New WIFI package, how does it compare in price to other cruise lines.

[cwis]

So it worked without the internet package? Or you tried it with and without the new packages?

iMessages mostly work without any purchase. Please remember it is not an “official” perk so you can't complain to GS if it doesn't. Occasionally my iPhone says iMessages has been disabled and needs to be “reactivated”, which apparently is not possible without paying for internet.

 

[cwis]

Update on the internet: it is totally UNUSABLE on sea days.

I mean internet was faster in the 90s. Just measured 0.02 Mbit/s download speed. At least with the previous plans you got ~3 Mbit/s.

My wife is joking about it, she is trying to watch a short video from Twitter since breakfast (and it's 4pm).

Not going to waste my vacation time to go to Guest Services but will definitely let DCL know after my cruise what I think of their “upgrade”.

I am very baffled that Disney did not took the opportunity to “test and adjust” before opening to guests.

 

[Disneygirlxo91]

I’m interested in this too! We sail tomorrow on the Fantasy - wondering if the new package options are there yet.

We sailed on the magic in December, and dream in March no issues with iMessage. Did a 7n eastern on fantasy iMessage stopped working the minute we left Port Canaveral - as soon as I got on the ship I was in airplane mood and connected to WiFi and iMessage worked in the port but as soon as we pulled out it stopped for both my husband and I we did nothing different. Hopefully it works for you on the fantasy. I don’t use my phone I leave it in the room but it is nice to be able to know my family can reach me If they need anything.

 

[TheSpooph]

We sailed on the magic in December, and dream in March no issues with iMessage. Did a 7n eastern on fantasy iMessage stopped working the minute we left Port Canaveral - as soon as I got on the ship I was in airplane mood and connected to WiFi and iMessage worked in the port but as soon as we pulled out it stopped for both my husband and I we did nothing different. Hopefully it works for you on the fantasy. I don’t use my phone I leave it in the room but it is nice to be able to know my family can reach me If they need anything.

That’s good to now. We have a large extended family traveling together and most have iMessage. The app was hit and miss the last time we sailed (2019) so it was nice to have multiple options.

I’ll report back how it goes!

 

[DCLMP]

This is what RCL if offering for our FEB 2023 cruise, but I have to buy it now at a "discounted" price,

Since they have the money so far in advance I would say it's about the same price.

VOOM SURF + STREAM Internet Package - 1 Device​

Get the fastest streaming, sharing and surfing internet at sea.

From*$21.59USD Adult per day
Price Shown Reflects Your Discount

Royal usually has a combo drink/wifi package that makes the Wifi cheaper. That price seems high for Royal.

 

[DCLMP]

Princess usually offers free drink packages/ wifi and gratuities. Let's face it DCL is always the most expensive for everything.

 

[tvguy]

I am very baffled that Disney did not took the opportunity to “test and adjust” before opening to guests.

Probably impossible to test. Shutoff the old system, turned on the new system. Only way to test it is with real passengers.

 

[cwis]

Probably impossible to test. Shutoff the old system, turned on the new system. Only way to test it is with real passengers.

I was thinking they could “enable” the new system with 10% of the passengers and allocate 10% of the bandwidth. At least you can monitor actual usage and if you see it doesn't work, you can increase bandwidth to up to 90% for this cruise and revert to the “old” pricing on the following.

I believe it's easier not to test anything, and use “real” guests' feedback.

I would have expected better from Disney's.

 

[tvguy]

I was thinking they could “enable” the new system with 10% of the passengers and allocate 10% of the bandwidth. At least you can monitor actual usage and if you see it doesn't work, you can increase bandwidth to up to 90% for this cruise and revert to the “old” pricing on the following.

I believe it's easier not to test anything, and use “real” guests' feedback.

I would have expected better from Disney's.

Maybe I am misunderstanding how this works. I am assuming they also replaced all the hardware related to the WiFi. So they can't divide up passengers, they either are all on the old system, or all on the new system. .

 

[Kwami]

Maybe I am misunderstanding how this works. I am assuming they also replaced all the hardware related to the WiFi. So they can't divide up passengers, they either are all on the old system, or all on the new system. .

The WiFi hardware doesn't need to change*. The satellite receivers and modems have to change. It's possible that Disney doesn't want to pay for both systems to be active simultaneously. It's also possible that they didn't have a good way to connect both systems together into the network. I think that they could have overcome those problems, but they likely decided that it wasn't worth doing so.

The new system is definitely better than the old system at a technical level. When the ships aren't at high or low latitudes, they can take advantage of the MEO satellites, which will deliver much more bandwidth and much lower latency than the GEO satellites. Assuming that Disney felt like paying for that feature, of course.

