Can you access VPN sites on Voyager out of CPH?

[kccrzr]

My husband needs to access his work through VPN.  He had no issue doing so on 3 ships out of Florida this year.  But now we are on Jewel out of Amsterdam and he can’t access his work site (needless to say, he is not too happy).   Does anyone have experience trying to access through vpn  on Voyager out of Copenhagen?  We have a cruised book next month. Thanks. 

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, kccrzr said:

Does anyone have experience trying to access through vpn  on Voyager out of Copenhagen?

You might want to ask this in some of the upcoming Voyager Roll Call threads - VPN access may depend on the specifics of the connection. Talk to the Voom specialist on board Jewel to see if there's something to be done to fix the issue.

[smokeybandit]

I don't know, but not being able to access work materials wouldn't make me unhappy at all

[pstone1]

12 minutes ago, kccrzr said:

My husband needs to access his work through VPN.  He had no issue doing so on 3 ships out of Florida this year.  But now we are on Jewel out of Amsterdam and he can’t access his work site (needless to say, he is not too happy).   Does anyone have experience trying to access through vpn  on Voyager out of Copenhagen?  We have a cruised book next month. Thanks. 

We will be boarding Jewel next month and I will also need to VPN.  Can you please tell me what the ship’s IT person told you if you asked?  Thank you!

[RobInMN]

I am also currently on Jewel and using ExpressVPN just fine.

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by RobInMN

[rudeney]

5 minutes ago, RobInMN said:

I am also currently on Jewel and using ExpressVPN just fine.

 

 

That's a "public" VPN -  @kccrzr needs to access an employer's office VPN.  Those often use odd ports and protocols, and sometimes need to open multiple ports.  My office uses a Fortinet firewall with the FortiClient for VPN access.  I find that about 1/3 of the time, it won't work on public wifi services because they block the ports it uses.  

[RobInMN]

7 hours ago, rudeney said:

 

That's a "public" VPN -  @kccrzr needs to access an employer's office VPN.  Those often use odd ports and protocols, and sometimes need to open multiple ports.  My office uses a Fortinet firewall with the FortiClient for VPN access.  I find that about 1/3 of the time, it won't work on public wifi services because they block the ports it uses.  

True, but without knowing their employer, the VPN being used, or the list of ports, I'm not sure there's any way to tell if their experience on Jewel will be the same on Voyager. 

Just sayin', it's not some total block of VPNs. That should be at least a tiny bit helpful.

[Tatka]

9 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I don't know, but not being able to access work materials wouldn't make me unhappy at all

 

If it is not your working day. 😉 I have some from time to time.

[rudeney]

23 minutes ago, RobInMN said:

True, but without knowing their employer, the VPN being used, or the list of ports, I'm not sure there's any way to tell if their experience on Jewel will be the same on Voyager. 

Just sayin', it's not some total block of VPNs. That should be at least a tiny bit helpful.

 

That's right - they can't really block VPNs, but they can block ports that are not commonly used by web apps, and corporate VPNs often use oddball ports.  I don't believe they do this to prevent VPN access, though.  It's probably that they are trying to limit hacking by cutting down on the number of open ports.

[kccrzr]

On 6/21/2022 at 1:41 PM, pstone1 said:

We will be boarding Jewel next month and I will also need to VPN.  Can you please tell me what the ship’s IT person told you if you asked?  Thank you!

He spoke to multiple people including the  top IT person twice, he was told by various people (including the IT person  and the Loyalty Ambassador) that the RCI system on all ships blocks vpn access. They said there was nothing they could do to allow him access even though he explained several times that the IT system on 3 other ships allowed him to access his work site so this was not a fleet-wide issue/policy. 

[Cigar King]

Pre-Covid I have used both the SSL/VPN and the Cisco client with no problems.

[rudeney]

1 hour ago, kccrzr said:

He spoke to multiple people including the  top IT person twice, he was told by various people (including the IT person  and the Loyalty Ambassador) that the RCI system on all ships blocks vpn access. They said there was nothing they could do to allow him access even though he explained several times that the IT system on 3 other ships allowed him to access his work site so this was not a fleet-wide issue/policy. 

 

I think that the IT and LA people on that ship were simply providing incorrect information.  There is no way to block "VPN" access.  Some VPN's use standard WWW browser ports.  But many use oddball ports, and as I've said before, the ships likely block ports that are not used by most common Internet apps (browsers, streaming services, etc.)  It may be that the IT team on different ships chooses to block different ports, and that's why sometimes it works. 

 

Not only do I have my own VPN in my house, and one for connecting to my office, I also routinely connect to my clients' networks via their VPNs.  I often do have issues connecting to some of these from airport and hotels and even client sites when I travel.  I do have one client that uses a completely browser-based solution.  You login to their VPN in a browser window, and then all network resources (shared drives, servers, RDP hosts, etc.) are available within that browser session.  It's nice because it's totally portable with no need to install a VPN client and it's never blocked.  

[darthvadrouw]

Unless they improved something since April, just accessing the Internet on Voyager is a miracle.

[pstone1]

4 hours ago, kccrzr said:

He spoke to multiple people including the  top IT person twice, he was told by various people (including the IT person  and the Loyalty Ambassador) that the RCI system on all ships blocks vpn access. They said there was nothing they could do to allow him access even though he explained several times that the IT system on 3 other ships allowed him to access his work site so this was not a fleet-wide issue/policy. 

Thanks for the report!  I have no trouble accessing my work VPN from Hotels or other public WiFi’s, so perhaps it will work.  Just in case, I’ll bring a thumb-drive with my hard drive saved on it.  I only have to work about 10 hours a week which shouldn’t be too hard!  I am training my eventual replacement though and it would help if I could access our shared drive via VPN.

[kccrzr]

On 6/22/2022 at 10:43 PM, pstone1 said:

Thanks for the report!  I have no trouble accessing my work VPN from Hotels or other public WiFi’s, so perhaps it will work.  Just in case, I’ll bring a thumb-drive with my hard drive saved on it.  I only have to work about 10 hours a week which shouldn’t be too hard!  I am training my eventual replacement though and it would help if I could access our shared drive via VPN.

My husband has never had an issue at hotels, airports or even other RCI ships -  that is why this is so curious (and maddening).  Hope your work-around solution works for you and that Voyager’s system works for my husband. He works on projects with huge CAD files that are revised frequently so he needs realtime access. 

[pstone1]

55 minutes ago, kccrzr said:

My husband has never had an issue at hotels, airports or even other RCI ships -  that is why this is so curious (and maddening).  Hope your work-around solution works for you and that Voyager’s system works for my husband. He works on projects with huge CAD files that are revised frequently so he needs realtime access. 

Thanks!  I hope so too!  Definitely frustrating!  I hope Voyager works for both of us!  😀

[Charles4515]

2 hours ago, pstone1 said:

Thanks!  I hope so too!  Definitely frustrating!  I hope Voyager works for both of us!  😀

 

I have found over the years that I can't count on anything as far as the internet on cruise ships. Even the same ship a year later. With VPNs one year they work, the next year they don't, then they do again.Also ship location , the farther north the worse the internet quality.