Wifi on Radiance to Alaska?

[djsf26]

Is wifi available on the cruise? Anyone know the charge for it? Thx.

[Biker19]

Is wifi available on the cruise? Anyone know the charge for it? Thx.

 

All ships have WiFi, branded VOOM by RCI. You can get a one device package (which can be shared) before the cruise for 9.09/day (in your planner online) or 12.99/day on board.

[cruisingkris01]

I'm leaving on The Radiance Alaskan cruise next Fridsy after a 4 day land tour. We fly into Fairbanks on Monday. We purchased the one device VOOM Internet. Some people say the connection is spotty because of the mountains but I hope to be able to get some internet connection, especially at night when I'm trying to relax. I'll try and remember to find this post and let you know how my connection was.

[Rydain]

I had the basic tier of VOOM on our June 24 southbound cruise. I did not prepurchase because of the negative reviews from prior Radiance cruisers, but I caved and bought it onboard so I could message friends and family in the large, scattered group we were traveling with. I also wanted my phone to be available over wi-fi calling, and to post photos to social media throughout the trip.

 

It worked decently at best. According to a map that I am failing to dig up at the moment, Alaska is within a latitude range that gets less satellite service than points closer to the equator. It also has its own terrain challenges that tend to foul things up. At Skagway, the Cruise Compass mentioned that satellite connections were not working, so we could expect services such as TV, Internet, and ATM's to be down.

 

Even with that in mind, the ship's network has a tendency to drop certain devices and not display the login screen when they try to reconnect. It does log you out automatically after some time of inactivity, which is fine, but getting back on can be a pain. We had to toggle airplane mode on and off, forget the ship's wi-fi network, chant the ABC's backwards, and adjust various settings at random until the system took pity on my phone.

 

Knowing all of that, I would have still bought VOOM because it was useful enough for my purposes when it worked. I did appreciate that the one device plan simply limits your username/password to one login at a time - it does not lock your account to that device for the entire trip. Thus, I could take my phone offline and switch over to my netbook without paying another $100 or so just for that.

[island lady]

I pretty much keep my need of WIFI to emails when on board, and find the

ship's service adequate for that...though very slow at times.

 

If you have AT&T, keep in mind that in the Alaskan ports, (Juneau, Skagway,

Seward, Ketchikan, and Hoonah (Icy Strait) it is considered a local call...which

for me gives me free internet on my phone. Nice for sending

pictures home! :)

 

I will only buy a couple of days of WIFI from the ship when we are in Canadian

waters.

Edited July 16, 2016 by island lady