Internet Access and Hot Spot Tethering

[Ep010835]

I'm looking at purchasing an internet access package for an upcoming cruise on the Caribbean Princess (btw, new to Princess, can someone explain the abbreviation CB for this ship?). Their website offers a number of pre-purchase plans with a different number of "bonus minutes" attached to each plan. I just called their 800 number and asked about the rules for access. I was told that each plan is tied one specific device/phone.

I think I understand all of that.

Here's the part that the customer service person couldn't answer. If I buy an internet access package for my iPad, can I use the iPad as a hotspot and tether other iDevices to the iPad and thereby share the data plan amongst my devices?

I've done this quite successfully traveling on the ground in Europe using a European sim card installed in the iPad. Not at all sure how Princess addresses this.

Thanks!!

[GUT2407]

I'm looking at purchasing an internet access package for an upcoming cruise on the Caribbean Princess (btw, new to Princess, can someone explain the abbreviation CB for this ship?). Their website offers a number of pre-purchase plans with a different number of "bonus minutes" attached to each plan. I just called their 800 number and asked about the rules for access. I was told that each plan is tied one specific device/phone.

I think I understand all of that.

Here's the part that the customer service person couldn't answer. If I buy an internet access package for my iPad, can I use the iPad as a hotspot and tether other iDevices to the iPad and thereby share the data plan amongst my devices?

I've done this quite successfully traveling on the ground in Europe using a European sim card installed in the iPad. Not at all sure how Princess addresses this.

Thanks!!

CB for CaribBean.

 

Pretty sure CP was Taken already when she launched, probably by Crown.

 

No, because you aren’t using a SIM to access the wifi but, wifiand you can’t hotspot from wifi.

 

But I think she told you wrong information you can access from two devices, just not both at once, well that has been my experience on other Princess Ships.

[IECalCruiser]

Each Princess ship has two letters in their URL and the Caribbean’s is CB. The Coral’s is CO, the Crown’s is KP, and the Sea’s is CP. The Caribbean is the longest ship’s name and probably why many use the two letter designation for her but not other ships.

 

As GUT2407 stated, you have a login and password that can be used to log on with any device, but only one device at a time.

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[fishywood]

Their website offers a number of pre-purchase plans with a different number of "bonus minutes" attached to each plan. I just called their 800 number and asked about the rules for access. I was told that each plan is tied one specific device/phone.

 

 

This is FALSE. You can use the per-minute plans on all of your devices. Just one at a time.

 

(It may be true on the Princess ships that are offering per-day plans, but not for the plans you are asking about).

 

So first lesson for a Princess newbie: don't waste your time calling customer service on the weekend. Nobody working those hours knows squat.

 

As for 'CB' and the other two digit acronyms for each ship in the fleet: they are just the codes in the URLs for the ship-specific pages on the Princess web site. At what point they became message board shorthand I do not know. CB is really the only one commonly used as 'Caribbean' is so easily misspelled I guess. (But if you want to see goofy-abbreviations-for-long-ship-names head to the Celebrity board where you would think that 'Millennium' or 'Constellation' or 'Silhouette' were straight out of the final round of the National Spelling Bee :rolleyes:)

[Kamloops50]

I'm looking at purchasing an internet access package for an upcoming cruise on the Caribbean Princess (btw, new to Princess, can someone explain the abbreviation CB for this ship?). Their website offers a number of pre-purchase plans with a different number of "bonus minutes" attached to each plan. I just called their 800 number and asked about the rules for access. I was told that each plan is tied one specific device/phone.

I think I understand all of that.

Here's the part that the customer service person couldn't answer. If I buy an internet access package for my iPad, can I use the iPad as a hotspot and tether other iDevices to the iPad and thereby share the data plan amongst my devices?

I've done this quite successfully traveling on the ground in Europe using a European sim card installed in the iPad. Not at all sure how Princess addresses this.

Thanks!!

 

The problem is yjat you can't login with two devices. Unless you buy two packages , one device at at time.

