Mercruiser

One of the most time consuming activities was "coal bunkering" - loading coal into the coal storage compartments for the return journey. See this video on the subject

It seems pretty clear that the internet on Journey is not working right. Speedtest indicates that Journey is on Starlink - see SpaceX Starlink in lower left of the screen captures. Try this at home and you will see something like Xfinity or Verizon. The problem could be totally unrelated to Starlink, such as wiring problems or a bad router configuration. Alternatively, it could be a bad Starlink setup on Journey. It's going to take a skilled IT person to determine root cause and fix this.

Wow. Those are impressive speeds.

That's not good at all. Hopefully there is a way to these speeds up to what we are seeing on Onward and others.

This recent experience was on a different cruise line. But for WIW: I was on an Azamara cruise last month. I overheard someone ask about a bridge tour at the customer service desk. The agent signed them up on the spot for a tour. It doesn't hurt to ask

Thanks for the post. The slow Starlink speed might be related to the region (West of Africa). See post 18, where Pursuit was getting 0.84 Mbps near Cape Verde. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2923906-azamara-internet-wi-fi-with-starlink-how-well-does-it-work/?do=findComment&comment=65022483

I would also like to try a Viking cruise, but the daily rate is more than I want to spend. As an alternate to Viking and HAL, I would suggest looking at Azamara and Oceania. They both have very good SA itineraries and have small ships (Azamara Journey 690, Oceania Marina 1250) compared to HAL or Princess. My favorite itinerary, of the two, is on Oceania Marina. Have a look at the March 6, 2025, 18-night cruise. What I really like about the Marina itinerary is how much time they spend exploring the Chilean Fjords. Here are a couple of examples from their 2023 cruise. Notice how they explore the fjords, instead of going out to sea. (These are actual recordings of the route they took, not marketing drawings you see in the ads.) For comparison, here is Islands Princess's actual route, on a similar itinerary. Notice how much they go out to sea and skip parts of the Chilean Fjords.

Thanks for the report from Quest and Japan. 2Mbps is very usable for emails, web browsing, and video chats. It's not going to work so well for streaming video (Netflix etc.). This is one of the problems with Internet speeds. 10 years ago, most everyone would have been happy if emails went through. Very soon, we will see complaints that people cannot stream 4K Ultra HD Netflix on their Antarctic cruise. Bandwidth is like money. No matter how much people have, they will always want more.

This coverage map shows where Starlink sells their service to retail customers. https://www.starlink.com/map That makes sense. Nigeria and Rwanda are the two African countries on this map. If Starlink is selling service in a country, they are going to have a ground station there. I did a few "what's my ip address?" queries while using Starlink on Onward, between Peru and Miami. As I recall, I was usually getting USA IP addresses. I only cared about this because I was buying AARP Princess gift cards at 10% off. AARP will only sell gift cards to USA/Canada IP addresses that are NOT a known VPN. That made it a bit challenging to buy cruise gift cards while on a cruise.

Thanks for the report, especially from such a remote location. Glad to hear the WiFi is improved

I have a small favor to ask. Could a couple folks on this cruise let us know how well the Azamara Internet (Wi-Fi) is working? You are on a unique itinerary, and some of us would be interested to see how well it works around Brazil and during the TA part of the trip. Here is a link to the thread where you can respond please: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2923906-azamara-internet-wi-fi-with-starlink-how-well-does-it-work/?do=getNewComment Given all the photos in this thread, you must have good Internet, but I'm not sure if it's Azamara or if you have been using cellular data in port. I'm enjoying reading about the Rio cruise a lot. I've had my eye on this itinerary.

We look forward to hearing how it works in the Canaries.

Speaking for my DW, she rarely has pockets, but she always has her phone.

