Looks Like Royal Has Changed Internet Options

[GimmeOcean]

Celebrity still has two tiers of Internet service. I’m curious as to how that works when they visit CocoCay, I’d suspect they won’t go out of their way to throttle Celebrity lower tier folks if they are even set up to do that.

[Sunshine3601]

4 hours ago, robtulipe said:

We did something similar on the 11 night Anthem cruise we came back from earlier this week.

We are Cdn and didn't bother with cell phone coverage plan in US thus it would have very costly to use our cell phone for data. We left our phone on airplane mode with Wi-Fi on for our entire stay in US..

We skipped day 1 as we had free Wi-Fi internet at our hotel before going to Cape Liberty later that morning

Then we use wife's D+ two free 24 hrs for days 2 to 3 and 4 to 5 followed by skipping having it for day 6. 

I then used my two free 24 hrs for internet for days 7and 8 and 10 and 11 skipping having it on day 9.

I could have used my internet credit to get the last three days for $21 but felt we didn't need that.

Doing the above gave us internet while in US for almost all days, except two at no cost.

Were you on the Jan 18th sailing?   I was suppose to be on that one but cancelled.   Hope you had a great cruise.

[robtulipe]

28 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Were you on the Jan 18th sailing?   I was suppose to be on that one but cancelled.   Hope you had a great cruise.

Yes to both of of your questions. Seas were fairly calm and the non-specialty dining onboard was very good in spite of recent posts here about lousy food onboard RCI.

Edited February 3 by robtulipe

[Sunshine3601]

4 hours ago, robtulipe said:

Yes to both of of your questions. Seas were fairly calm and the non-specialty dining onboard was very good in spite of recent posts here about lousy food onboard RCI.

Happy to hear this.    We board Anthem on March 3rd for a 7 night sailing.    I really liked the January itineraries, maybe next January.    

[Pellaz]

On 2/3/2024 at 12:31 AM, Tatka said:

This seems like slow. I usually get much better speed. More than enough for browsing, watching YouTube etc. Whether it is worth $27 per day… well… I pay $50 per months for cable internet with 450… If you buy multiple days price is cheaper. Before cruise for 11-12 dayer it’s aeoynd $17.99

 

Sorry, no.  It was $27/day for us when bought pre-cruise.   It was one dollar cheaper per day if purchased onboard, but even at that huge discount, most felt it simply wasn't worth it.  

 

On 2/3/2024 at 1:46 AM, Biker19 said:

That was very likely a temporary issue. Even the most throttled ships usually get at least 4 Mbps download speeds. Also, for most browsing, it's that latency that counts a lot even though it is also a bit high (usually less than 100ms -lower is better). Pre-Starlink, latency was running at 200ms at best.

 

Not, it was not a temporary issue.  I posted these speeds in the charter's largest FB group (3,000+ members) and the overwhelming consensus was that speed had been THAT slow throughout...with a smattering of "I couldn't get ANY service in my cabin at all" posts, likely due to a lack of nearby wi-fi gateways or access points.  

I didn't ask for any sort of discount or credit, and perhaps I should have:  One person posted they had received a full refund when they went to Guest Services to complain.  

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, Pellaz said:

Not, it was not a temporary issue. 

Temporary, as in your sailing only. We have had much better performance reports from Freedom. If/when we have performance like that on any RCI ship it gets reported here, soon to be followed by other reports that the issue has been resolved. Having poor performance inside the cabin or even worse on a balcony is well known and is a somewhat unreasonable expectation from customers. 
 
BTW, RCI doesn’t (other than marketing speak) advertise nor promise any kind of speed. 

Edited February 4 by Biker19

[Jasukkie]

4 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Temporary, as in your sailing only. We have had much better performance reports from Freedom. If/when we have performance like that on any RCI ship it gets reported here, soon to be followed by other reports that the issue has been resolved. Having poor performance inside the cabin or even worse on a balcony is well known and is a somewhat unreasonable expectation from customers. 
 
BTW, RCI doesn’t (other than marketing speak) advertise nor promise any kind of speed. 

I have had zero problems using internet in my cabin on Carnival and Virgin.  Frankly, it's the only place I want to use the internet. Why is it unreasonable to expect it to work? There's nothing in the voom advertisement to say it doesn't work in cabins. I still sail Royal, this isn't a dealbreaker for me, but it is an area where Royal is inferior to other brands, in my experience.

[rdemn]

I like being disconnected from the world for a week. No internet needed for me

[Biker19]

6 hours ago, Jasukkie said:

Why is it unreasonable to expect it to work?

