Email costs/reliability on Holland America ships

[Chusan]

Planning to visit cruise Rio to Valparaiso on a HAL ship and would appreciate feedback on minute costs for email access; are there are package (ie $60=100mins) rates and impressions of reliability.

On Princess Cruises (recently at least) they offered free access to Princess.com which I used as a marker to know that I could quickly access my email if their link rapidly connected; if not I just tried at another time - wonder if HAL offers the same.

[Copper10-8]

They (HAL) offer several internet packages on the ships. They all include a one-time only activation fee of $3.95:

250 minutes for $100

100 minutes for $55

Pay as you go (75 cents per minute)

Printing is 25 cents per page

Yes, there are/have been times when the satelite reception was down, sometimes for two days in a row but never for more than that, depending on where in the world you are playing

[RuthC]

On HAL there's a $3.95 set-up charge. Then you have a choice of:
$0.75 per minute or
$55.00 for 100 minutes plan or
$100 for 250 minutes plan

If you purchase a plan on the first day you will get a bonus of 10 or 20 minutes---depending on plan.

Yes, there is free access to the HAL website and the New York Times newspaper. I like your idea of checking speed of contact by using the free sites! I'll try that! Thanks. :)

Be aware that when you are at the far southern end of South America there may be slow or no access. That's typical at the ends of the earth.

When are you taking this cruise? I'll be with several other CC'ers on the Rotterdam January 27th (I think that's the date). :D Will you be with us?

[RuthC]

Yes, there are/have been times when the satelite reception was down, sometimes for two days in a row but never for more than that,
I don't know about that "never for more than that" part. I'm sure I've gone longer when I've been at the ends of the earth. Two days has been fairly common to me; IIRC last Summer I was out of touch for four or five days.

If OP has Antarctica included on his itinerary then I wouldn't be surprised if there was no service for the entire five days crossing over, there, and crossing back. I'll know soon enough! :)

[Copper10-8]

You left this out of my post, Ruth;)

"depending on where in the world you are playing" i.e. if you're at the end of the world where you're about to fall off, it might take longer to get it back

[sail7seas]

We lost satelite for 4 or 5 days on Maasdam a few years ago on a Canada/New England itinerary. Never did get the 'truth' of the matter as to why ;) but they did refund our whole package. We were only able to use a very small amount of it.

[billroddy]

I spent a lot of time in the Explorations Cafe on the Zaandam a few weeks ago on my HI cruse and talked to a lot of users. All of them complained on how slow the system was to access the internet or email.
I don't know if the time charge clock is running when you are waiting for a download to complete.
I never paid as I only watched the free NY Times for the news but that was also very slow, symptomatic of the system.
Bill

[Aussie Gal]

We went down to Antarctica on the Regal Princess in January, 2006 and I was able to use the internet all of the time we were down the Peninsula even though we were warned we may be out of range. I am a Platinum cruiser and at that time the net was free for me anyhow.

Last year on the Veendam when we went up the Amazon, we did have some days when we seemed to be out of range.

I did find the internet very slow on the Veendam and often lost what I had typed into my hotmail account when they were being sent. The crew member in charge of the Computer Centre was fantastic and at one stage let me use his laptop to type an email because they kept on disappearing. He even deducted the minutes I has spent typing up my email.

I am investing in a laptop/notebook for my next cruise so that I will be able to type my emails into Word and then find a WiFi area and send them, that way I will not be wasting too much of my precious time whilst on board.

Jennie

[arzz]

Though we were told that we would lose internet in and around Antarctica, on our January/February Prinsendam cruise this year I was able to send e-mail every day. There were times when it was quite slow, but we had our laptop and composed off line so we seldom used more than 5 minutes per day. I discovered that the internet worked much faster if I waited to send my e-mails until just before we turned in for the night -- my guess is there was much less competition with other users at that time of day.

As I recall, we purchased a 250 minute package and we still had minutes left at the end of our 27 days on board.

[Aussie Gal]

Arzz,

Thanks for that tip about sending the emails just before you went to bed. I will remember that for our Nautica cruise in April. Oceania's prices for the net are red hot, so I don't want to spend hours wasting money.

Jennie

[Chusan]

Many thanks for all these responses - valuable tips which will give me a head start as soon as I get on board.

I read that CRYSTAL CRUISES have implemented an upgraded email connection which is supposed to be twice as fast. I feel the credibility of this valuable service is in jeopardy if other cruise lines don't follow suit.

When next on board I am going to suggest the cruise line set up "in board" computers where for a modest fee (say $10.00 a cruise) passengers could write and then have the data sent in one quick burst.

[jtl513]

I don't know if the time charge clock is running when you are waiting for a download to complete. Yes, you are paying from the second you enter your password until the second that you are completely disconnected, regardless of what you are doing.

The crew member in charge of the Computer Centre was fantastic ...The Internet Manager is actually an employee of Seamobile/MTN, not HAL ... so is s/he a crew member?

I am investing in a laptop/notebook for my next cruise so that I will be able to type my emails into Word and then find a WiFi area ...I find it easier to use my normal Outlook Express and click "Send later" after typing each one. Then after making a connection later on I just have to "Send/receive all", and not copy-and-paste anything.
When next on board I am going to suggest the cruise line set up "in board" computers where for a modest fee (say $10.00 a cruise) passengers could write and then have the data sent in one quick burst.LOTS OF LUCK with that suggestion being accepted!! :D

[Aussie Gal]

jtl513,

Thanks for that suggestion about using Outlook and just sending it though when away from home I do use my hotmail account so perhaps that wouldn't work. Anyhow, I will give it a try.

Whom ever the Computer Man worked for whether it was HAL or Seamobile, he was great and I helped me a lot. He also helped everyone else during that cruise as most people were having trouble sending their emails. The reason I thought he was a crew member was that he came from Indonesia.

Jennie

[jtl513]

The reason I thought he was a crew member was that he came from Indonesia.The one we had on the Statendam was Indonesian also ... and he was a former HAL employee. Maybe Seamobile/MTN finds it easier to recruit managers from among people who are already used to life at sea! :)