Internet Perk may be worthless and no recourse

[acesneights99]

I eventually used my phone as a hot spot in Key West. But that was 3 days late.

 

Why should I move on and lose all the benefits I have with Celebrity?

 

The squeaky wheel gets the grease and there's no better place to squeak than Cruisecritic.

 

My purpose was to alert everyone that with the new 0,2,4 perk plan, you can easily see what the "free" perks cost. 

 

Another angle is that by paying for Internet with a credit card, you can initiate a chargeback if Celebrity won't offer any help.

 

So, from now on, it's 2 perks and pay for Internet.

[gatour]

First off, since you are talking about submitting things in regards to class assignments.  I am guessing you are needing a VPN type of connection to do this .  Royal Caribbean has been locking down VPN connections based on protocols over the last few years.  It varies ship by ship.  You may have run into this.

 

Anyone who absolutely needs a "full" Internet connection during a certain time frame should not book a cruise that takes place in that time frame. 

 

Ever since Internet became available connections could be problematic and onboard staff didn't have a clue about resolving the issue.  Back in the early "oughts" I was onboard a Med cruise, I became the defacto  tech support for a few fellow passengers (including one needing to use VPN).  Worked out great for me as I got a few free glasses of wine (this was back in the days before unlimited drink packages)

 

I have done over 15 Royal Caribbean cruises, along with many Carnival and Princess cruises, throw in a few Disney and one Holland America.  One thing I have learned a long time ago is that customer service is not any of their strong suits.  Although some have gotten a bit better in regards to cruises being cancelled.

[gatour]

4 minutes ago, acesneights99 said:

I eventually used my phone as a hot spot in Key West. But that was 3 days late.

 

Why should I move on and lose all the benefits I have with Celebrity?

 

The squeaky wheel gets the grease and there's no better place to squeak than Cruisecritic.

 

My purpose was to alert everyone that with the new 0,2,4 perk plan, you can easily see what the "free" perks cost. 

 

Another angle is that by paying for Internet with a credit card, you can initiate a chargeback if Celebrity won't offer any help.

 

So, from now on, it's 2 perks and pay for Internet.

All of your ranting caused the above part of your message to get lost.

 

If I was a Celebrity newbie the above quoted would have been the most meaningful.

[acesneights99]

Just now, gatour said:

First off, since you are talking about submitting things in regards to class assignments.  I am guessing you are needing a VPN type of connection to do this .  Royal Caribbean has been locking down VPN connections based on protocols over the last few years.  It varies ship by ship.  You may have run into this.

 

Anyone who absolutely needs a "full" Internet connection during a certain time frame should not book a cruise that takes place in that time frame. 

 

Ever since Internet became available connections could be problematic and onboard staff didn't have a clue about resolving the issue.  Back in the early "oughts" I was onboard a Med cruise, I became the defacto  tech support for a few fellow passengers (including one needing to use VPN).  Worked out great for me as I got a few free glasses of wine (this was back in the days before unlimited drink packages)

 

I have done over 15 Royal Caribbean cruises, along with many Carnival and Princess cruises, throw in a few Disney and one Holland America.  One thing I have learned a long time ago is that customer service is not any of their strong suits.  Although some have gotten a bit better in regards to cruises being cancelled.

 

I'm not using or needing a VPN. 

 

Celebrity Internet has worked on every other cruise and ship except Infinity.

 

I had no reason to suspect that this cruise would be any different.

 

Everything worked perfectly for 15 days from Santiago to  San Diego on Eclipse 2 days later.

 

I didn't need a full-time Internet connection. I just needed one that would work for 15-30 minutes. Even if I had to log back into an exam 3 times that might take 10 min off of 70. Since I can usually finish these exams in 40-50 min, it would have been workable.

 

I am virtually certain there was a router problem.  I could have probably managed to use a Mac if I could turn off 2-factor authentication.

 

My point was to publicize the problems on Infinity and with Customer Service.

