Accessing commercial websites on board HAL ships

[Coyote Chris]

I was told on another forum that I would not be allowed to access commercial websites from the K-dam's paid internet wifi. This would be like ebay, amazon, Home shopping network, ticketmaster, etc.

Can anyone confirm or deny they were able to do this and make purchases?

[The-Inside-Cabin]

2 hours ago, Coyote Chris said:

I was told on another forum that I would not be allowed to access commercial websites from the K-dam's paid internet wifi. This would be like ebay, amazon, Home shopping network, ticketmaster, etc.

Can anyone confirm or deny they were able to do this and make purchases?

You posted the same question 12 hours ago and got an answer

 

 

[Coyote Chris]

6 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

You posted the same question 12 hours ago and got an answer

 

 

Wow....thanks!!!!!  Important info!  I will make a note of it. couldnt make the link work but I believe you.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

9 minutes ago, Coyote Chris said:

Wow....thanks!!!!!  Important info!  I will make a note of it. couldnt make the link work but I believe you.

google Holland America Internet...it will be your first option

[REOVA]

HAL's network does restrict VPNs and some commercial websites but you should be able to use those commercial sites. HOWEVER, remember on HAL's network any purchases or personal information entered may not always be secured. You may be safer using your phone protocol on shore. 

[Lido deck main]

5 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

You posted the same question 12 hours ago and got an answer

 

 

It was also posted on the other unnamed site.

[Wakepatrol]

[IPB4IGO]

7 hours ago, REOVA said:

HAL's network does restrict VPNs and some commercial websites but you should be able to use those commercial sites. HOWEVER, remember on HAL's network any purchases or personal information entered may not always be secured. You may be safer using your phone protocol on shore. 

We took four cruises, on four different HAL ships, this year. In three of the four cruises my VPN worked, but not in the fourth (the first cruise). Interestingly, the cruise on which my VPN would load, Wi-Fi Calling would not work on my phone although it did on the other cruises. 

 

That said, our most recent cruise, on the full Koningsdam, the Internet was so slow that web pages usually would not complete loading and would often time out before even starting to load.

 

We had the Premium Internet plan in all cases.

 

Now, I just have to sit home and save money for the next couple years to return to cruising. Sigh...

[REOVA]

3 minutes ago, IPB4IGO said:

We took four cruises, on four different HAL ships, this year. In three of the four cruises my VPN worked, but not in the fourth (the first cruise). Interestingly, the cruise on which my VPN would load, Wi-Fi Calling would not work on my phone although it did on the other cruises. 

 

That said, our most recent cruise, on the full Koningsdam, the Internet was so slow that web pages usually would not complete loading and would often time out before even starting to load.

 

We had the Premium Internet plan in all cases.

 

Now, I just have to sit home and save money for the next couple years to return to cruising. Sigh...

Was each cruise in different parts of the World? Was curious if the differences were ship location, ship size or passenger count. I find the "premium" wifi means nothing if there are more passengers or in drop spots. 😒

[IPB4IGO]

9 minutes ago, REOVA said:

Was each cruise in different parts of the World? Was curious if the differences were ship location, ship size or passenger count. I find the "premium" wifi means nothing if there are more passengers or in drop spots. 😒

The first was a Panama Canal full transit. The second and third were Alaska cruises, a couple weeks apart. The fourth was Hawaii, out of Vancouver.

 

My Internet-quality speculation (i.e., wild-ass guess) is that Internet performance was a function of the number of passengers. On the first three cruises, there were 800-1,400 passengers. On the last, where Internet performance was probably 20% of that on the other cruises,  there were 2,400.

[Coyote Chris]

19 hours ago, Lido deck main said:

It was also posted on the other unnamed site.

Sorry for the double post here.  Answer on the other unnamed forum was as you can see, incorrect.

