Is internet package necessary?

[GoBucksGoPhilly]

I'll be on the Royal Princess 8/3-8/10. My wife and I will want to communicate with our kids back home in Ohio. Since we are cruising Alaska, is the internet package really necessary?

[TonyB17]

Personally, I'd say no.  You'll have access to the internet in each port and shipboard internet is notoriously slow.  We're planning on checking in on port days and being off line otherwise.  YMMV

 

[geoherb]

Check with your cell phone provider as to whether you'll have service in the ports. I had it in Juneau only, but my cell phone provider is not a great.  It also depends on if you want to communicate daily or just on port days.

[fishywood]

You will be incommunicado (unless you want to make a voice or text call over Cellular at Sea) in between Vancouver and Ketchikan. Unless you keep your device in airplane mode, or at least disable data roaming, you will pick up a data signal from rural Canada. If you want to use the internet that sea day you will have to buy a package. 

[Northern Aurora]

Just as in other locations around the world, coffee shops in Alaska often have wi-fi for customers.  By the time of your sailing in August the crew will will have recommendations as to where to find the wi-fi spots.

[karatemom2]

We were just on the Royal in May. The new MedallionNet program with unlimited internet was great for us. We wanted to be able to maintain regular contact with our college kids, check on our pets and also I needed to be connected for some work issues that were still requiring my attention. We used it for phone calls and Facetime and never had any issues. This was on a Pacific Coastal cruise and the internet service was very consistent and fast. Now that the ship is in Alaska, people on the Princess Board are reporting mixed results on the service. Some are reporting it is quite slow and others have said it works well. Here is a link to a thread about it:

 

 

[martincath]

Having just returned today from 10 days cruising around AK I'd agree that unless your kids have some extremely serious condition that means going a day without seeing your faces will cause major emotional trauma, you don't need any onboard package! There's free WiFi here and there in ports, tons of 'buy a coffee or beer and get a WiFi code' businesses, so it's really just your sea days that using a ship-based connection would be needed - so if the kids can survive on their own for a day without you, you don't need to be online at sea...and if they can't you need to bring them or stay home!!!! 😉

[karatemom2]

15 minutes ago, martincath said:

 - so if the kids can survive on their own for a day without you, you don't need to be online at sea...and if they can't you need to bring them or stay home!!!! 😉

 

Everyone is different - I feel a strong need to stay in contact with my kids at home on a daily basis. You might look down on that - but for me it is important to my ability to be able to relax and have fun knowing that we have reasonable ability to communicate with them. Without it, my anxiety would flare up and it would actually negatively impact my trip. I guess my point in saying this is that it isn't right to tell someone how they should act based on what works for you. Telling them to bring them or stay home if they can't travel without maintaining regular communication is just not really nice or helpful. Everyone has the right to vacation the way that works for them without being subjected to judgment - if someone wants internet connection the whole time and it is available that is a good thing for them!

[martincath]

5 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

Everyone is different - I feel a strong need to stay in contact with my kids at home on a daily basis. You might look down on that - but for me it is important to my ability to be able to relax and have fun knowing that we have reasonable ability to communicate with them. Without it, my anxiety would flare up and it would actually negatively impact my trip. I guess my point in saying this is that it isn't right to tell someone how they should act based on what works for you. Telling them to bring them or stay home if they can't travel without maintaining regular communication is just not really nice or helpful. Everyone has the right to vacation the way that works for them without being subjected to judgment - if someone wants internet connection the whole time and it is available that is a good thing for them!

I certainly don't 'look down' on anyone who's so tight with their family that they need to be in daily contact - if anything I feel sympathy for folks in that situation as it must be an ongoing problem that constantly compromises travel plans. I can only imagine how difficult it must be if you cannot spend even a day traveling without access to live contact with your family and certainly didn't intend any offence with my answer.

 

I will suggest that you re-read my post though, especially the winky-face at the end, since this is a universal indicator of humour on the internet... I hope that it's obvious to the vast majority of readers that I'm not being serious, as adding extra people/canceling a cruise with less than a month to go is a ridiculous response to a situation where just paying for internet access onboard would obviously be much, much cheaper and easier!

 

Anyone sharing your view on this topic would be unlikely to phrase a question the way that OP did - they didn't say anything about needing to be in contact, but only wanting to be in contact, and gave absolutely no indication of the frequency of that contact. I take a question worded in that fashion to mean that they want to be able to reach their family at least a few times while away but don't require constant contact - anyone who literally cannot go a day without contact would use far more urgent and specific wording, as you yourself did in your post. If the question had been couched like your post above was, I'd have answered differently - I may be snarky but I'm not a total asshat generally-speaking.

[SuperCrewBear]

I've only been on two Alaskan cruises (several other trips to Alaska though) and on each I bought an unlimited internet package.  The 1st cruise, it worked well - I would say 95% of the time.  The 2nd cruise, it worked about 2 days out of 7.  Internet service on the Alaskan cruise ships seems to be spotty from what I have seen here on CC.  If a person is going with the expectation that it will work just like at home, you're possibly going to be very disappointed.  My cellphone worked just fine in all the ports except for Victoria on the 2nd cruise - on the first cruise I was in both Vancouver and Victoria and my phone worked just like I was at home without a special package with my phone company.  The 2nd time in Victoria I had no phone service whatsoever.  I could hop on wifi around town if I needed it thought.  Good luck!

[masterdrago]

It's all really very personal as some of the posts here show. I can go days without touching my phone which I did most of the time on our May 16th land tour and cruise. Only time I noticed an issue was 1st night on ship, it went to ships cell service, roaming and trying to update apps and on Universal Time (GMT). And then again odd service in Vancouver. I kept it off most of the time except when I knew I had cell service and wanted to look at Weather Underground for forecast. I just got my Verizon bill and it showed no anomalies. DW on the other hand was having FB withdrawal 2nd day so I got her the streaming Voom service (~$100 for entire cruise).

[annee]

If you decide to not buy a ship internet package just watch where the crew go. Usually the first thing they do when they get off the ship is find WiFi close to the port.