 

My hope was that Celebrity would read this thread and consider trying to recover what was truly impressive customer service.

 

And if not, well I wanted to warn fellow passengers.

[Bo1953]

1 minute ago, acesneights99 said:

 

I'm not using or needing a VPN. 

 

Celebrity Internet has worked on every other cruise and ship except Infinity.

 

I had no reason to suspect that this cruise would be any different.

 

----------------------

And if not, well I wanted to warn fellow passengers.

Warning heeded, thank you very much for your postings on this.

 

bon voyage

[acesneights99]

12 minutes ago, gatour said:

All of your ranting caused the above part of your message to get lost.

 

If I was a Celebrity newbie the above quoted would have been the most meaningful.

 

You are absolutely right. Should I start a new thread with just this information?

 

It took me a while to get on track.

[jelayne]

2 hours ago, acesneights99 said:

Many other passengers complained. The iLounge staff could not fix the problem.

 

ALL MY DEVICES worked perfectly 2 days later on the Eclipse!!! For 15 DAYS straight.

 

You may be right that there is nothing Celebrity will do. In fact, they have done nothing.

 

But it is my First Amendment right to spread the truth about Celebrity Internet on Cruise Critic.

 

Interesting that you had no problems on the Eclipse for 15 days.  I think we were on the same sailing (3/24 from San Antonio) our Internet was great for about 6-7days and then we experienced dropping of the connection when we were around Costa Rica and Mexico.  

 

We have cruised a number of cruises lines and have yet to find internet that is reliable 100% of the time regardless of where we were in the world or where we were on a ship or how much traffic there was on the internet.  IMHO that  would be a unrealistic expectation.

 

I hope you find a cruise line that meets your needs.

[Luvcrusn]

1 hour ago, acesneights99 said:

 

I'm not using or needing a VPN. 

 

Celebrity Internet has worked on every other cruise and ship except Infinity.

 

I had no reason to suspect that this cruise would be any different.

 

Everything worked perfectly for 15 days from Santiago to  San Diego on Eclipse 2 days later.

 

I didn't need a full-time Internet connection. I just needed one that would work for 15-30 minutes. Even if I had to log back into an exam 3 times that might take 10 min off of 70. Since I can usually finish these exams in 40-50 min, it would have been workable.

 

I am virtually certain there was a router problem.  I could have probably managed to use a Mac if I could turn off 2-factor authentication.

 

My point was to publicize the problems on Infinity and with Customer Service.

 

My hope was that Celebrity would read this thread and consider trying to recover what was truly impressive customer service.

 

And if not, well I wanted to warn fellow passengers.

Cruise Critic allows us all to vent our feelings, share information and learn from others fortunes and misfortunes.  I'd suggest that the best way to get results from X is not posting here in the hope that X will read the post and take action. You might be better served to send a letter (not email) to X that in addition to describing your troubles with WIFI on your recent cruise (registered tends to attract attention) calmly voices your concerns both with the WIFI on board and the lack of customer service along with the names of crew members you felt dealt with you in a poor manner. Good luck.

Edited April 15, 2019 by Luvcrusn

[acesneights99]

1 hour ago, jelayne said:

 

Interesting that you had no problems on the Eclipse for 15 days.  I think we were on the same sailing (3/24 from San Antonio) our Internet was great for about 6-7days and then we experienced dropping of the connection when we were around Costa Rica and Mexico.  

 

We have cruised a number of cruises lines and have yet to find internet that is reliable 100% of the time regardless of where we were in the world or where we were on a ship or how much traffic there was on the internet.  IMHO that  would be a unrealistic expectation.

 

I hope you find a cruise line that meets your needs.

I don't expect 100%, however as far as I could tell Eclipse 3-24 was 100%, never dropped, never failed to connect. Of course, I paid for it. 

 

OTH, I don't expect ZERO percent either. And, I don't expect to be blown off by Customer Service either.

