Frisky070802

The real question is, do they rely on the 2 devices per person as a way of capping traffic, or do they serve each device some max bandwidth? And of course they say never to stream over wifi. so yes, the pipe to the satellite is fixed, but that is separate from the question of sharing an access point…. It doesn’t mean necessarily that multiple devices on a router will get more data. Maybe?

I assume that the fixed pipe per connection applies to what talks to the ship. Just because you have 3 clients going through a router doesn’t mean the router gets served a higher bandwidth than you would see on your laptop or tablet.

I think you mean VPN?

That makes sense. A number of devices these days (such as Ring doorbells and such) work the same way, having you connect to them and share. The reason I thought it would be hard here is because usually you're just connecting long enough to provide the credentials for the router (a WEP key or whatever) and after that the network you connect to doesn't care whether you're the phone or an extra wireless router. Whereas on the ship, while I connected when I first arrived and provided my name and cabin, I was occasionally prompted for that info again. I wouldn't expect the router to be able to do that unless it essentially says "I'm connecting to the ship, and it's asking me X and Y. I'm giving you the form with that request, and whatever you respond, I'll respond to the ship with the same info". Doable --- but I didn't expect it to be a feature.

OK, good to know, regarding the router connecting. Not worth the space in my luggage (we did OK with a phone and tablet apiece) but if I ever also bring a laptop I may want to do that. As far as the hotspot goes, I thought phones let you provide a hotspot if you are connecting to the external network, but turn it off if the phone itself is on Wifi. That is certainly what I've experienced; maybe the newest phones recognize situations like this and support wifi bridging.

Interesting. I was going to say almost certainly not since the router still needs to access the ship's network and authenticate to it with a room number. How do you do that?

I was thinking the same to some extent, that even if the eclipse didn't work out, it should be a great cruise. But then I thought, if we can do something with a much better chance of seeing the full eclipse, we should. That might just mean staying on land 🙂.

I wasn't really finding much in the way of cruises that-a-way. What were you finding? But yes, Iceland was a brief thought, nothing more.

We actually put a hold on this on Monday as we were thinking what we'd missed this time around. However, a friend pointed out that the cloud cover in Iceland that time of year is especially high, so it seems like it could detract. Plus, there's the chance they aren't actually in the right place at the right time. So we're thinking Spain (even if it's not a cruise). (I see that as I was composing this, @OnTheJourney pointed at the info about the cloud issue, even better.)

That’s very sad. Good luck to her.

All true. But I still think if you think about Tripadvisor, Google, Yelp, etc, even if there are hundreds or even more comments on a restaurant, hotel, or what have you, you do get a high-level view from the overall ratings. Yes, someone might give it 1 star because they were unlucky enough to have a hung-over guide. But if 99% of the ratings are 4 and 5 stars, you have to figure the odds of having such a guide are low, and most people liked it. So maybe you go for it.

It’s true that long comments might be a lot to wade through, but a yelp-like rating system could help. If something gets 95% too ratings, it’s probably better than the one with many low ratings.

I wish. but I guess the closest you can get is to read the reviews of the full cruise and see if people commented on specific excursions.

Also.., responding to the port talks the day before would be too late to cancel for a refund. Which is probably intentional….

Putting talks on MVJ would be fabulous! Also, does CC have a place to aggregate comments and maybe ratings of tours? Or TripAdvisor?