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New Internet Packages Available


karin037
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That would be great, thank you....... if you could ask the Internet Manager:

 

"The NCL Free at Sea T&Cs state that the Free WiFi Package of 100 Minutes has no cash value..... will NCL across the fleet, 100% of the time, allow a passenger to upgrade from the promo package to the unlimited package by paying the difference? and if yes, how do you determine the difference if the promo package has no cash value as stated in the T&Cs?"

 

My experience has been that it has been at the discretion of the Internet Manager... but some posters on here feel it is an absolute guarantee....... which is why my question is so specific

 

 

Sent from my SM-T820 using Forums mobile app

 

The Free At Sea WiFi perk (250 minutes) can be upgraded across the fleet to basic wifi or premium wifi. The Free at Sea Perk (250 Min) is valued at $125 (which is the actual package price if you paid for it in cash).

 

The flyer that Mistizoom posted (post #100) shows the daily prices.

 

According to the IM on the Breakaway, they were surprised by the changes and the computer software is still transitioning, so there may be some hiccups along the way.

 

I upgraded to the premium and had no problems checking email, streaming youtube videos, or music. It buffered sometimes, but I've had worse service using some hotel wifi across the country,

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We just got off the breakaway and we had both a streaming and non-streaming package. Both were extremely frustrating and slow. My son uses Twitch for social media and he could rarely get it to work maybe only a couple of times all week. Total waste of $200, IMO. The non-streaming was a little better, but not much.

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Thank you for the info. I rallye appreciate it. Are you using the Internet yourself? If yes could you tell me about the speed and reliability?

 

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app

 

I only tested speed once and it was 3.5 Mbps download about 4 hours outside of Miami. This was the "Unlimited Premium" package. Upload speeds - don't count on it. I was able to upload the above photos, but had trouble uploading photos at other times.

 

The reliability was fine, especially when one device stayed connected. My son did quite a bit of YouTube streaming (he preferred doing that to going to the onboard shows). Switching from one device to another was occasionally painful. I think it may depend on the device. I had to try a number of tricks to finally get my phone to connect after my son had been using it, such as turning wi-fi on and off and even restarting my phone.

 

Note the internet packages do not work when you are in any port. They turn it off then and turn it back on immediately upon sailaway.

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The Free At Sea WiFi perk (250 minutes) can be upgraded across the fleet to basic wifi or premium wifi. The Free at Sea Perk (250 Min) is valued at $125 (which is the actual package price if you paid for it in cash).

 

The flyer that Mistizoom posted (post #100) shows the daily prices.

 

 

{snip}

 

Yes, I noted that I was able to upgrade to unlimited premium for $120, basic unlimited upgrade was $90 on a 7 day cruise.

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I only tested speed once and it was 3.5 Mbps download about 4 hours outside of Miami. This was the "Unlimited Premium" package. Upload speeds - don't count on it. I was able to upload the above photos, but had trouble uploading photos at other times.

 

The reliability was fine, especially when one device stayed connected. My son did quite a bit of YouTube streaming (he preferred doing that to going to the onboard shows). Switching from one device to another was occasionally painful. I think it may depend on the device. I had to try a number of tricks to finally get my phone to connect after my son had been using it, such as turning wi-fi on and off and even restarting my phone.

 

Note the internet packages do not work when you are in any port. They turn it off then and turn it back on immediately upon sailaway.

Thank you very much for the detailed info. I prebooked the Unlimited Premium Package and was hoping to be able to make WiFi calls. Do you think this might be possible? We have only one device that will be connected all the time.

Thanks again.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app

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Thank you very much for the detailed info. I prebooked the Unlimited Premium Package and was hoping to be able to make WiFi calls. Do you think this might be possible? We have only one device that will be connected all the time.

Thanks again.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app

 

I don't see why not with the appropriate app, but I did not try it.

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Thank you very much for the detailed info. I prebooked the Unlimited Premium Package and was hoping to be able to make WiFi calls. Do you think this might be possible? We have only one device that will be connected all the time.

Thanks again.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app

I have tmobile and my phone prompted me that "calls would be made over wifi", however I did not use it.

 

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

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I have tmobile and my phone prompted me that "calls would be made over wifi", however I did not use it.

 

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

It will be interesting to find out if the NCL infrastructure allows wifi calling...... your phone recognized wifi for wifi calling because your phone is capable but the network might not have the specific ports etc turned on.

 

I have tmobile also and this would be an incredible functionality

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Just got off the Epic Go to internet manager and request to pay the difference between the free at see 250 minutes and unlimited

Thanks for that info. We sail on the Epic TA in 19 days and were looking at the unlimited premium wifi plan but it's $382, with the 15% discount. We already have the 250 minutes, plus 30 mins each for being platinum. Nice to know we can just upgrade that onboard.

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Upgraded to unlimited premium for $120, basic unlimited upgrade was $90.206fd25700b4856c5fed82faf64d492e.jpg

Hi will be sailing epic in June. Just wanted to confirm you pay 120 for a 7 day cruise. Will be taking internet as one of the free perks. I was thinking of buying another package but if u can simply upgrade to it's the best option. Thanks for any advice.

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We were on the Escape last week and got the Unlimited Premium. We used a travel router to connect multiple devices at the same time, and saw speeds averaging about 5Mpbs both upload and download. We streamed videos to a chromecast, connected to VPN, and made wifi calls all pretty successfully. I had more trouble with chat apps like Slack and Discord, in that I would get notifications but then the messages took a while to show up in the app itself. Uploading photos to Google Photos worked fine, but I see above that some people had trouble with Facebook or the forum app. Guessing it varies based on the app.