 

The moral is, don't get 4 perks. Get 2 and buy Internet. If you charged it separately on your credit card, you can send your final account statement to your bank and initiate a chargeback. That should get Celebrity's attention.

 

[jelayne]

1 minute ago, acesneights99 said:

I don't expect 100%, however as far as I could tell Eclipse 3-24 was 100%, never dropped, never failed to connect. Of course, I paid for it. 

 

it seems your experience on the Eclipse was better than ours,  just as some on the Infinity had a better experience than you.  There were times on the Eclipse  I could connect and DH couldn’t get connected, moral for me is don’t plan on doing anything time sensitive while on a ship.

 

 

[acesneights99]

51 minutes ago, Luvcrusn said:

Cruise Critic allows us all to vent our feelings, share information and learn from others fortunes and misfortunes.  I'd suggest that the best way to get results from X is not posting here in the hope that X will read the post and take action. You might be better served to send a letter (not email) to X that in addition to describing your troubles with WIFI on your recent cruise (registered tends to attract attention) calmly voices your concerns both with the WIFI on board and the lack of customer service along with the names of crew members you felt dealt with you in a poor manner. Good luck.

 

None of the crew members dealt with me in a poor manner. All they can do is check your settings. If everything is OK, as was evidenced by the 15 days of perfect Internet on Eclipse. There is literally nothing they can do. Hopefully, when Infinity goes in for refurbishing, the will use more and better routers or access points.

 

Until then, beware of needing Internet access on Infinity. And if you must have it, don't get it as a PERK. Pay for it and keep the chargeback in your back pocket, for use if Customer Service won't help.

 

 

[acesneights99]

1 minute ago, jelayne said:

 

it seems your experience on the Eclipse was better than ours,  just as some on the Infinity had a better experience than you.  There were times on the Eclipse  I could connect and DH couldn’t get connected, moral for me is don’t plan on doing anything time sensitive while on a ship.

 

 

I understand your point, but time sensitive might be a 2 or 3 day window. I understand Infinity's Internet was flaky. I really object to their attitude that it was a PERK, so it was FREE, too bad, so sad. If the PERKS are FREE why do they have 3 levels of pricing per cabin? 0,2,4 Perks. 

[WestLakeGirl]

Didnt we read about this in posts from you on March 26?  What is gained by reposting?

[jkgourmet]

Dude, even IF Celebrity reads this, they have no way of knowing your name or how to contact you.  

 

WTH did we all do 15 years ago when internet wasn't available?  I think we cruised and had a better time. 

[jagoffee]

10 hours ago, acesneights99 said:

I don't expect 100%, however as far as I could tell Eclipse 3-24 was 100%, never dropped, never failed to connect. Of course, I paid for it. 

 

OTH, I don't expect ZERO percent either. And, I don't expect to be blown off by Customer Service either.

 

The moral is, don't get 4 perks. Get 2 and buy Internet. If you charged it separately on your credit card, you can send your final account statement to your bank and initiate a chargeback. That should get Celebrity's attention.

 

It is obvious that you are upset.  You have admitted that you  had good internet on the next cruise.  And perhaps other Celebrity cruises.  I  have been on many Celebrity cruises and I have always found the internet to be acceptable.  (Although the quality does vary)

 

Depending on the price of the four perk package,  I think you are giving questionable advice.  What are the odds that you will have problems with the internet?  You also get the upgrade to the Premium package and either OBC or gratuity with the four perks.  Of course it is not free.  

 

Perhaps the Four perk pricing might be a great deal even without the internet.

 

Are you suggesting that if you had purchased the unlimited internet package, you would have requested a refund early in your cruise?  If yes, maybe you would have been successful.  If you waited to the end of the cruise, I am not so sure.  

