Connect at Sea

[Anonny]

Wanted to share our experience with Connect as Sea on a four day Magic cruise.

The initial free 50 megabytes disappeared very quickly, before we even did anything. We thought we had turned off and set them right for shipboard use. (A friend sailed and said the free amount lasted her all week.)

We went to guest services and were sent to the Connect at Sea expert. We handed him our phones and he set them correctly. He also set the free 50mb back. Again, the data was quickly gone before we downloaded or posted much, not more than few minutes between the two of us.

My husband accidentally purchased the largest plan, $89. I say accidentally, because he says he pushed "buy" to see more details, but the purchase went through immediately. He says any other time he makes an online purchase, there is always a "are you really sure you want to make this purchase?" question.

So, we started using the data plan. Gone so very quickly without us using it! Back to the CaS tech expert. He looked at our phones, couldn't find a problem. He allowed us to downgrade to a lesser plan. We never did get much use that either before it was used up, just a very small amount of email downloaded.

We ended up with a $50 refund on our onboard statement and extremely minimal use of data.

I liked it better when you just put the phone on as airplane mode and made no attempt to connect. But, it was my husband's first ever cruise and he wanted to connect and I wanted him to be impressed, both with cruising and DCL. This was a bitter experience.

 

[xlxo]

Biggest culprit for me was apps updating on my iPad. I lost 300mb's in minutes. Won't make that mistake again.

Otherwise the 1gb package last the two of us once we started to pace ourselves. Turn on airplane mode when the phone is not in use!

 

[Maggie'sMom]

That's too bad the Connect at Sea person wasn't able to figure out the issue. We had the 50MB free last 5 days of our 7 day cruise, then I purchased the smallest package available to get us through the next couple days.

 

[Ofinn]

We were on the Wonder Dec 4. I only use the internet in the internet cafe. I usually by 100 mb plus the free 50. This will normally last me the whole cruise. On our Hawaii cruise I spent an hour surfing the internet one day, and only used about 20 mb. This cruise was a whole different story. 10 minutes online in the internet cafe burned through 40 mb. The 100 mb was gone with about 20 minutes online, and this was on their computers. I complained, but it didn't get me anywhere. He gave me some line about it depending on what websites your were going to. I explained to him that this was our 11th cruise in 4 years and I've never had the MB go so quickly. The only response I got was a blank look.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

My wife and I turned it on this last cruise so she could check her fantasy football teams. After turning it on, we burned 20 MG's of the free 30 within 2 minutes even though I had turned off every application, set my email off and turned off all updates.

We discovered that it worked much better when we started to log off of the internet. Log in, do what we needed, log out. By doing that, we could accomplish a task (like fantasy football or checking on the house webcam to check on our dogs) with 1-2% per activity. At a couple of times a day, we were down to 5-10% / day on our free 50.

 

[cedricandsophie]

Last time we were on the MAgic in November I bought the 89 package for five days. I had about 200 mbs left over st the end and I was on Facebook and dis boards a lot, lots of other sites that I follow like Politico , read the usa today, new York times and Chicago tribune every day and used email. Also face timed with our daughter every day. At times we had both iPhone and iPad going at once. I had turned off all updates.

 

[princessmommyx3]

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with it. The same thing happened to me on our last cruise (100 MB gone in minutes), so I was sent to the expert and she gave me the data back and changed my settings. It worked perfectly after that. My best guess is there was still a setting on your phone allowing large amounts of data to be automatically downloaded, and perhaps the expert missed that one. I wonder if someone different had helped you if it would have turned out differently?

 

[over50visits]

I've had nothing but good experience with this new wifi program. The usage meter is very useful, and the people at the service desk were extremely knowledgeable and helpful in making sure our devices had all the right things turned off to avoid using up the plan. On our IOS devices, this included app updating, location services, airplane mode, notifications, iCloud backup, notes, reminders.

 

[waggles02673]

Always a good idea to call you wireless carrier befor you leave and ask them what needs to be shut off.

 

[ivanp91]

Always a good idea to call you wireless carrier befor you leave and ask them what needs to be shut off.

A wireless carrier won't help when it comes to wifi connections. Two totally different things.

 

[MUN]

We used the computers at the internet cafe on the Wonder last year and the 50mb per room went a long ways. I could see it going quickly though on a smart phone.

MUN

 

[Ofinn]

We used the computers at the internet cafe on the Wonder last year and the 50mb per room went a long ways. I could see it going quickly though on a smart phone.

MUN

This has always been my experience until this last cruise. It was gone in like 15 minutes on the internet cafe computer. If it happens again I will definitely complain to guest services.