Unlimited Internet plans and speeds found on the Coral Princess.

If you are one that believes the internet and cell phones have no place on a cruise ship in the hands of a pax then this post is not for you. Move along...... there is nothing for you to see here.

Just of the Coral and using their Unlimited Internet plans.

First.....Unlimited is not "unlimited" As you can see below each plan has a bandwidth cap. Each plan varies from 200MB to 500MB per day.

Second....there are 3 plans. They all perform at the same speeds in my observation. More money, larger package does not equal faster speeds in my tests. The images below show the onboard price.

I purchased two plans for our cabin. I had the Surf Plan and my DW had the Premium. My surf plan was upgraded to Premium for $50 on day 3 of the trip.

The upload speeds were in the 1-2mb range. The download speeds were in the 0.01 to 0.03mb range. <<The decimal point is in the right place. That is not a typo. Googles speed test would not even recognize the decimal and showed 0mb download speeds. Only speedtest.net would display a 0.01mb to 0.03 download speeds. I did 20+ separate speed tests throughout the trip and the speeds were consistent as shown above. Uploading photos to photo apps worked ok and those on land enjoyed my nightly photo uploads while in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. However downloading the same photo I just uploaded at a resolution necessary high enough to identify a face in the photo was impossible. Facebook without photos of videos worked slow but well. Facebook buffered photos while not using it so it seemed to work better than it actually did. If you refreshed the feed in FB it would take an excessively frustrating amount of time. Netflix and all other video services are blocked. Wifi voice chat was hit and miss. Checking email via browser was possible however painfully slow. Also remember your email login and passwords since accessing email via a foreign web server may require you to retype them each time you visit. In my testing only unsecure email worked via the surf plan. The Premium plan was required for me to access secure pop and imap servers. You could not stream anything. No face-time or video anything. Facebook messenger worked well for texting to family back home. Wifi texting through my usual SMS / MMS application was hit an miss. If the sender was using cellular then I would usually not get the text. If the sender was on wifi then the text would come through fine. I was in airplane mode for 100% of the journey.

In the end I would probable purchase a single plan next time for both myself and DW to use. It is easy to use and disconnecting one device while providing access to another was seamless and simple. I used my plan on my phone, tablet, and laptop. However if you are going to share with your partner be aware. You will have to both be logged into a single account. Having multiple devices all logged in simultaneously to a single princess account is possible, doing so will not allow you to use the chat feature built into the princess app. Messaging yourself is not possible via the princess app.

Questions? just ask.

I assume those with Platinum/Elite free minutes were offered the chance to upgrade to the (not quite so) unlimited options at a reduced price.

Do you know if this is what happened and what the pricing is?

Our cruise personalizer is offering these at reduced rates if you pre-purchase. Approximately a $50 savings.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

If you are one that believes the internet and cell phones have no place on a cruise ship in the hands of a pax then this post is not for you. Move along...... there is nothing for you to see here.

 

Just of the Coral and using their Unlimited Internet plans.

First.....Unlimited is not "unlimited" As you can see below each plan has a bandwidth cap. Each plan varies from 200MB to 500MB per day.

Thank you for your very detailed report.

You have noted what others commented on when similar details were announced for Grand

-- how can an Unlimited plan have a bandwidth cap?

From your speed description, it sounds like the unlimited part is passenger patience when using it.

But seriously, from your speed description, it sounds like they are sell more usage

on the same (previous) hardware.

To be honest, it is a pretty clunky system to charge what they do. I get the free Platinum minutes but it really isn't worth buying in my opinion.

They even blocked the porn sites! Can you believe that!?!?:loudcry: :D

We were on the Coral in Jan. Their internet was down when we boarded because they were installing their new system that would allow unlimited plans. I upgraded to an unlimited plan in hopes that the new system would be faster - boy was I disappointed. Celebrity has upgraded their internet and the speed is quite good all things considered. I can't understand why Princess continues to lag behind.

I am new to Princess Cruise lines, not cruising, just new to Princess. On RCI cruises we use what'sapp (chat or calling) via wifi to communicate with each other while on the ship (for those onboard, not back home). Never had any problem with wifi on RCI. This obviously required buying wifi from the ship.

What is the best way to communicate with my travel companions onboard Princess Caribbean. We don't mind paying for wifi, but we want something that works! Thanks in advance :)

What is the best way to communicate with my travel companions onboard Princess Caribbean. We don't mind paying for wifi, but we want something that works! Thanks in advance :)

This is the technology that princess seems to be able to implement successfully:

Too funny, pablo!

Princess@sea will allow you to send messages to people on board. It is free and uses the ship's wifi. It gives you access to the activities schedule and your account. The person receiving the message has to check for it. There is no notification like when you might receive a text or email at home.