Use of laptop's.

[GALATEA]

Hell'o. this will be our first time sailing with Prinsess lines.We will be boarding the Pacific Prinsess this Sat.7th August.Crimean&Aegean coast trip.can anyone let us know if laptop's can be used on board and if so approx.cost of connection's. Thank you :)

[mamaboss]

I have used my laptop on all my cruises listed here. Excellent signal in my cabin, not as good on balcony. I usually have a midship cabin. I can't recall the price. If you purchase a package when you board you will get extra minutes free. Someone will post the costs for you I'm sure. Also you must log off exactly how they tell you or you will use up your minutes.

[kiwipete]

Hell'o. this will be our first time sailing with Prinsess lines.We will be boarding the Pacific Prinsess this Sat.7th August.Crimean&Aegean coast trip.can anyone let us know if laptop's can be used on board and if so approx.cost of connection's. Thank you :)

 

Hi,

We have sailed on Sapphire, Diamond and Sea Princesses and succesfully used our laptop on all 3. Diamond and Sea have wireless in all cabins. Not sure about Sapphire but would think she also has wireless in cabins now.

Costs are quite expensive. From memory they are something like $75 for 150 minutes, $100 for 250 minutes and $200 for 500 minutes but if you sign up for one of the plans on the first night you get a free allocation of some minutes, which helps, just a little!!

Have a great cruise.

Kiwipete

[paul929207]

Hi,

We have sailed on Sapphire, Diamond and Sea Princesses and succesfully used our laptop on all 3. Diamond and Sea have wireless in all cabins. Not sure about Sapphire but would think she also has wireless in cabins now.

Costs are quite expensive. From memory they are something like $75 for 150 minutes, $100 for 250 minutes and $200 for 500 minutes but if you sign up for one of the plans on the first night you get a free allocation of some minutes, which helps, just a little!!

Have a great cruise.

Kiwipete

The 500 minute package is $175 and there is also a 100 minute for $55 package. All package and the pay by the minute plan are all plus a $3.95 signup fee.

[Croptop]

On a tangential note, has anyone sailed with an iPad yet and used it to access the ship's WiFi network? On our last cruise, I took a laptop with us so I had no difficulties. On our upcoming cruise, I'd like to eliminate the laptop and just use the iPad.

 

Just curious to hear what others have experienced with trying to use their iPad onboard ship.

[tmitchell82]

On a tangential note, has anyone sailed with an iPad yet and used it to access the ship's WiFi network? On our last cruise, I took a laptop with us so I had no difficulties. On our upcoming cruise, I'd like to eliminate the laptop and just use the iPad.

 

Just curious to hear what others have experienced with trying to use their iPad onboard ship.

 

I'll be taking my Ipad on our next cruise. I have traveled with it and had to connect to various WiFi sites and have been able to do so without a problem. For places where I had to log in to their wifi network, Safari defaults to their page. I figure it should work the same way on the ship with it going to the Princess wifi start up page. Just remember to turn off the wifi on the Ipad when you are done.

[scotslaydee]

We had our ipad on the Star Princess last week and the connection speed was shockingly slow (we have the most powerful ipad!). We were in an aft suite but my husband said that it was little better when he took it midship. We did not have our laptop with us to compare but it was similar with my iphone.

[paul929207]

We had our ipad on the Star Princess last week and the connection speed was shockingly slow (we have the most powerful ipad!). We were in an aft suite but my husband said that it was little better when he took it midship. We did not have our laptop with us to compare but it was similar with my iphone.

The satelite connection that is used on cruise ships is very slow. Think Dial-up

[Careg]

I think you can pre-purchase minutes or an even better savings.

[captbill]

The satelite connection that is used on cruise ships is very slow. Think Dial-up

 

 

My opinion: Imagine yourself WISHING you had Dial-Up.:cool:

 

 

[paul929207]

I think you can pre-purchase minutes or an even better savings.

If you purchase a package before the cruise you get 20 to 80 bonus minutes depending on the size of the package you purchase. If you wait till you are on board to purchase a package, you get 10 to 40 binus minutes if you buy the first day or two.

[Woobstr112G]

Hell'o. this will be our first time sailing with Prinsess lines.We will be boarding the Pacific Prinsess this Sat.7th August.Crimean&Aegean coast trip.can anyone let us know if laptop's can be used on board and if so approx.cost of connection's. Thank you :)

 

Shouldn't be too much of a problem using your laptop. Only issue will be the usually slow internet connection that is prevelent on most ships.....:(:(:(

 

Bob

[iancal]

It is quite expensive. So, if you are doing mail, download your mail, sign off, and then take your time to respond. Later, sign back on and send your mail in one go. You will use much less ship time this way.

 

Also, when you are in port, depending on the port, go topside and see if you can piggyback on any open wireless networks.

[Pam in CA]

I plan to bring my iPad next month on my Crown cruise. I've tested at home downloading email, reading and responding offline, then going back online and sending. If your email service provider allows you to do that, you will save a lot of time and money.

 

The boards have been acting up a lot over the past few days with it taking up to five minutes sometimes to open a thread and read it, and another five minutes to post. That's kind of what it's like onboard a cruise ship (any cruise ship).

 

Speed is dependent on several things: where the ship is within the "cone" of satellite coverage (kind of like years ago when you had a cell phone and sometimes lost signal as you went from tower to tower); how many people are using the Internet; and most important, what people are doing. There's a finite amount of bandwidth available and if people are uploading/downloading photos, going to graphic-intensive websites, using Skype, etc., that takes a lot of bandwidth which slows down the Internet for everyone.

 

I've found that early in the morning or during dinnertime/shows are the best times to use the Internet. Also late at night but when they get off, the crew use the Internet as well and that's when they do. But, on the other hand, most are just reading or responding to email and not going to websites.

[shellbeachjim]

Just curious to hear what others have experienced with trying to use their iPad onboard ship.

We took our iPads (his and hers) on our Ocean Princess cruise in June. They are much more convenient than taking a laptop. We boarded the ship in Dover just a couple of days after the iPads were released in England. We were in an aft cabin which didn't have wifi coverage, so had to sit in public areas to use them. We were *very* popular with the crew, many of whom wanted "test drives" when they saw us using our iPads.

 

The routers used on the ship are easy to spot, and if the indicator light is orange, then the network is not available. If the indicator light is green, then the network is probably available. Because this is a satellite service, you never quite know when the network is up or down. There are a lot of causes for it to be down, most of them have been listed in previous threads.

[Whimsy]

If you purchase a package before the cruise you get 20 to 80 bonus minutes depending on the size of the package you purchase. If you wait till you are on board to purchase a package, you get 10 to 40 binus minutes if you buy the first day or two.

 

I did not know you could prepurchase the internet minutes before you cruise for even extra minutes. Good to know!

[cbpanda]

If you purchase a package before the cruise you get 20 to 80 bonus minutes depending on the size of the package you purchase. If you wait till you are on board to purchase a package, you get 10 to 40 binus minutes if you buy the first day or two.

 

I didn't know this either. I will definitely look into it for my Ruby cruise in Jan.

[Colo Cruiser]

Hell'o. this will be our first time sailing with Prinsess lines.We will be boarding the Pacific Prinsess this Sat.7th August.Crimean&Aegean coast trip.can anyone let us know if laptop's can be used on board

 

Yes they can.