Magic Wi-Fi question

[matymil]

Has anyone tried the wifi on the Magic after the drydock? Ive never been on a Dream class ship before so im not sure what to expect as far as speeds go. The Vista was the only ship we've been on that had decent wifi. We just need to be able to stream a couple of kids videos in case of meltdown. Also please if you read this and want to lecture me about getting the wifi package, please save it. TIA 

[ChrisNCruiser]

4 hours ago, matymil said:

Has anyone tried the wifi on the Magic after the drydock? Ive never been on a Dream class ship before so im not sure what to expect as far as speeds go. The Vista was the only ship we've been on that had decent wifi. We just need to be able to stream a couple of kids videos in case of meltdown. Also please if you read this and want to lecture me about getting the wifi package, please save it. TIA 

We had the Premium Wifi package on the 8/21 Magic sailing. I'm not sure if you're referring to streaming videos on sites such as Netflix or YouTube, or if you're referring to face-time with your kids so I'll try to answer both 🙂

 

• Netflix, YouTube, etc: Netflix would pull up on our phones / browsers and would technically start playing eventually, but the quality was so low that the picture frequently went out and you could only hear it. We tried this as an experiment throughout the day and evening and got the same results, regardless of whether we were at a port / on the ocean. We had slightly better luck with YouTube but it still fell into the 'quality is so low it's not working well enough to consider' category.
• Facetiming: more effective than Netflix / YouTube, but still kinda choppy.

Otherwise, standard websites usually pulled up quickly with occasional lag, depending on the time of day, etc. This was the first time we had tried the Premium package and it was notably and consistently faster than the mid-tier plan for browsing.

[matymil]

6 hours ago, newpherchris said:

We had the Premium Wifi package on the 8/21 Magic sailing. I'm not sure if you're referring to streaming videos on sites such as Netflix or YouTube, or if you're referring to face-time with your kids so I'll try to answer both 🙂

 

• Netflix, YouTube, etc: Netflix would pull up on our phones / browsers and would technically start playing eventually, but the quality was so low that the picture frequently went out and you could only hear it. We tried this as an experiment throughout the day and evening and got the same results, regardless of whether we were at a port / on the ocean. We had slightly better luck with YouTube but it still fell into the 'quality is so low it's not working well enough to consider' category.
• Facetiming: more effective than Netflix / YouTube, but still kinda choppy.

Otherwise, standard websites usually pulled up quickly with occasional lag, depending on the time of day, etc. This was the first time we had tried the Premium package and it was notably and consistently faster than the mid-tier plan for browsing.

Yeah I meant YouTube. Thank you very much I appreciate it

[groundloop]

6 hours ago, newpherchris said:

 

• Netflix, YouTube, etc: Netflix would pull up on our phones / browsers and would technically start playing eventually, but the quality was so low that the picture frequently went out and you could only hear it. We tried this as an experiment throughout the day and evening and got the same results, regardless of whether we were at a port / on the ocean.......

 

Sounds like the same experience I've had with "premium" wifi on every Carnival cruise I've been on.  I was hoping that somehow they had improved - we're going to be on Magic in a couple of more weeks.

[ProgRockCruiser]

1 hour ago, groundloop said:

 

Sounds like the same experience I've had with "premium" wifi on every Carnival cruise I've been on.  I was hoping that somehow they had improved - we're going to be on Magic in a couple of more weeks.

Unfortunately, it is all about the available bandwidth.  There is only so much "pipe" available between the ship and the satellites, and some of that is reserved for ship operations, and with many people on board now wanting to use the wifi to stay connected or stream video etc, then there is only so much that each device is going to be allotted. 

 

Maybe when Musk's Starlink goes public, that might help, if the cruise lines opt to utilize that.

[Solo1959]

I just got off the Magic this morning. WiFi kind of depended where I was when using it. I originally had an aft cabin on deck 2, very aft, window looking at the wake. My WiFi speed was 15mps. They moved me to a balcony cabin 7433 where I could barely connect at all and it was painfully slow. On Lido deck and Deck 11 speed was about 5mps.

 

So they do have good WiFi but they don't have the access points covering the whole ship.

[Bostwick girl]

53 minutes ago, Solo1959 said:

I just got off the Magic this morning. WiFi kind of depended where I was when using it. I originally had an aft cabin on deck 2, very aft, window looking at the wake. My WiFi speed was 15mps. They moved me to a balcony cabin 7433 where I could barely connect at all and it was painfully slow. On Lido deck and Deck 11 speed was about 5mps.

 

So they do have good WiFi but they don't have the access points covering the whole ship.

also got off the Magic this morning, and we were on deck 2. Noticed the corridor was closed off by the aft elevators and wondered what was going on. We figured they may have been using those for isolation rooms. I’m assuming they told you why they moved you. I didn’t have WiFi but my friend had the social media and that worked great. I was really surprised at how well the Hub app worked.

, 

[Solo1959]

1 minute ago, Bostwick girl said:

also got off the Magic this morning, and we were on deck 2. Noticed the corridor was closed off by the aft elevators and wondered what was going on. We figured they may have been using those for isolation rooms. I’m assuming they told you why they moved you. I didn’t have WiFi but my friend had the social media and that worked great. I was really surprised at how well the Hub app worked.

, 

I got moved because they said they needed to do major maintenance in that area. Probably lowering the WiFi speed, lol. Just kidding.

[Bostwick girl]

1 minute ago, Solo1959 said:

I got moved because they said they needed to do major maintenance in that area. Probably lowering the WiFi speed, lol. Just kidding.

That’s what our steward told my friend too. Don’t know if you noticed or not but the forward end was blocked off too.

 

[Solo1959]

Yes, I did notice that the front was also blocked off. My usual room is 2216, a 1A solo with a porthole. So I tried to walk past it to say hello. But it was closed off. Most of those rooms are porthole cabins. Four of them are small 1A. They are using that area for staff. I don't know if they are using it to isolate staff with covid or just to spread staff out to minimize double bunking for them. But it supposedly was being used for staff this cruise and the rooms were unavailable for booking.