New Internet plan on Coral Princess

[Granville Place]

I just spent half an hour on the phone with Princess trying to understand their new internet packages.  They are no longer minute based as of a few weeks ago I gather.  Hoping that someone here can help me.  The lowest level package called "Social Package"  says you can use social websites which doesn't matter to me.  I was hoping for email which is only mentioned in the next package up for more money of course.  Email uses less data than Facebook so I don't understand why it wouldn't be included. Perhaps it is but how can I find out for sure?

[bazeven]

I'm hoping to see new plans (non minute based) on the Crown before our November cruise but as of today they are still showing per minute for me.

[fishywood]

As of a few weeks ago? The new per-day rather than per-minute plans have been sloooowly rolling out among the fleet for the better part of two years now. Coral Princess was actually one of the first ships with them from the start of the program--though several ships still have only the per-minute as the response above indicates. 

 

And e-mails certainly can use more data than social media sites depending on their attachments. But if using Facebook to stream then certainly you would need more than the cheapest package. 

 

But since your actual question is "how can I be sure" best way is to ask the internet center manager which plan is best when you board. These unlimited-esque plans have no incentive for paying in advance through the personalizer that I know of. Expecting a phone rep to have very specific information about an onboard amenity when their job is to simply read the script Princess provides on the topic of conversation is futile.

[Colo Cruiser]

2 hours ago, Granville Place said:

I just spent half an hour on the phone with Princess trying to understand their new internet packages.  They are no longer minute based as of a few weeks ago I gather.  Hoping that someone here can help me.  The lowest level package called "Social Package"  says you can use social websites which doesn't matter to me.  I was hoping for email which is only mentioned in the next package up for more money of course.  Email uses less data than Facebook so I don't understand why it wouldn't be included. Perhaps it is but how can I find out for sure?

Do you have a current booking?

If so.......

What are they offering in your personalizer for a pre cruise purchase?

[Granville Place]

Thanks for the feedback. I did discover the Princess rep was only reading what I could read myself! She did try hard though.  I am on the Coral in February and the internet offerings in my Personalizer are different than they were in December. Interesting. As you can tell I am fairly new at cruising and also not very computer literate. We have only been on 7 day cruises before and didn’t have internet. On the Personalizer the three levels of internet are $249.99, $174.99 and $124.99 for the 15 days - all in Canadian dollars. It says there is a savings if you pre buy.

Thanks for your help.

[brenda_w_90803]

We are on the Coral this Sunday March 17th, 19 day Panama Canal. My cruise personalizer has only showed ship to shore phone minutes available, no internet packages at all are available for pre-purchase. We are Platinum and are hoping we will receive something towards internet. Has anyone been on the Coral since her upgrades and have any info on internet? 19 days would be a long time to not have communications with the home front. I called Princess and they said all of the ships have internet packages, so they had no answers to why my personalizer shows no package available.

 

[StLouisCruisers]

Yes, I am wondering how this affects the Platinum/Elite internet benefit?  If they try to take something away from us, there will be a riot!

 

Holland America rolled this new package out last year and I no longer buy internet because of it.  It was much better to pay by the minute, so much cheaper, too!

[Colo Cruiser]

53 minutes ago, brenda_w_90803 said:

We are on the Coral this Sunday March 17th, 19 day Panama Canal. My cruise personalizer has only showed ship to shore phone minutes available, no internet packages at all are available for pre-purchase. We are Platinum and are hoping we will receive something towards internet. Has anyone been on the Coral since her upgrades and have any info on internet? 19 days would be a long time to not have communications with the home front. I called Princess and they said all of the ships have internet packages, so they had no answers to why my personalizer shows no package available.

 

StLouisCruisers-

"Yes, I am wondering how this affects the Platinum/Elite internet benefit?  If they try to take something away from us, there will be a riot!

Holland America rolled this new package out last year and I no longer buy internet because of it.  It was much better to pay by the minute, so much cheaper, too"!

 

The Platinum/Elite free internet minutes are still available.

I believe the Coral still has the old internet system and they may be in transition to MedallionNet.

Brenda beside your free minutes, you will most likely be able to purchase additional minutes and or a package once onboard.

 

[jeeper2]

2 hours ago, brenda_w_90803 said:

We are on the Coral this Sunday March 17th, 19 day Panama Canal. My cruise personalizer has only showed ship to shore phone minutes available, no internet packages at all are available for pre-purchase. We are Platinum and are hoping we will receive something towards internet. Has anyone been on the Coral since her upgrades and have any info on internet? 19 days would be a long time to not have communications with the home front. I called Princess and they said all of the ships have internet packages, so they had no answers to why my personalizer shows no package available.

 

We are on the same cruise and my personalizer also shows only ship to shore minutes available, and no internet packages available for pre-purchase.  I’m sure they will have packages on board, but a heads up would be nice.  The ship goes Medallion on the cruise following ours.  I am curious how our service will be.  My husband and I each get the Platinum complimentary 250 minutes, but 500 minutes for 19 day is not a lot!

 

[masterty]

I took the Coral through the Panama Canal February 2018. Unlimited internet had just began. We has 3 flat rate unlimited packages. I began with the surf package and my DW had the social package. Within a couple of days we both had upgraded through the app hoping for better performance. Upgrade ads via the app popped up so in desperation we paid the difference to upgrade. As I remember the ad was $50 to upgrade Social to Surf and Surf to Premium or $100 for Social to Premium for the remainder of the voyage. The premium was not any different than the entry level as far as download speed is concerned. With Social most everything is blocked. Go up a tier to surf and your IMAP, POP, and SMTP server services as well as most website begin to work. Go up to premium and most all websites (even streaming) begin to allow access. But even a working Premium access connection. Streaming services on the satellite never worked enough to be usable. My DL speeds throughout the voyage never exceeded 0.10kB/s. It usually was 0.01-0.03kB/s most days.  Upload speeds however were lightning fast at 500-1,500 kB/s. Just remember even though you are paying for access to high bandwidth applications they will likely not function due to amount of throttling the IT department does. 

[roamerfromtexas]

The We are on the Royal repositioning cruise to LA.  Royal transitioned to Medalion.net 2 -7 day cruises(which we were on) before the embarkation of the 49 day cruise.  We are elite and were initially given 50 minutes total from the start of medallion.net to L. A.  I did manage to get the additional minutes for the 7day cruises added after explaining the problem.  The alternative was to purchase unlimited use and forgo the minutes.  The price , if purchased on embarkation day for the entire cruise, was $9.99 per day.  No additional discount was given to elite or platinum members.  This price was available to all cruisers.  If minutes were chosen and exhausted, there is no option to purchase additional minutes, only to pay $19.99 per day for the balance of the cruise.  With 14 days left on the 49 day cruise we have now been offered a package of unlimited use for the rest of the cruise for a total price of $109.00, again with no discount for elite or platinum.  Look like this benefit has disappeared!

[caribill]

11 hours ago, StLouisCruisers said:

Yes, I am wondering how this affects the Platinum/Elite internet benefit?  If they try to take something away from us, there will be a riot!

 

 

You still get your minutes, but if you sign up for an "unlimited" package (at the same price as those who are not Platinum/Elite), you lose your minutes. Yes, the benefit is then reduced to nothing. So far there have not been complaints posted on Cruise Critic about this.

 

If you are offered PrincessConnect, this uses the old pre-Medallion technology and thus the slow speeds you have been used to in the past. If you are offered MedallionNet, then it is using the fast high-speed technology.