Wifi and accessing email on the Magic

[tvguy]

How is the speed?

 

[bakerworld]

Is the imessage only free for text on the ship or to people off ship also?

 

[CastawayCayLover]

How is the speed?

Not great. Better than nothing but I certainly switch over to the international day pass as quickly as possible to get better speed through Bahamian cellular infrastructure, which should tell you something.

 

[CastawayCayLover]

Is the imessage only free for text on the ship or to people off ship also?

We didn't see anything on the bill for our kids phones when we texted them from ship.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Is the imessage only free for text on the ship or to people off ship also?

You can iMessage anyone with iMessage (aka an iPhone with iMessage enabled) whether on or off the ship

 

[happycamper47]

You can iMessage anyone with iMessage (aka an iPhone with iMessage enabled) whether on or off the ship

I think WhatsApp also works the same on Android.

 

[plasmo]

You can iMessage anyone with iMessage (aka an iPhone with iMessage enabled) whether on or off the ship

Can you also Facetime (iOS) or or WhatsApp video call on android from the ship? or is it only iMessaging texting that is free... ?

 

[CastawayCayLover]

Can you also Facetime (iOS) or or WhatsApp video call on android from the ship? or is it only iMessaging texting that is free... ?

no to FaceTime. Don’t know specifically on WhatsApp but I would doubt it since that isn’t an Apple product.

 

[lanejudy]

I will be expecting some important emails during our time at sea, and wanted to make sure I would be able to access emails.

Just be aware that if there are attachments in those emails, or if you need to respond with attachments, the 50MB can get eaten up quickly.

 

[Freeman867]

You can iMessage anyone with iMessage (aka an iPhone with iMessage enabled) whether on or off the ship

I've heard you can only send text and cannot receive or send attachments (pictures). Still, great perk to keep minimal contact as needed.

 

[Colo17]

If it's the same on your next cruise I'd go to guest services to have them look at it.

Probably 80% of people we saw in Guest Services line on Fantasy were getting help with their phones.

 

[jtruth33]

Its very telling that intranet access isnt on the debarkation survey.

I blew threw the 50 MB checking emails by day 3, and had a work issue crop up I needed to log on and take care of quickly. 3 or four clicks into Workday ate up the 100 MB I purchased.

The infrastructure is dated and behind other cruise lines for sure, and modern applications arent designed to minimize data transfer.

(Full disclosure - Im a director for a technology consulting firm).

 

[Freeman867]

Its very telling that intranet access isnt on the debarkation survey.

I blew threw the 50 MB checking emails by day 3, and had a work issue crop up I needed to log on and take care of quickly. 3 or four clicks into Workday ate up the 100 MB I purchased.

The infrastructure is dated and behind other cruise lines for sure, and modern applications arent designed to minimize data transfer.

(Full disclosure - Im a director for a technology consulting firm).

Exactly right, these data caps are completely outdated. Websites aren't made to reduce data and have done the exact opposite, they cram as many pictures, ads, videos, etc into their websites because data transfer speeds have increased so much, their websites don't need to be optimized to load quickly.

 

[sharktums]

It makes no sense to me that Disney has not upgraded their internet to at least bring it on the same level as the other cruise lines. My daughter will need to do school work, and we have our own business and will need to do work. DCL makes it almost impossible and it's one of the reasons we don't book them as often as Royal Caribbean.

 

[KVH]

From a technical standpoint, DCL's setup isn't as limiting as you might think. The first issue can be what app is used to send/receive. Many times branded apps are passing data before you even can start composing a new mail. Varies by app. More importantly, it's the mail format that could be eating your bits. Somewhere around 70+% of email is zipping around as HTML rather than text or RTF. Those mail sizes add up faster with the extra overhead of that format. Using Outlook (as compared to a phone app) and sending/receiving text only, 50MB should easily last a couple of weeks. Especially if you don't get attachments.

Example, the average email floating around the intertubes is somewhere ~60-80Kb. Do you realize how much text that could represent? How about 30+ pages. But it's not text, it's all the formatting overhead for maybe a thousand characters or so (1Kb). Add in spam, status of your folders, etc. and you can see why you blow through data limits. Your phone isn't made for efficiency. It's just that no one wants to take the effort to make it efficient.

Yeah, maybe Disney isn't the greatest deal among cruise lines. But the root cause isn't their limits - it's what people do or don't do within those limits.