Internet access on Transatlantic Cruises

[nycjewlz]

I'm looking for anyone who has done Royal TA cruises recently to let me know what their experience with internet during the crossing was like. Were you able to have consistent coverage? For those of us trying to check in with our work how long would be expect to be out of range realistically? If you pay for streaming is it actually usable? Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. 

 

Specifically info on smaller ships like Enchantment would be ideal too. 

[Tlbecker1]

16 minutes ago, nycjewlz said:

I'm looking for anyone who has done Royal TA cruises recently to let me know what their experience with internet during the crossing was like. Were you able to have consistent coverage? For those of us trying to check in with our work how long would be expect to be out of range realistically? If you pay for streaming is it actually usable? Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. 

 

Specifically info on smaller ships like Enchantment would be ideal too. 

We haven’t had any issues on TA cruises, but we haven’t cruised on Enchantment.  We have cruised on Anthem, Rhapsody and Symphony.

[nycjewlz]

7 minutes ago, Tlbecker1 said:

We haven’t had any issues on TA cruises, but we haven’t cruised on Enchantment.  We have cruised on Anthem, Rhapsody and Symphony.

Thanks so much. I've heard from people who have said they were able to stream all the way across and then from others who said they couldn't even check email for 3-5 days so I was concerned. 

[njkruzer]

Just had surf on Jewel TA in April and Anthem TA in October.  There were some spotty issues on the Jewel crossing but then we were diverted from planned route.  

[hova]

Did a recent TA on the Odyssey.  I had surf & stream and it worked great the entire way, except twice when they switched to a different satellite (at least that was my understanding).  When this occurred, we  couldn't connect for 30-60 minutes.  hova

[twangster]

With the switch to Starlink occuring right now we are in a bit of uncharted water when it comes to TA internet.  

 

In the past O3b ships, mostly Oasis and Quantum class had normal internet on TAs while non-O3b ships (most Vision, all Radiance and Voyager class) had terrible internet on TAs.

 

Today, at this moment, Starlink doesn't cover middle of oceans.  However that is changing in the coming months.  Once they have built out their solution and added more of their next-gen v2 satellites there will eventually be Starlink coverage in the middle of the Atlantic.

 

2023 may be a year of mixed results.  Spring TAs are on the bubble, I'm betting fall TAs will be better.

 

2024 I'm betting will have good TA internet all the way across.  

[matj2000]

Don't worry

 

You will have no problem watching  TicTok all day.

[cruiseboy89130]

3 hours ago, nycjewlz said:

Thanks so much. I've heard from people who have said they were able to stream all the way across and then from others who said they couldn't even check email for 3-5 days so I was concerned. 

They are both correct depending on weather and routing - on a TA do NOT count on beeing online every day - outages of 2-5 days are very common!

[Coralc]

We had a lightning strike on one of the dishes on Navigator, so we had not much of internet or anything for six days. Except the same music videos, over and over again. 🙄 But I think that is rare. And it was quite a few years ago. ☺️

[Jetdriver787]

Recently sailed T/A from Barcelona to Barbados on Rhapsody. I’d say it was OK until about 100 miles South West from last landfall (Madeira) until probably the same distance from Barbados. I expect the very high user demand on the large number of “sea days” coupled with weaker reception is a significant factor. 
 

For a large portion of the open crossing the streaming was poor to non-existent. Staying on the same ship for an Eastern Caribbean and Southern Caribbean venue was significantly better.

[twangster]

1 hour ago, Jetdriver787 said:

Recently sailed T/A from Barcelona to Barbados on Rhapsody. I’d say it was OK until about 100 miles South West from last landfall (Madeira) until probably the same distance from Barbados. I expect the very high user demand on the large number of “sea days” coupled with weaker reception is a significant factor. 
 

For a large portion of the open crossing the streaming was poor to non-existent. Staying on the same ship for an Eastern Caribbean and Southern Caribbean venue was significantly better.

 

The legacy satellite providers have to focus their signal where there are customers to buy satellite services so they focus their signal at land masses.  They have no coverage in the middle of oceans.  There is saying in the legacy satellite business... "You can't sell satellites to fish:".  

 

Newer satellite providers like O3b and Starlink use satellites that move around the earth in an orbit.  Consequently they have satellites over the oceans on their way to fly over land masses where they make money.  

 

Rhapsody was never upgraded to O3b so she could only use legacy satellites.  That is the only reason you had no signal away from land.  Not enough fish buy satellite services.  

[Mikamarii]

We did the TP in October on ovation and had the surf stream package. Was easily able to live stream live sports from my balcony, two70, and pool deck during our 2 stretches of 6 sea days.

 

I understand that a TP is not a TA so I don’t know if internet access would be different. Point being, in the middle of the ocean I was able to stream live sports which in itself is pretty awesome.

[Biker19]

7 hours ago, twangster said:

They have no coverage in the middle of oceans. 

I joined another customer in their cabin on Legend in 2014 to live stream an NFL game on his laptop sailing in the North Atlantic off Iceland - was surprised of the quality, speed and lack of breakups in the signal.

[Jasukkie]

You know that scene in Parasite, where the poor family is crouching on the raised toilet in their apartment with their phones in the air trying to get a signal? That was me on my recent TP trying to use the internet in my cabin. On the other hand, it worked great midship by the pool deck. This was Radiance fwiw, with the more expensive plan. 

[nycjewlz]

Thank you to everyone for the advice. We have someone in our group who needs to be reachable for a high level tech position. He won't have to work per se but not being able to log on at all even for a few min one day to handle something that comes up for potentially days on end could be a problem. We decided against a 2 wk TA cruise and are just doing a one week European cruise instead. We've been on several cruises this year with no issues but never one where he was out of range completely.