* Well, probably. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney has low-bandwidth routers and repeaters in place since the old satellite system was so old and slow. They might need to upgrade that stuff to take advantage of the faster speeds offered by the new satellite system. Those upgrades might not be in place, yet.

 

[tvguy]

The WiFi hardware doesn't need to change*. The satellite receivers and modems have to change. It's possible that Disney doesn't want to pay for both systems to be active simultaneously. It's also possible that they didn't have a good way to connect both systems together into the network. I think that they could have overcome those problems, but they likely decided that it wasn't worth doing so.

The new system is definitely better than the old system at a technical level. When the ships aren't at high or low latitudes, they can take advantage of the MEO satellites, which will deliver much more bandwidth and much lower latency than the GEO satellites. Assuming that Disney felt like paying for that feature, of course.

* Well, probably. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney has low-bandwidth routers and repeaters in place since the old satellite system was so old and slow. They might need to upgrade that stuff to take advantage of the faster speeds offered by the new satellite system. Those upgrades might not be in place, yet.

I was referring to the hardware throughout the ship, the hot spots, not the uplinks. Beyond my technical ability, but I am just questioning whether those hot spots in the ship can operate on more than one system.

 

[Kwami]

I was referring to the hardware throughout the ship, the hot spots, not the uplinks. Beyond my technical ability, but I am just questioning whether those hot spots in the ship can operate on more than one system.

Well, think of the system in four parts. First, you have the satellite receivers and their associated hardware. Then, you have the modem(s). Next comes the routers, repeaters, "hot spots", and so on. Finally, you have the user devices that connect to the network.

The first part of the system will definitely change because the new service uses a different class of satellite than the old system and the old receivers almost certainly can't track MEO satellites. We've already seen evidence of this change with some new golf balls on the ships. The second part of the system (the modems) will probably also change to better interface with the new receivers and to support new bandwidth requirements and higher throughput.

But, once the signals get through the modems, they're just normal Ethernet signals. So, existing routers and WiFi infrastructure should work just fine. As I said before, DCL might be upgrading this stuff, too, if the old stuff can't support high enough data rates to take advantage of the new satellite system. But they'll probably be doing these upgrades slowly, over time. Of course, the user devices won't change at all.

Whether the existing routers, etc. can work with inputs from two satellite systems isn't known. As I said, the outputs from the modem should just be normal Ethernet packets. Some routers (even some general consumer routers!) can handle two links and smoosh them into a single network. I don't know what Disney is using.

As I said, though, there isn't much benefit to keeping both systems active. Better to just use the new system and work with the vendor to solve any problems. I'm sure that they tested it for basic functionality before deploying it on the ships!

 

[tvguy]

Well, think of the system in four parts. First, you have the satellite receivers and their associated hardware. Then, you have the modem(s). Next comes the routers, repeaters, "hot spots", and so on. Finally, you have the user devices that connect to the network.

The first part of the system will definitely change because the new service uses a different class of satellite than the old system and the old receivers almost certainly can't track MEO satellites. We've already seen evidence of this change with some new golf balls on the ships. The second part of the system (the modems) will probably also change to better interface with the new receivers and to support new bandwidth requirements and higher throughput.

But, once the signals get through the modems, they're just normal Ethernet signals. So, existing routers and WiFi infrastructure should work just fine. As I said before, DCL might be upgrading this stuff, too, if the old stuff can't support high enough data rates to take advantage of the new satellite system. But they'll probably be doing these upgrades slowly, over time. Of course, the user devices won't change at all.

Whether the existing routers, etc. can work with inputs from two satellite systems isn't known. As I said, the outputs from the modem should just be normal Ethernet packets. Some routers (even some general consumer routers!) can handle two links and smoosh them into a single network. I don't know what Disney is using.

As I said, though, there isn't much benefit to keeping both systems active. Better to just use the new system and work with the vendor to solve any problems. I'm sure that they tested it for basic functionality before deploying it on the ships!

I have to wonder if there is a passenger system and a staff system. Just following some Cruise Vloggers who have said on brand new ships, on ship Internet seems to be worse than on older ships.

 

[Kwami]

I have to wonder if there is a passenger system and a staff system. Just following some Cruise Vloggers who have said on brand new ships, on ship Internet seems to be worse than on older ships.

I don't know. Certainly, the staff have their own WiFi networks. But I don't know if they have a totally separate satellite system. It's possible, but that would be very expensive.

 

[cwis]

I don't know. Certainly, the staff have their own WiFi networks. But I don't know if they have a totally separate satellite system. It's possible, but that would be very expensive.

I guess they are using the same hardware. They have a separate network (DCL-STAFF).