[neverbeenhere]

CB stands for Citizens Band. It is remotely related to the internet. It is important to “break in” when using your CB “connection”. Don’t be fooled by the band part of Citizens Band, it will not be broad band as you currently know it, but when CB’s were more popular, “broads” meant something totally different.

 

Catch you on the flip flop. :p

[Colo Cruiser]

Guess no answer for the OP's million $$ hotspot question.

[neverbeenhere]

I tried to hotspot with a T-Mobile phone and it didn’t work. Haven’t even tried for a number of cruises.

 

OP MMV. Good luck on that.

[fishywood]

Guess no answer for the OP's million $$ hotspot question.

 

If their question arose from simply needing to alternate which devices he signs on with, the question is now moot.

 

As for using a mobile hotspot to access the world wide web from a secondary tethered device when only the first device has service--does that even work with a WiFi network in the first place? Pretty sure it only works with mobile data from a phone or tablet (at least from my cellular carrier). And on the ship the secondary device would still be receiving WiFi signal from the ship's intranet--so wouldn't it have to disable WiFi in order to catch the hotspot signal from the first device? Thus triggering the one charge nobody wants: data roaming.

[Ep010835]

Typically when I tether via a hotspot I first establish a secure wi-fi connection on my iPad. I then turn on the iPad’s “personal hotspot” setting. Then I go to my iPhone and open the wi-fi/choose a network option. There I find the iPad as one of the listed wi-fi options. I select the iPad option and I’m tethered.

Now thinking about a shipboard tether. Wouldn’t the ship’s wi-fi show up on my iPhone in the list of available wi-if networks along with my iPad? And if I select the iPad option rather than the ship’s wi-fi I should be tethered to my iPad irrespective of whether or not the ship’s wi-fi is hitting my iPhone.

Am I missing something? Is there some reason this wouldn’t work?

[skynight]

Work or not work, don't know.

We were on the Caribbean Princess in January/February of this year. At that time they only had plans where you purchase by the minute, you are charged for every connected minute to the web. Internet access is slow, and during peak times very slow. You could wait 2, 3, 4 minutes to get a response.

On some ships Princess has installed faster satellite access with unlimited packages at 3 different access levels, premium, surf and social. If these plans are available on your cruise they will show in the cruise personlizer.

 

Believe if the ship only has the slow by the minute plans then what you are trying to do would result in painfully slow response times.

[MGAfhc]

I believe a Personal Hotspot setup uses cellular data. I doubt it will work with the ship's satellite phone system and if it did it would be expensive wi-fi.

[famski740]

From everything I know and have read about tethering and using your phone as a mobile hotspot, you should not have a problem with using it on a ship. Remember that using your phone as a hotspot will decrease your battery life by almost 1/3rd so having your phone plugged in to a power source will help.

 

But, as others have said, you can use your internet minutes on more then one device as long as you do not use them simultaneously. Make sure you log off each device when you are through so that it is free to use on the other device and also so that you don't continue using your minutes.

[Lotte1956]

My husband brings his laptop with “Connectify” installed. He can connect to the ships WiFi/internet and then turn on the Connectify router. I then connect to the hotspot setup with Connectify.

This allows for several devices using the same minutes. We normally do this in the morning for about 10 minutes to check our individual email accounts. Just make sure you log off the internet on the laptop when you’re done or your minutes will be gone fast!

[LeeW]

Typically when I tether via a hotspot I first establish a secure wi-fi connection on my iPad. I then turn on the iPad’s “personal hotspot” setting. Then I go to my iPhone and open the wi-fi/choose a network option. There I find the iPad as one of the listed wi-fi options. I select the iPad option and I’m tethered.

Now thinking about a shipboard tether. Wouldn’t the ship’s wi-fi show up on my iPhone in the list of available wi-if networks along with my iPad? And if I select the iPad option rather than the ship’s wi-fi I should be tethered to my iPad irrespective of whether or not the ship’s wi-fi is hitting my iPhone.

Am I missing something? Is there some reason this wouldn’t work?

 

Should work, although your minutes will be charged based on the iPad connection to the Princess network. And your devices will be competing for the total bandwidth your iPad is getting. We have found that unless your device reports "Excellent" connection that pages are very slow to load.