Because it has been known that RCI mostly cares about $ and usually won’t spend money to fix the issue. Now, recently it has gotten much better and not because of the upgrade to Starlink but installation of better networking inside the ship. Other than the newest ships even with that upgrade having Voom work well on the balcony is questionable. Also, on a ship you are the mercy of a wireless link that is subject to outages and/or slow downs. 

[Morecruisesplz]

29 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Because it has been known that RCI mostly cares about $ and usually won’t spend money to fix the issue. Now, recently it has gotten much better and not because of the upgrade to Starlink but installation of better networking inside the ship. Other than the newest ships even with that upgrade having Voom work well on the balcony is questionable. Also, on a ship you are the mercy of a wireless link that is subject to outages and/or slow downs. 

So nothing has changed, except they charge more. 

[Tatka]

14 hours ago, Pellaz said:

 

Sorry, no.  It was $27/day for us when bought pre-cruise.   It was one dollar cheaper per day if purchased onboard, but even at that huge discount, most felt it simply wasn't worth it.  

 

 

Not, it was not a temporary issue.  I posted these speeds in the charter's largest FB group (3,000+ members) and the overwhelming consensus was that speed had been THAT slow throughout...with a smattering of "I couldn't get ANY service in my cabin at all" posts, likely due to a lack of nearby wi-fi gateways or access points.  

I didn't ask for any sort of discount or credit, and perhaps I should have:  One person posted they had received a full refund when they went to Guest Services to complain.  

I cruise 5 times per year and always have internet, so I’m always hunting for it. I never seen packages with $27 per day per cruise. 
Is this for several devices? 

Edited February 4 by Tatka

[Tatka]

2 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Because it has been known that RCI mostly cares about $ and usually won’t spend money to fix the issue. Now, recently it has gotten much better and not because of the upgrade to Starlink but installation of better networking inside the ship. Other than the newest ships even with that upgrade having Voom work well on the balcony is questionable. Also, on a ship you are the mercy of a wireless link that is subject to outages and/or slow downs. 

We had a quality internet in 2023 on Enchantment and Liberty. Both in inside cabins.

[Biker19]

3 hours ago, Morecruisesplz said:

So nothing has changed, except they charge more. 

Two things have changed- RCI upgraded to Starlink (which generally meant higher speeds and lower latency, especially on non O3B ships) and they have upgraded the network inside the ships (which helps connectivity in cabins and other previously poor connection spots). 
 

What RCI charges has little to do with the service. 

Edited February 5 by Biker19

[Tree_skier]

1 hour ago, Tatka said:

I cruise 5 times per year and always have internet, so I’m always hunting for it. I never seen packages with $27 per day per cruise. 
Is this for several devices? 

This was my thought to.  I have cruises booked from now to the end of scheduling and the most expensive one I can find is Icon Dec 2024.  On that cruise they are currently charging 23.99 for a single device.  It goes down to 19.49 for two devices and 18.49 for four.  I can't imagine 27.00 a day. 

[Pellaz]

6 hours ago, Tatka said:

I cruise 5 times per year and always have internet, so I’m always hunting for it. I never seen packages with $27 per day per cruise. 
Is this for several devices? 

 

No, one device only.  $27.  

This WAS a charter cruise, however, and Royal soaked us for as much as they could.  $15 for the soda-only package, and of course no alcohol package was offered since this is the biggest-drinking cruise at sea.  Even the excursions at Taino Bay/Puerta Plata seemed overpriced.  

 

[Pellaz]

4 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

This was my thought to.  I have cruises booked from now to the end of scheduling and the most expensive one I can find is Icon Dec 2024.  On that cruise they are currently charging 23.99 for a single device.  It goes down to 19.49 for two devices and 18.49 for four.  I can't imagine 27.00 a day. 

 

Oh, if the price had been THAT low I'd have purchased it for two devices and helped out a friend with his access, since he'd just been laid off before the cruise.   

He ended up booking the wi-fi onboard...at $1 less per day than the pre-cruise price.  Still WAYYY overpriced for the lousy speed we got.  Two, count 'em, TWO cheers for Royal.  

[Tatka]

8 hours ago, Pellaz said:

 

No, one device only.  $27.  

This WAS a charter cruise, however, and Royal soaked us for as much as they could.  $15 for the soda-only package, and of course no alcohol package was offered since this is the biggest-drinking cruise at sea.  Even the excursions at Taino Bay/Puerta Plata seemed overpriced.  

 

Hmmm… so it was ann unusual cruise overall. I know nothing about charters. 
For my last cruise this January and upcoming one in March internet costs $17.99 per day (I still save more with 4 days of free interment as D+). Those are 11-12 day cruises. For shorter cruises 7-9 days it’s around 18.99-21.99. Still it’s much higher than used to be.