Laptop Question

[dmooers]

Has anyone had experiences, good or bad, with taking their own laptop on a cruise? Since it won't fit in the safe do you leave it out on the desk all the time, or do you hide it away. I'm considering purchasing a laptop and if I do, I would probably want to take it on our upcoming cruise. If you are wireless capable can you hook up to the ship's Internet anytime or do you still have to sign in?

Thanks in advance.

[Coral]

I brought my laptop on my 2 week Alaskan cruise last summer and I left my laptop out on my desk the entire time. I needed to download my pictures and bringing my laptop made the most since.

 

All of Princess ships now (as of December) have wireless available in the atrium area. You need to purchase time in advance - it is not free, even for Platinum members. I was on the Star Princess in December and decided against bringing my laptop since I didn't want to pay for internet when I can use it for free on the desktop computers they provide.

[CruiseFever]

Has anyone had experiences, good or bad, with taking their own laptop on a cruise? Since it won't fit in the safe do you leave it out on the desk all the time, or do you hide it away. I'm considering purchasing a laptop and if I do, I would probably want to take it on our upcoming cruise. If you are wireless capable can you hook up to the ship's Internet anytime or do you still have to sign in?

Thanks in advance.

We take ours every cruise, mainly to download photos on from our digital cams. We always leave them sitting out in the cabin and have had no problem. I suppose the wise advice would be to tell you to hide it but we never do and won't.

 

The wireless internet connection is available in the atrium for 35 cents a minute prepaid in 30 minute blocks. Pretty good connection and the only way you'll be able to download anything as the ships machines won't let you do it.

 

It's always been a good experience for me but we use both the Internet Cafe and our laptops basically because the Internet Cafe machines are easier to use (just swipe and go) even though they are pretty slow

[derf5585]

Laptop security measures include taking care of the physical security of the laptop,

from

http://www.laptops-guide.com/laptop-security.html

 

Get a cable lock and use it

from

http://labmice.techtarget.com/articles/laptopsecurity.htm

[DeltaOne]

We always take our laptop. Each night I copy the pictures from our camera to a folder on the laptop. Then review the pictures in the slide show application.

 

We just leave the laptop on the vanity and have never had a problem.

 

This year the laptop is new and has wireless, so we're looking forward to being able to use the WiFi hotspots on the ship for the occasional email to everyone at home.

[CruiseFever]

Not to plug another line so much as to say "hey. it IS possible" I read where the new Carnival Valor has WI-FI access ALL OVER THE SHIP!. Now THERE is a Carnival concept I hope other lines adopt.

[Shirleya53]

We took our laptop for a two week Panama Canal Cruise in 2003, left it out all the time and had no problems.

[Psee]

If you have a digital camera it really makes sense to bring it along. I always take mine and transfer my pics every day of the cruise. It makes it a lot easier to organize them by location, port, excursion, etc. instead of hashing over them after the cruise. As far as getting online, you can compose your emails and even add photos (after compressing them), then connect just long enough to send them. I also load a few games and utilities such as a gambling simulator (craps,etc.) so I can hone my gambling skills before hitting the casino. :)

 

Have never locked the laptop but I usually find a cabinet or other area to place it out of sight when not in the room for any length of time. Never had a problem.

[mt_goodrich]

The more I read the postings, the more I am tempted to bring my laptop along on our cruise next week.

 

We are not flying in, so no big problems with airports. When I went on a two week trip to Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, my family really enjoyed viewing the photos that we transferred each evening and it gave us a change to have some great conversations about what we saw that day.

[garycarla]

I fly with my laptop all the time. Take it Jamaica, and on cruises. Most ships have wireless now for internet access.

 

Some of the safes are large enough, unless you have one of the new mega size laptops. If you have lots of data that you worry about getting stolen, learn how to take your hard drive out and put that in the safe. Have done that a few times.

 

As to leaving laptop sitting out, sure the people above had no problem, but why push your luck? We usually at least put in in the suitcase or something to make it harder and less tempting.