 

 

10 hours ago, acesneights99 said:

I understand your point, but time sensitive might be a 2 or 3 day window. I understand Infinity's Internet was flaky. I really object to their attitude that it was a PERK, so it was FREE, too bad, so sad. If the PERKS are FREE why do they have 3 levels of pricing per cabin? 0,2,4 Perks. 

Of course it is not free.  I give Celebrity credit for doing away with the BBB bundle pricing and replacing it with the 0,2, and 4 pricing.  At least everyone knows they are paying for the perks.  So no, the perks are not free.  Now if Celebrity was running a special today that said to pay the 2 perk price and get four perks, some of the perks would be free.

 

The difficulty for Celebrity would be to figure out an individual price for each element of the four perks and the Premium upgrade.  

 

I am truly sorry that that you had so much trouble with your internet on this cruise.  Although some people on the same cruise did not.  It does seem to be a “big take-away” from your cruise experience, which is too bad.

Edited April 15, 2019 by jagoffee

[bEwAbG]

The best advice is for you to contact them in writing as suggested above.  Take the emotion out of your letter (don't focus on the "I've sailed 19 times!" point & stop working yourself up over your phone interaction).  Keep it on topic and to the point. Suggest a reasonable solution.  They're not going to give you hundreds of dollars in OBC or a free cruise.  You also have to concede that you did have partial usage of the product throughout your entire cruise; just not for the purpose you intended. 

 

Don't threaten that you'll post your rantings far & wide because there's no better way to get them to tune out than if you're being rude to them.  Once you write the letter, let a disinterested third party proofread it for you and then take their suggestions.  Don't lash out at them like you've lashed out at most people on this thread.  The pushback you're receiving on this board is because you're coming across as unreasonable.

Edited April 15, 2019 by bEwAbG

[Straughn]

I am going to come to the defense of the OP. I did a B2B on Infinity from March 16-25 (9 nights).  I chose to take advantage of my 240 minutes as an Elite+ benefit, on each leg of the cruise, rather than purchase an Internet package. To say getting connected and downloading email and social media sites was mind numbingly slow is being generous. I didn’t need to do any business or have any other must do issues, but, based on my experience, I can only imagine  how someone who did need to do that felt. It wasn’t a matter of location around the ship. I tried in several locations: my cabin, Cafe Al Baccio, the pool deck, Constellation Lounge, the Ocean View. All had the same result: -s-l-o-w.  As this was my fifteenth Celebrity Cruise, I can comfortably say that the Wi-Fi on Infinity is awful. 

 

Let me be clear. I don’t expect lightning fast wi-if on any cruise ship. It isn’t my home set up with, at most,  two people using it at the same time. But compared to my experience on Silhouette, Equinox, and Solstice, the Wi-Fi on Infinity is bad.

 

How the OP chooses to handle his dissatisfaction, is a whole nother issue. And I do agree that Celebrity’s advertising two or four free perks, when the prices increase depending on the selection, as free,  is deceptive. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Straughn
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[bigbadandugly]

On 4/14/2019 at 1:29 PM, acesneights99 said:

The routers would drop the connection every 2-3 min. Even in the iLounge! Only iLounge Macs worked because they were hardwired. The connection SPEED was OK. The WiFi was non-existent. All of the devices we had on Infinity worked for 15 days straight, no drops on Eclipse, 3 days later.

 

I could not even upload small documents because, by the time I got the upload page and was ready to click submit, the connection would be dropped.

 

Also, 8 Macs for 2200 passengers is nearly useless. Plus the iMacs wipe your session so 2-factor authentication was impossible.

 

Sounds like your Internet addiction makes you better suited to a land-based vacation. Try Disney World.

[acesneights99]

1 minute ago, bigbadandugly said:

 

Sounds like your Internet addiction makes you better suited to a land-based vacation. Try Disney World.

 

So, if you need an hour of consistent Internet access in a week to do certain work tasks, you should skip cruising? An hour a week makes you an addict? 

 

You might want to stay away from the aspirin. I hear it's more addictive than crack.