information fees, which will be monumental. (Keep in mind the story of a household that racked up $14,000 in information fees on a cruise?)
As many cruisers have discovered the onerous manner, worldwide telephone plans, corresponding to AT&T’s $12-a-day Worldwide Day Move, don’t apply to cruise ships at sea. In case you let your AT&T telephone roam when you’re on a vessel, you will pay twice that quantity — $20 a day — even in the event you solely use it for a couple of minutes.
In case you insist on leaving your mobile service on throughout a cruise, it’s best to at the very least disable any apps operating within the background (as they’re going to eat up information and run up your invoice) and disable e-mail auto-check.
Personally, I discover it simpler to simply hit the airplane mode button. As soon as in airplane mode, I reactivate the Wi-Fi function on my telephone to entry the cruise Wi-Fi and join a shipboard plan that can let me keep in contact by e-mail or a Voice over Web Protocol service like WhatsApp.
Planning a cruise? Begin with these tales:
Trending Merchandise