The issue I saw with the internet wasn't actually with internet speed, but rather with reliability. Specifically, their DNS server was junk. When you could get a web address to resolve, things were great. However, by the last two days of the cruise when everyone was online trying to check flights and whatnot, it was pretty unusable. Web requests would come back with DNS errors-- address not found, domain name unresolved, etc. My guess is that the server they use to cache webpages was unable to handle all the traffic and would just drop requests. You had to refresh several times to get a page to load.

Funny note: they have a web filter and it blocked every single webcomic I was trying to read as porn (they weren't, I swear!!) :')

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Tamereth how does the travel router work? Do you buy this online?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

It's pretty easy to set up and they come with directions. You set up the travel router with it's own network name and WiFi password. Usually this is done by connecting to it with a phone+app or with laptop+router specific web page. (You can try it out beforehand with your home network.) On the ship, you connect the router to the ship network and your devices to the travel router's network. This obviously only works when everyone using the travel router is in the same room... I mostly used it so I didn't have to constantly switch between my laptop and phone, or compete with my husband for internet access.

Travel routers are available on Amazon and probably also at electronic stores. Popular ones are by HooToo and FileHub. Some have storage and can be used to offload videos/photos from your phones, if you need more storage space.

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We were on the Escape last week and got the Unlimited Premium. We used a travel router to connect multiple devices at the same time, and saw speeds averaging about 5Mpbs both upload and download. We streamed videos to a chromecast, connected to VPN, and made wifi calls all pretty successfully. I had more trouble with chat apps like Slack and Discord, in that I would get notifications but then the messages took a while to show up in the app itself. Uploading photos to Google Photos worked fine, but I see above that some people had trouble with Facebook or the forum app. Guessing it varies based on the app.

The issue I saw with the internet wasn't actually with internet speed, but rather with reliability. Specifically, their DNS server was junk. When you could get a web address to resolve, things were great. However, by the last two days of the cruise when everyone was online trying to check flights and whatnot, it was pretty unusable. Web requests would come back with DNS errors-- address not found, domain name unresolved, etc. My guess is that the server they use to cache webpages was unable to handle all the traffic and would just drop requests. You had to refresh several times to get a page to load.

Funny note: they have a web filter and it blocked every single webcomic I was trying to read as porn (they weren't, I swear!!) :')

Thank you. That sounds ok. Not to be compared with Rccl's Boom though, I guess...

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app

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Hi will be sailing epic in June. Just wanted to confirm you pay 120 for a 7 day cruise. Will be taking internet as one of the free perks. I was thinking of buying another package but if u can simply upgrade to it's the best option. Thanks for any advice.
Yes, the $120 was the upgrade price from the 250 minute free perk to the Unlimited Premium Wi-Fi on my Escape 7 day cruise last week.
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  • 2 weeks later...
It will be interesting to find out if the NCL infrastructure allows wifi calling...... your phone recognized wifi for wifi calling because your phone is capable but the network might not have the specific ports etc turned on.

 

I have tmobile also and this would be an incredible functionality

WiFi calling on the Escape works just fine. All in all the Internet is okay, bitte Voom is much fast and more reliable.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app

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Im hoping someone can help me undertstand if I need an international cellular plan with AT&T while I am on board. I always take one and it seems like a doubling up since I get the WifFi plans on board too, and there are always some random changes that end up on my cell phone bill anyway, also.

 

I feel like I am going about this wrong, or just not understanding. Is the AT&T international service for while on land only? Do I need it?

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Im hoping someone can help me undertstand if I need an international cellular plan with AT&T while I am on board. I always take one and it seems like a doubling up since I get the WifFi plans on board too, and there are always some random changes that end up on my cell phone bill anyway, also.

 

I feel like I am going about this wrong, or just not understanding. Is the AT&T international service for while on land only? Do I need it?

 

The international plan is only while using cell towers in select countries. It doesn't help at all while at sea using the ship's tower. What you may want to do with AT&T is find out how much per day in select countries and pre-set that up. With Verizon it's $5-$12 per day in most Central American or Carib countries with no roaming or long distance calls home.

 

 

Since our phones are generally in our room while on board can't help with the WiFi questions.

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The international plan is only while using cell towers in select countries. It doesn't help at all while at sea using the ship's tower. What you may want to do with AT&T is find out how much per day in select countries and pre-set that up. With Verizon it's $5-$12 per day in most Central American or Carib countries with no roaming or long distance calls home.

 

 

Since our phones are generally in our room while on board can't help with the WiFi questions.

 

Thanks! There is a per day plan. Much appreciated. :)

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The international plan is only while using cell towers in select countries. It doesn't help at all while at sea using the ship's tower. What you may want to do with AT&T is find out how much per day in select countries and pre-set that up. With Verizon it's $5-$12 per day in most Central American or Carib countries with no roaming or long distance calls home.

 

 

 

 

 

Since our phones are generally in our room while on board can't help with the WiFi questions.

 

 

 

AT&T’s international plan is $10 per day, if you use it. If you don’t call, text or access data, you aren’t charged. It only allows a limited amount of data, btw. DW posted a bunch of photos from Roatan and quickly used up her data allowance. The overage was costly.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks everyone for posting this- I was going to use my Ipod Touch and alternate with my Kindle Fire HD8- (one item at a time of course per their guidelines).

 

Has anyone encountered any security issues from the packages? I know someone mentioned an increase in spam.

 

If I am already logged in on my ipod touch to facebook and twitter- would I need to reenter my passwords over NCL's network? Does the social package simply only function on these apps only and then blocks email apps etc..?

 

On a more serious note- did anyone find the UBP and internet package simply don't mix? I'm worried I would make drunk and stupid posts. :D:beer-mug::beer-mug::D

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