Horizon - Power/Network/Internet Issues

[Duck Down]

We are currently on the Horizon heading back to Miami from the Southern ABC itinerary.

 

It has been an odd week with Power/Network/Internet issues. Aside from the poor internet speeds, most of the other issues were minor annoyances. When looking everything as a whole, something is going on with this ship. 

 

1. We noticed while sitting in the Limelight Lounge that every so often the lights would surge or flicker. Also noticed it in the dining room and Liquid Lounge.

 

 2. The first night at dinner the dining room was packed and the wait staff had to manually put in the dinner tickets as the system was down.

 

 3. Every day the cabin TV would reboot itself after being unresponsive. Not sure of the cause.

 

 4. There was a major network outage one afternoon/evening. Cabin IP phones were down for 3-4 hours. There were announcements to use the elevator area phones in case of emergency. The App went partially down, and the dinner reservations had to be done manually in person. Again, the ordering system was down for the wait staff and they had to manually put in the food tickets. 

 

 5. We both have the Premium internet package. Speeds were ok for the first day, but then dropped to an absolute crawl. 0.01 mbps download with a ping of 2971. You would think a fairly newer ship would have better internet. One to two minute delay for a simple google search. No streaming. Tried YouTube a couple of times and hard to get anything better than 144p. Even with that 144P would take forever, and would often freeze. I was able to use my Company VPN to access the company network, but it was super slow to do anything at all. I even tried at 6 AM and it was not any better.

 

Overall we are avid Carnival cruisers/promoters, and this cruise was still better than not cruising.

[Guest BasicSailor]

Noticed that on quite a few ships, nothing new really.

[emm126]

Hate to hear this. I was supposed to be on the Horizon last December for 8 nights but the cruise was cancelled so we went on the Freedom for 6 nights. I rebooked same 8 night cruise in October. Hope we don't get cancelled again.. 

[chengkp75]

16 hours ago, Duck Down said:

1. We noticed while sitting in the Limelight Lounge that every so often the lights would surge or flicker. Also noticed it in the dining room and Liquid Lounge.

What was the ship doing at these times?  This is usually indicative of rapidly changing load (entering or leaving port, so massive changes in propulsion, or thrusters), or the system adding or taking off a generator to maximize efficiency.  Electrical demand is instantaneous, but the engines driving the generators are mechanical, and have a small reaction time, during which the engine/generator slows down very slightly, and this causes the frequency of the power to vary, causing the lights to dim and brighten.  Very common.

[Colorado Beach Bum]

19 hours ago, BasicSailor said:

Noticed that on quite a few ships, nothing new really.

We had zero issues with internet or anything else described on Horizon in July.  

[Duck Down]

3 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

What was the ship doing at these times?  This is usually indicative of rapidly changing load (entering or leaving port, so massive changes in propulsion, or thrusters), or the system adding or taking off a generator to maximize efficiency.  Electrical demand is instantaneous, but the engines driving the generators are mechanical, and have a small reaction time, during which the engine/generator slows down very slightly, and this causes the frequency of the power to vary, causing the lights to dim and brighten.  Very common.

Makes sense. The lighting changes happened when at sea and while in port. 

[Mr305]

Any A/C issues?  We experienced rolling A/C outages in public areas during our July/August cruise.  Lido was unbearable most days due to a lack of cooling.  Internet was abysmal the entire trip.  Had a great time, no power issues.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Mr305

[LaRue1975]

We’ll be on the Panorama in two weeks. A few days ago we got an e-mail from Carnival saying they were having trouble with their satellite provider and would be refunding the cost of the internet package to our onboard account. They also gave the option to purchase on board on a daily basis at the reduced pre-purchase price. 
 

I read it to mean our internet service is terrible and we don’t want everyone clogging up the guest services line to complain and request a refund. I am not sure if is a West Coast problem or fleet wide. 

[Seashell337]

We were on this same Horizon cruise. We had early dinner - so we didn’t notice the issue the first night. We had a quick dinner in the DR with no issues. 
 

The TV’s did reset everyday. But it wasn’t a huge problem. You simply turned the tv off and then back on. It came back up to the main tv screen after that. (I wonder if this was a way Carnival has to keep people from leaving their TV’s on all the time?)

 We didn’t experience any of the AC problems either. I was worried about that as I had read several reports of those issues. 
 

One of the port days the internet, tv’s and phones were down for several hours. I had the social internet package - so I was just sending pics on instagram. I didn’t have problems with it for a long time. 
 
 We had a blast! We were on a cruise! 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Seashell337
Added

[Pellaz]

Remember that Internet service is also dependent on where the ship is sailing and satellite coverage, and that could also have been a factor.  

[Duck Down]

On 9/24/2022 at 9:11 PM, Mr305 said:

Any A/C issues?  We experienced rolling A/C outages in public areas during our July/August cruise.  Lido was unbearable most days due to a lack of cooling.  Internet was abysmal the entire trip.  Had a great time, no power issues.

We did notice the ship was warm in a lot of the areas including the comedy lounge and buffet. We booked late and were in an inside cabin on deck 1. Our cabin was like a freezer. We had to adjust the setting as it was too cold.

[Seashell337]

I did talk to someone with a room on Deck 2 that said their room was really cold too. 
 

DH said the entry/exit areas on Lido, 11 and Serenity/Spa were hot and humid. He put it down to the folding doors opening and closing so much.