[Coyote Chris]

16 hours ago, IPB4IGO said:

We took four cruises, on four different HAL ships, this year. In three of the four cruises my VPN worked, but not in the fourth (the first cruise). Interestingly, the cruise on which my VPN would load, Wi-Fi Calling would not work on my phone although it did on the other cruises. 

 

That said, our most recent cruise, on the full Koningsdam, the Internet was so slow that web pages usually would not complete loading and would often time out before even starting to load.

 

We had the Premium Internet plan in all cases.

 

Now, I just have to sit home and save money for the next couple years to return to cruising. Sigh...

I am not a web whiz (love your handle) but I am not so sure a vpn, which I have, helps scammers on an open network. I could be wrong.

[Florida_gal_50]

16 hours ago, IPB4IGO said:

The first was a Panama Canal full transit. The second and third were Alaska cruises, a couple weeks apart. The fourth was Hawaii, out of Vancouver.

 

My Internet-quality speculation (i.e., wild-ass guess) is that Internet performance was a function of the number of passengers. On the first three cruises, there were 800-1,400 passengers. On the last, where Internet performance was probably 20% of that on the other cruises,  there were 2,400.

I think it is worse with more people on a cruise.  That said I’m not a good sleeper so sometimes I’d be trying to access my bank or Amex for instance at 4 am or midnight.  No difference.  You’d think there would be less people using it at 4am.

[Coyote Chris]

On 12/2/2022 at 9:57 AM, The-Inside-Cabin said:

google Holland America Internet...it will be your first option

Thanks. While it doesnt mention commercial sites directly, it would appear to allow them. Especially at premium.  The question then becomes, if the onboard wifi is not secure for using a credit card, can then one use one of the on board computers in the "library" securely or better yet, plug ones laptop into an RJ45 jack in the library and just use a direct connection . Either way should be secure.

During a capt's lecture, someone asked the capt about wifi. He explained that the ship's com/nav system, etc took first priority, as well as the sea crew.....in fact the whole crew had some sort of pecking order as a number of crew members I have talked with talk to family members using video calls.  With the proliferation of Low Earth Orbit sats and other means, internet will improve for pax but its gonna take awhile.  And security is still an unknown.

[Coyote Chris]

12 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

I think it is worse with more people on a cruise.  That said I’m not a good sleeper so sometimes I’d be trying to access my bank or Amex for instance at 4 am or midnight.  No difference.  You’d think there would be less people using it at 4am.

I agree with you on the speed and it also depends on who gets what package and who on this city of 3000 plus people is using the net and for what.  And who gets throttled.  Another consideration people tend not to think about is the latency, or ping.  If the ship is using a Hughes Net sat sitting up there 25,000 miles , whether or not you are sitting at home or on a ship with an antenna tracking the bird, high quality speed and buffering is suspect.  

[Coyote Chris]

17 hours ago, IPB4IGO said:

We took four cruises, on four different HAL ships, this year. In three of the four cruises my VPN worked, but not in the fourth (the first cruise). Interestingly, the cruise on which my VPN would load, Wi-Fi Calling would not work on my phone although it did on the other cruises. 

 

That said, our most recent cruise, on the full Koningsdam, the Internet was so slow that web pages usually would not complete loading and would often time out before even starting to load.

 

We had the Premium Internet plan in all cases.

 

Now, I just have to sit home and save money for the next couple years to return to cruising. Sigh...

I will be on the K-dam in seven days.  For fun, I will use an internet speed test app from the hottest part of the ship I can find with my signal strength app and then with a ships library computer.  My personal opinion about having my credit card info stolen is that is probably rare on a ship but not impossible. I have had my card info stolen before and I asked my bank how it happens....it can be as simple as a computer trying different combonations......

[The-Inside-Cabin]

1 hour ago, Coyote Chris said:

Thanks. While it doesnt mention commercial sites directly, it would appear to allow them. Especially at premium.  The question then becomes, if the onboard wifi is not secure for using a credit card, can then one use one of the on board computers in the "library" securely or better yet, plug ones laptop into an RJ45 jack in the library and just use a direct connection . Either way should be secure.

