Internet Access

[sairy]

We're on the CB leaving Ft Lauderdale 2/19/05 and must do some work while cruising.

 

Can anyone tell me the cost of internet access and if there is a difference between using the ship's computers vs my own wireless?

 

How reliable are the connections?

 

Is there a 'better' place to obtain wireless access over another?

 

Thanks in advance,

Sairy

[DeltaOne]

Cost of Internet access is 35 cents a minute, either in the Internet Cafe or via wireless. Only difference is via wireless, you must buy access in blocks of 30 minutes for $10.50. In the Internet cafe it's simply by the minute.

 

Wireless access is in the atrium area. It's not like at home...it's slow (to be expected, of course).

 

I used the Internet cafe to briefly look for email from my daughter and to send one email to family and friends. Cost was about $3.50.

 

My son used our laptop, and one block of 30 minutes, for the entire week. He'd log on and get his mail, then log off. Compose his replies offline, then log on and send the replies. Fast and efficient. He checked his email on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

[Alicomp]

My husband had to do a LOT of work on his laptop on our recent Coral cruise. He also found it to be slow (and expensive), but did what he had to do. In the internet cafe you can only access certain ISPs such as AOL and Yahoo, so if you need to access work, you will need to use your wireless laptop. Although you buy the internet cards in 30 minute blocks, when you log on you can "stack them" so you don't have to log off and on every 30 minutes.

[Irishjayne]

Your family can email you thru the ship for free. They will print it out and deliver it to your cabin. Make sure they put your name and cabin number in the subject line. My sisters kids emailed her every two days.

[elliair]

Maybe you will get lucky and receive a coupon book with "buy 1 get one free." We had coupons for the internet cafe. Use $10.00 worth of minutes and receive $5.00 off. This was a compliment of our TA. I used 1 coupon and I gave 1 away to a lucky passenger in the Internet Cafe.

[sairy]

Thanks everyone. Not sure what is meant by "when you log on you can "stack them" so you don't have to log off and on every 30 minutes."

 

Could you explain?

[new2cruise]

Your family can email you thru the ship for free. They will print it out and deliver it to your cabin. Make sure they put your name and cabin number in the subject line.

 

Irish Jane (or anyone else): What email address do they mail it to?

[Irishjayne]

The name of the ship @princesscruisess.com(IE: coralprincess@princesscruises.com)

[new2cruise]

Wow, that was a fast reply! Thanks Irish Jane!

(By the way, I just called Princess to ask the same question, and they said you couldn't get your email that way. It's nice to have someone in the know! (How did you find out about it, anyway?)

[ericosmith]

My husband had to do a LOT of work on his laptop on our recent Coral cruise. He also found it to be slow (and expensive), but did what he had to do. In the internet cafe you can only access certain ISPs such as AOL and Yahoo, so if you need to access work, you will need to use your wireless laptop. Although you buy the internet cards in 30 minute blocks, when you log on you can "stack them" so you don't have to log off and on every 30 minutes.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by accessing certain ISPs. Am I going to be able to access my airlines website to print my boarding passes? What about my email through my ISPs website?

[Irishjayne]

I read it here on the boards. As I mentioned before, my sister's daughter (my niece) communicated with us this way. Emails were left outside her door where they put the patters.

I would imagine that Princess doesn't want to get bombarded with emails, so that is why they told you no.

[Pam in CA]

By the way, I just called Princess to ask the same question, and they said you couldn't get your email that way. It's nice to have someone in the know! (How did you find out about it, anyway?)

Actually, emailing the ship isn't really for regular, general email. It's a service offered for when someone needs to get hold of you for a special reason. If people abuse this service and use it as a personal email system, it won't be long before it's cut off or there will be a service charge attached to it.

 

If you do need to have a message sent to you via email, make sure they put your name and your cabin number in the Subject.

[Pam in CA]

In the internet cafe you can only access certain ISPs such as AOL and Yahoo

Not true. I have no problem accessing my business email which is through Microsoft Exchange. As long as you can access your email via the Internet, you shouldn't have any problem.

[Psee]

I'm not sure what you mean by accessing certain ISPs. Am I going to be able to access my airlines website to print my boarding passes? What about my email through my ISPs website?