[ar1950]

..............................

Am I missing something? Is there some reason this wouldn’t work?

 

I think a more pertinent question is how well will the ships internet WIFI be working? Sometimes it is OK and other times you'll think you are on an old 14.4K modem.

[satxdiver]

You need to remember two rules. Rule 1 The ship has 2600 to 3600 pax on the ship and everyone these days has a WiFi device (tablet, laptop, etc) and has either bought ship WiFi time or have it given to them (elite pax).

 

Rule 2 The moving ship's connection to the internet is via a satellite with a fixed bandwidth that today is way too small (except ships set up for *****). Average latency is 638 ms depending of course on the link speed and quality of signal.

 

Pax will not get anywhere near as good an internet signal as they do on land. Downloading large graphical pages can take tens of minutes of precious WiFi time. Every WiFi/internet capable device has a unique identifier called a MAC address in the world. The ship's active router connection is tied to that MAC address so one will not be able to attach more devices via a hotspot as new MAC addresses will appear and be rejected. If the host hotspot device transforms the packets (encapsulates) using only its MAC address then the router will not know and allow the packet to proceed.

[Wiggums]

If I buy an internet access package for my iPad, can I use the iPad as a hotspot and tether other iDevices to the iPad and thereby share the data plan amongst my devices?

 

I travel with four teenage daughters who all wish to be connected 24/7. My normal go-to hotspot device is the HooToo TripMate as it allows us to share most WiFi anywhere (Hotels, planes, etc.)

 

Unfortunately Princess has gotten keen to this concept and now blocks many of the more popular hotspot devices from connecting to their network. I was on the Emerald Princess Aug 2017 in Alaska and was unable to use the hotspot with the ships Internet as they now block known devices via MAC addresses.

 

Some new Samsung phones (i.e. Galaxy S7 or newer) allow the phone to act as a WiFi Repeater/Extender where you can connect the phone to the WiFi and then make it a hotspot allowing other devices to connect to it as the phone becomes the hotspot connected to the Princess Internet.

[cb at sea]

You may use all your devices, but only ONE AT A TIME. You must sign off of one, before you connect with another.

[jc719]

+1 for the HooToo Tripmate. I've used it successfully on RCCL Oasis and, I think, on Grand Princess (maybe in 2016). Even then, it was a bit problematic when moving around the ship between access points as the wifi channels changed. Usually needed to be disconnected and reconnected once we settled in a spot. Not at all seemless. I don't know of any cell phone or tablet that would work in this application since it would need two wifi radios. Maybe a laptop with two wifi interfaces (maybe one built-in and one USB) & appropriate software. It requires a bit of networking knowledge to get it working. On land, the cellular radio provides one network connection and the wifi radio provides the network connection for the hotspot clients so it's much more transparent.

[Haboob]

I'm looking at purchasing an internet access package for an upcoming cruise on the Caribbean Princess (btw, new to Princess, can someone explain the abbreviation CB for this ship?). Their website offers a number of pre-purchase plans with a different number of "bonus minutes" attached to each plan. I just called their 800 number and asked about the rules for access. I was told that each plan is tied one specific device/phone.

I think I understand all of that.

Here's the part that the customer service person couldn't answer. If I buy an internet access package for my iPad, can I use the iPad as a hotspot and tether other iDevices to the iPad and thereby share the data plan amongst my devices?

I've done this quite successfully traveling on the ground in Europe using a European sim card installed in the iPad. Not at all sure how Princess addresses this.

Thanks!!

 

Not an Apple person here, so take this with a grain of salt...

 

You spoke of SIM cards. That means you were linking your other devices via WiFi from your

iPad to some cellphone carrier. Doing the same at sea means linking them at piratical rates to

Cellular at Sea, Inc... the exact thing folks avoid by turning on Airplane Mode.

 

When you get a buy-the-minutes internet plan, the ship delivers internet via WiFi to your iPad,

and while your iPad could then re-use that WiFi hardware to link the other devices, Apple

probably didn't bother writing the software to allow for it because "the other devices could just

as easily connect directly to whatever WiFi the iPad was connecting to".