During a capt's lecture, someone asked the capt about wifi. He explained that the ship's com/nav system, etc took first priority, as well as the sea crew.....in fact the whole crew had some sort of pecking order as a number of crew members I have talked with talk to family members using video calls.  With the proliferation of Low Earth Orbit sats and other means, internet will improve for pax but its gonna take awhile.  And security is still an unknown.

Most websites use https so you data is encrypted from end to end.   no risk from someone intercepting your data - unless they somehow got a keylogger on your computer etc.    

 

Shipboard wifi is secure - your only risk would be if someone near you  created a phony HAL hotspot that would trick you into logging on to the fake site rather than the real site. 

 

 Unlikely.    But I guess someone could set up one in the crows nest and trick someone sitting near by and have them log onto the phony website vice the real website. But you can usually spot phony websites trying to trick you.  

 

Most  credit cards are comprised when the data is "at rest" and is stolen from the vendor who processed your payment or saved your card info - then got hacked.  

 

Data in transit, is very hard to compromise when every website is using https.

 

I wouldn't worry about WiFi Security on a cruise ship.    Most of the scary stories are from people trying to sell you something - mainly VPNS

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by The-Inside-Cabin

[IPB4IGO]

1 hour ago, Coyote Chris said:

I will be on the K-dam in seven days.  For fun, I will use an internet speed test app from the hottest part of the ship I can find with my signal strength app and then with a ships library computer. 

As it happens, I did that on the Koningsdam a couple months ago. I also used a Wi-Fi signal strength app, whcih showed a good deal of variance in Wi-Fi signal strength in various parts of the ship. In our cabin it was about half the strength as the strongest I could find.

The sad news is that signal strength had absolutely no consistent relationship with either ping time or throughput speed.  Pings were in excess of 1000 ms, and speed varied from zero to a couple hundred kbps. Although I didn't run speed tests on the public computers in the Explorations Cafe, they were clearly as dead slow as my laptop, phone, and tablet.

Sharing a satellite connection with 2,400 of your closest friends is just not fun.

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, Coyote Chris said:

I will be on the K-dam in seven days.  For fun, I will use an internet speed test app from the hottest part of the ship I can find with my signal strength app and then with a ships library computer.  My personal opinion about having my credit card info stolen is that is probably rare on a ship but not impossible. I have had my card info stolen before and I asked my bank how it happens....it can be as simple as a computer trying different combonations......

I was on the koningsdam for 2 weeks in November.  Couldn’t get the Speedtest to even work.  It kept erroring out. That said I only used the internet in my cabin, restaurants and the cabana area which is close to the crows nest.  Occasionally I could get some websites to work ok on my balcony.  Those were the ones I used without much issue though. Good luck!

[Coyote Chris]

22 hours ago, IPB4IGO said:

As it happens, I did that on the Koningsdam a couple months ago. I also used a Wi-Fi signal strength app, whcih showed a good deal of variance in Wi-Fi signal strength in various parts of the ship. In our cabin it was about half the strength as the strongest I could find.

The sad news is that signal strength had absolutely no consistent relationship with either ping time or throughput speed.  Pings were in excess of 1000 ms, and speed varied from zero to a couple hundred kbps. Although I didn't run speed tests on the public computers in the Explorations Cafe, they were clearly as dead slow as my laptop, phone, and tablet.

Sharing a satellite connection with 2,400 of your closest friends is just not fun.

Yeah, I didnt expect the cafe computers to be very fast, even with Premium....but maybe more secure. Anyway, I will take my data and post it.  I envision a second dish installed on ships in the future using low earth orbit birds....The backup is to have my wife at home buy the tickets, but ticket companies like AXS have made transfering tickets so difficult and even buying them difficult for seniors, its a big hassel. Oh well, its not cancer....