The technical breakthrough for middle-of-the-ocean communications is the space lasers installed on the newer satellites. Yes, I know this sounds like something from James Bond's Moonraker, but it's true. Lasers are used create a space-based mesh network between satellites, while radio is used for satellite-to-ground (or ocean) communications. (Sorry to nerd-out here.) Source: https://www.inverse.com/science/spacex-starlink-launch-mission-details (Red emphasis mine.) Starlink blasted its first satellites in May 2019, and as of December 2022 had conducted 67 successful launches. In 2021, Starlink began equipping satellites with lasers that ping data around the constellation rather than sending it back and forth to Earth, reducing the need for ground stations. “Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50 percent, due to higher speed of light in vacuum & shorter path than undersea fiber,” Musk tweeted in July 2021. These nifty lasers allow the company to serve all seven continents — in 2022, Starlink ran a test in Antarctica with the United States National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station.

100Mbps is pretty amazing anywhere, but especially is such a remote location. Thanks for reporting on this!

I'm glad to be seeing some first-hand reports of Starlink performance on a TA. It is sounding very good. Now it will be interesting to see how it does at extreme northern (Norway, Alaska, Iceland) and southern (Patagonia, Falklands, South Shetlands Islands Antarctica) latitudes.

On Onward, they seem to be available if you ask, but are not publicized. I was at the customer service desk (asking about OBC) when I overheard a lady passenger asking if bridge tours were available. She wanted to sign up a tour for her husband. The agent said yes, and signed him up on the spot. Was that you Gardendog? I'll speculate that they are offered to VIPs. Ordinary folks, like me, need to ask.

I am wondering why Silversea's internet speed was so disappointing. Azamara Onward is having very good results with Starlink. See: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2923906-azamara-internet-wi-fi-with-starlink-how-well-does-it-work/#comment-65011230

I'm glad the captain made this happen for you. I went down to the customer service desk and was told no port gate shuttles.

And another: "Internet on trans-Atlantic Onward has been great for us. Not perfect, but WAY better than the internet on Nov. trans-Atlantic!" https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2812089-anybody-onboard-currently/?do=findComment&comment=64980717

Here is a report from an Azamara Onward TA that might be of interest: Note that Azamara Onward normally has 600 passengers max. A Cunard ship will be sharing the internet speed with way more passengers.

Here is another report from a different thread. 94 Mbps down, 8 Mbps up https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2870465-internet-question/?do=findComment&comment=64859055

Ship: Onward Cruise: Feb 12, 2023 Lima to Miami Location: Cozumel Time: 8:32 pm We recently were on Onward's Feb 12 Lima Peru to Miami (Panama canal) cruise. I thought the internet speeds were consistently great. Here is one screen capture from speedtest.net showing 6 Mbps down and 15 Mbps up, as recorded at the dock in Cozumel. 15 Mbps upload is faster than what I have at home! This is significant, because your phone will attempt to upload all the pictures you took, whenever it has Wi-Fi. Imagine what happens when 600 cruisers all return to the ship after a day of sightseeing. All those phones will try to upload photos to Google Photos or Apple iCloud. For comparison, the slowest home internet package from Xfinity (Comcast) is 75 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. But, on a ship, you are sharing the internet with the other passengers.

Now that Azamara has installed the new Starlink satellite internet on several ships, assorted posts are asking how well it performs compared to the previous internet. Maybe it makes sense to have a thread where folks report the speeds they are experiencing. I am particularly interested on how it does in remote areas such at Trans-Atlantic crossings and polar regions (Iceland, Norway, Alaska, Antarctic). The easiest way to do this, while on ship, is open speedtest.net on your phone, run the test, and post a screen capture. See example in my next post.

We were on the Onward, Feb 12, Lima to Miami cruise. It had an overnight in Lima before proceeding to Salaverry Peru. Azamara ran a free shuttle to/from the Inka Market in Miraflores (about 30 - 45 minutes travel time). This was great if you wanted to explore the Miraflores area on your own. Azamara also ran the normal ship sponsored excursions. Independent excursions were a bit of a challenge. Lima (Callao) is a very industrial port, with no passenger facilities whatsoever. For our cruise, there was no way to get to the port gate. Independent travelers could only go to Miraflores, as mentioned above. This messed up anyone who was planning to take an independent tour that would pick them up at the port.