Viking Homelands - WIFI??

For those who have gone on Homelands cruise, what was your experience with the WIFI reception??

Excellent except for one or 2 times in a fjord.

About as slow as old fashioned dial-up.

No slow dial up experience for me. Much faster. What you do NOT get is fast enough for streaming stuff like NETFLIX. Nobody offers that.

I agree with Phil - not fast enough to stream, but great for most other purposes.

Being the nut I am and never throwing anything away, I did some Speedtest measurements when we did VH in 2016.

In dock at Bergen download was 0.55 to 0.61 Mbps, upload varied from 0.30 to 1.17 Mbps.

Arriving at Flåm we were on satellite: 0.46 down/1.25 up

Coming into Ålborg: 0.37 down/0.20 up

Arrival at Copenhagen: 0.56 down/0.94 up

Leaving Gdansk on satellite: 0.21 down/0.57 up

At sea enroute to Tallinn but getting something nearby, not satellite: 0.01 down/0.42 up

In port at Talinn: 0.15 down/0.31 up

It also depends on where you are onboard. Service is better in the World Cafe if you sit near one of the wireless access points mounted towards the ceiling by the wait stations. Those were the ones I could see. It did seem that service was better in the Explorer Lounge too. There may be other sweet spots but I didn't spend time investigating them.

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I did not have any problems with the WiFi, but I did not expect the lightning fast speed I have at home. I agree with previous posts that it seemed faster in the Explorers Lounge, especially early mornings while enjoying my waffle at Mamsen's! I also found a router in the laundry room, which was a pleasant surprise.

I was worried about WIFI before our Homelands cruise because we need to stay in touch with family due to medical issues with our grandson. I was pleasantly surprised and never felt the need to leave our room for any computer needs. We were midship,deck 4.

Connectivity to the ship's service was never an issue. Always full bars indicated. The ship, however, might have an issue connecting with the satellites. It also depended on which ground station received our sat signals. In other words, it varied based on just where on the planet we were. Oddly enough, the Spanish shore station seemed to be the worst but still better than any wifi I have had on other ships. As was mentioned, no streaming. Bummer when the National Championship football game was on. Heather did not arrange for the Bama/Georgia game. Other than a few really cloudy days or in very isolated places, we were able to do the minimal banking we needed as well as download Kindle books and emails. Basically really good. So glad they include free wifi as we are all so "connected" these days. Didn't really miss Netflix as they had a great selection of old and new movies to watch on the HDTV in the cabin. And time of day really mattered. Early morning or during the dinner time service were usually pretty good. :cool:

We had a connectivity issue in our cabin on the Sky and IT traced it to the access point which was on or behind the TV. It was a two man job to remove the TV change it so they did it while we were out. I got the impression that there is an AP for every two cabins. Unlike most older ships the networking is designed in and not retrofitted which is a big difference.

As others have said, performance is limited by the ship to satellite link and I thought it might have been marginal in the eastern end (as expected). believe the data rates are the fastest available and the capacity is enough so it doesn't completely freeze at peak times.

We didn't have any problems. We used iPads and phones. Yes, it wasn't like home but I did "live from Star" without any glitches

We did Homelands on Star in 2017

I did not have any problems with the WiFi, but I did not expect the lightning fast speed I have at home. I agree with previous posts that it seemed faster in the Explorers Lounge, especially early mornings while enjoying my waffle at Mamsen's! I also found a router in the laundry room, which was a pleasant surprise.

Brenda,

I had to laugh at your comment on the laundry room, as my husband spotted one there, as we took the laundry down and "graciously" offered to stay there with his tablet while the laundry dried. :p

Becki

Mostly I just use the computers near the Explorers Desk. They were almost always fast, considering that you're at sea, along with many other Viking cruisers with Wifi desires. I DID have trouble near and in Tromso, Norway (Midnight Sun cruise) - couldn't email a photo, using my laptop. But generally things have been good, sailing where I've sailed (Europe, Cuba & Florida).

Hi Becki, and thanks Brenda and Becki, for giving me a reason to go into the laundry room. My husband can be found there, but I usually manage to avoid it. Now if reception is poor in my room, I'll head there instead.

Hi, Roothy!

How did your Cuba cruise turn out? We have been to Havana 2x with friend who only cruise RCL. We are just back from an overnight there.

Becki