How far does the free 50 mb of internet go?

[Maggie'sMom]

Awesome! Even better. Just me and my daughter going on our next cruise so it will be nice for my daughter to text'd mom and post pic on FB for her friends. It will alos be nice for my daughter and I to be able to text each other on the ship. I teased my daughter about this yesterday when I read this thread. I told Jamie, "Hey this is cool, I can send you texts on the ship, 'Hey Jamie, while you are getting some chicken fingers, please get me a slice of pizza, some fries and a hamburger and bring back to the room. I am sitting in the verandah. Hey, bring me a bottle of water too. And some ice cream...'".

If you are on the Dream or Fantasy, you can text each other on the ship through DCL's Navigator app without using the internet package. I haven't heard when this service will roll out to the Magic and Wonder, but I would hope that it is soon.

 

[Rogillio]

If you are on the Dream or Fantasy, you can text each other on the ship through DCL's Navigator app without using the internet package. I haven't heard when this service will roll out to the Magic and Wonder, but I would hope that it is soon.

We will be on the Dream. What is the Navigator app? Do we need to download before we sail?

 

[Maggie'sMom]

We will be on the Dream. What is the Navigator app? Do we need to download before we sail?

DCL has their own app which has deck plans, menus, plus schedules of ship activites. In the fall, they added a texting feature to the app so that cruisers can text each other while on the ship. It all works off the ships wifi and is free to use so data used by that app isn't counted against your internet package and is available if you choose not to purchase an internet package. I would recommend you download it before you sail. Added bonus: There's a great countdown calendar on the app so you can open it any time and see how many days and hours you have left to go until your cruise.

 

[Rogillio]

I Googled DCL app and found it and downloaded it! I then hit 'open' and the Douglas County Library app opened up. Oooops.

 

[Rogillio]

OK, found the ap....doesn't do anything except a countdown clock right now. When you get on the ship it looks useful!

 

[eskimoinparadise]

An email text message without images or attachments is generally between 20-30kb. We always set our email service to not automatically download pictures or attachments, so we can log on, download the text, and then log back off and read them offline. That way we don't chew up any mb reading or downloading while online. If there's something that's important enough to download, we do that message by message.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

OK, found the ap....doesn't do anything except a countdown clock right now. When you get on the ship it looks useful!

Yes, the countdown clock is the only real useful thing until you get on the ship. Once you are on the ship, it's very useful.

 

[MickeysPal49]

I see that the big news of the day is that all four ships now have the ability for guests to contact people on the ship without using up the free wifi. It is convenient, but it also means I will feel the need to reconsider letting go of technology for leaving notes and actually planning with my family and friends or just keeping a phone with me.

 

[flyersfan1129]

how do you find out where there is free wi-fi on shore? we are on the Fantasy Western Caribbean

There are signs everywhere. In Grand Cayman, there is a candy store that my son loves. It is right near the port, and we stop by on the way back to the boat, grab some candy and use the wi-fi. In Cozumel, most of the beach resorts have free wi-fi. We do Playa Mia, and use their free wi-fi.

 

[deltadinah]

thanks, flyersfan

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

DCL has their own app which has deck plans, menus, plus schedules of ship activites. In the fall, they added a texting feature to the app so that cruisers can text each other while on the ship. It all works off the ships wifi and is free to use so data used by that app isn't counted against your internet package and is available if you choose not to purchase an internet package. I would recommend you download it before you sail. Added bonus: There's a great countdown calendar on the app so you can open it any time and see how many days and hours you have left to go until your cruise.

Agree and useful.

 

[Flossbolna]

Also, keep in mind, that there is also a pay as you go plan. One MB is slightly more expensive that under the 100MB plan, but once you have used up your 50 MB and you only have one day left, but want to send two emails, just choose the pay as you go option and pay for 2 or 3 MB instead of buying the 20$ 100 MB package.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

I tend to buy the large packages as we take longer cruises and my children will use a lot. Per MB it is cheaper. Last year we as a family got through five large packages on a 12 night cruise. When we were on the Wonder in the Royal we had free / included Internet and used about seven large packages in seven days.

 

[richkaryn]

I signed up for it and then immediately went to open it afterward, and it said I'd used it all up when I had just logged in for first time, so I'm not sure how far it would go.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I signed up for it and then immediately went to open it afterward, and it said I'd used it all up when I had just logged in for first time, so I'm not sure how far it would go.

Sounds like you hadn't turned off all the automatic features that eat up MB.

 

[timrousbeastie]

I tend to buy the large packages as we take longer cruises and my children will use a lot. Per MB it is cheaper. Last year we as a family got through five large packages on a 12 night cruise. When we were on the Wonder in the Royal we had free / included Internet and used about seven large packages in seven days.

Disney Fantasy's experience matches my own the best. I work as a software architect for a living and still feel exhausted when I think back at this aspect of our last 7 day cruise in November. The 50 Mb package was gone in 10 minutes, and I ended up buying 4 of the large packages (a total of 4,050 Mb). That was after 1. manually changing the settings of 8 iPhones and 7 iPads to disable iCloud, apps running in the background, automatic updates, and whatever else I might have forgotten, and 2. asking everyone to limit their use to 5-10 minutes at a time and avoid video or other data heavy services. If you are traveling with a large group and and not familiar with these settings, I'd ask everyone not to log on to their wi-fi account until they've had help from guest services.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

Disney Fantasy's experience matches my own the best. I work as a software architect for a living and still feel exhausted when I think back at this aspect of our last 7 day cruise in November. The 50 Mb package was gone in 10 minutes, and I ended up buying 4 of the large packages (a total of 4,050 Mb). That was after 1. manually changing the settings of 8 iPhones and 7 iPads to disable iCloud, apps running in the background, automatic updates, and whatever else I might have forgotten, and 2. asking everyone to limit their use to 5-10 minutes at a time and avoid video or other data heavy services. If you are traveling with a large group and and not familiar with these settings, I'd ask everyone not to log on to their wi-fi account until they've had help from guest services.

Yes it was me my son my daughter all on, a lot of the time, good connection but eats the MBs and we switched a lot off.

Photo sharing streams in the background used a lot.

 

[richkaryn]

Sounds like you hadn't turned off all the automatic features that eat up MB.

I had turned everything off because I looked up how to do it prior to signing up for the free, so not sure what happened.

 

[JMHDisney]

I had turned everything off because I looked up how to do it prior to signing up for the free, so not sure what happened.

This exact same thing happened to me. I made very sure to turn everything off (I'd researched how to do this in advance), opened the free 50MB and it said it was used before I had a chance to do anything. I bought a 100MB package after that and it basically allowed me to check email and upload a couple photos to Facebook twice and then it was gone too. I'm a little skeptical of what they say is being used.