 

The wireless access (although slow and limited as far as access locations onboard) works fairly well and you will have complete access to all internet activities. Airlines, email, virtual private networks, and even FTP sites are all accessible through the wireless access point. Just keep in mind it's SLOW so any normal file transfers will be slow and a quick email at the internet cafe be more cost effective for short messages.:)

[drewlane]

When you purchase a 30 minute block of Internet time for use with your personal laptop do they give you settings to connect to their network?

 

The more technical answer the better. :)

 

I'm going to bring my wifi enabled PDA and I want to get an idea of how this works so that I don't have to spend a lot of time onboard setting it up.

 

Drew

[cme4hay]

Has no one told you people that if you are a PLATINUM card holder that their is no charge to use the Internet in the Internet Cafe.

 

Thanks

 

cme4hay

[Mindy97]

But if you are Platinum, from what I understand it's not free on Regal, since all they have is wireless (they provide the laptops). Anybody know if that is true???

 

Tia,

[Flyer]

My understanding is the Internet Café is free for Platinum members but you still have to purchase the 30 min blocks to use wireless. Sooo, if the Regal only has wireless there will be a charge. I'll check it out in May. :) I am going to take my wireless PDA for a trial.

[Psee]

When you purchase a 30 minute block of Internet time for use with your personal laptop do they give you settings to connect to their network?

 

The more technical answer the better. :)

 

I'm going to bring my wifi enabled PDA and I want to get an idea of how this works so that I don't have to spend a lot of time onboard setting it up.

 

Drew

 

When you purchase the time at the purser's desk they give you an access number. When you open your browser it's redirected to their IP address and prompts for the access number. You then setup a username/password for subsequent logins. It appears to use Java or other scripting so it may or may not work depending on your PDA browser capabilities.

 

It's still a "work in progress" according to many so YMMV. :)

[cactusrose]

What about printing? Can you print off their printers using your wireless laptop?

[Psee]

What about printing? Can you print off their printers using your wireless laptop?

 

Nope, the printers are only available from the pay terminals at the cafe. All of that equipment is hard wired so no wireless access. :rolleyes:

[drewlane]

When you purchase the time at the purser's desk they give you an access number. When you open your browser it's redirected to their IP address and prompts for the access number. You then setup a username/password for subsequent logins. It appears to use Java or other scripting so it may or may not work depending on your PDA browser capabilities.

What about checking your email without using a browser? That would be my main interest. I don't plan on doing much websurfing. ;)

 

Several people mentioned they were able to download their emails and compose offline without using up their time.

 

Was this your experience also? Can you use your own email client on your laptop (ie. Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.)?

 

If so, it would be easy to get my mail on my PDA.

 

Drew

[donna5]

In the internet cafe you can only access certain ISPs such as AOL and Yahoo, so if you need to access work, you will need to use your wireless laptop.

 

There are only a few e-mail accounts that you cannot use. As long as you are able to check your e-mail by entering that ISP's web address and have access to the web-mail portion of your ISP or other e-mail account you should have no problem. It's that when you click on the e-mail section when you sign into the computer it only shows aol and the other ones. We have never had a problem getting to ours and we had attbi which was bought by comcast, and then bresnan bought Colo and another 2 states, and under all those we were able to access our e-mail from the ship. Check with your ISP to see if you have web mail. You should have it and may not be aware of it since most people have outlook or another program set up automatically.

[SPI_Rick]

What about checking your email without using a browser? That would be my main interest. I don't plan on doing much websurfing. ;)

 

Several people mentioned they were able to download their emails and compose offline without using up their time.

 

Was this your experience also? Can you use your own email client on your laptop (ie. Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.)?

 

If so, it would be easy to get my mail on my PDA.

 

Drew

 

Drew, you should be able to use your email client.....I was on the Star Princess recently with my wireless enabled laptop and used Outlook for my email. However, you will still have to use your browser to establish your wireless access and logon/logoff from your wireless account. Once you've established your connection with the browser you can transmit emails from Outlook (or other email client) that you have composed offline and receive your incoming emails. Another advantage of wireless connection is that you can send digital photos that you've taken during the trip attached to your emails....something that is generally not possible to do from the Internet Cafes.