Mercruiser

I was laying in bed in our inside cabin, deck 5. There is a wifi router on the hallway ceiling, one cabin adjacent. I'm using a Pixel 6a phone and using it's Hotspot to share my one login with three other devices.

We have a very nice morning exploring Brooklyn. We walked to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where I took this photo. You can see QM2 on the upper right. We then went down to the waterfront under the Brooklyn Bridge. Sent from QM2 the next day, SE of Cape Cod on eastbound crossing.

Here is a Speedtest on QM2 from this morning. I just signed up for Premium plan this morning. I am pleased with this result. Given all the negative comments about QM2 internet on CC, I was expecting much worse. This is a very usable speed.

Enjoy your trip to Spokane. I'm vert happy with the Marriott. You cannot beat the location. It's right by a subway station for Manhattan trips. It's also centrally located for Brooklyn area attractions.

BklynBoy8, I'm at the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge on your recommendation. It's a very convenient location. I have lots of Marriott points, so no cash outlay except for the mandatory $25 resort fee.

Yesterday, I took a pre-booked taxi from JFK to Marriott Brooklyn Bridge. The ride took. 60 minutes to go 14 miles, due to heavy traffic. Glad I wasn't paying a metered rate with all that stop time. I'm too lazy to research taxi companies for every city I visit, so I just use Booking dot com Airport Taxis. It's easy peasy and I've used it all over the world including some pretty oscure places like Tbilisi.

Very bad review from respectable writer: https://onemileatatime.com/insights/twa-hotel-jfk-airport/

Unfortunately, this one of those "It Depends" topics. As lissie mentioned, you can get texts over wifi if you phone and carrier support it AND you have it enabled on your phone. Here are the instructions for Apple and Android: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203032 https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/2811843?hl=en Here is a simple way to see if it works on your phone: Turn on Airplane mode (this shuts off WiFi, Bluetooth, and phone) Manually turn on just WiFi (everything else should still be off) Have a friend send you a text. Do you receive the text? If Yes, texting over WiFi works on your phone. Being able to receive texts over Wifi can be important if you are using it for TFA (Two-Factor Authentication) from your bank, CC company, ecommerce site, etc. I don't know of a way to do TFA using WhatsApp.

Thanks for the helpful post. Was this the Essential or Premium plan?

I'll be on the QM2 NYC-SOU crossing this Friday. I was wondering if the upgrade to Premium is worth it? My intended usage is for email, WhatsApp texting, and light web browsing. Back in 2020, david,Mississauga wrote: I was surprised that the speed of the internet was very good on the QM2, a little less so on the QE. I "paid" for the premium plan out of our CWC internet credit. On the seven-night QM2 voyage a package for the rest of the voyage was offered on day two: $90 standard and $120 premium. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2886634-on-board-internet/#comment-64141845 Are they still offering the 'day two' special?

Double denim: "All the celebs and influencers are doing it" It says so right here: https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/gallery/double-denim-fashion-trend I always considered the 70s as one of the best decades for music, and the worst for fashion. It's very amusing for this 1970s kid to see 70s fashions revived.

I'm participating in a similar thread on Princess. It appears that Princess has their network configured to limit the download bandwidth for any one user to about 2 - 4 Mbps. The Princess passengers generally view this as a significant improvement over the previous system. In contrast, Azamara appears to be providing a much greater 90+ Mbps, when conditions allow. Of course, I have to acknowlege that Azamara is only providing 90+ Mbps on some of the ships. Others, like Quest are much slower.

I've been enjoying your updates. Thanks for making time for this.

Hamburg is the place to go for model ships, trains, etc. Miniatur Wunderland holds the Guinness record for largest model railroad with 15 km of track and 1490 m² of area. https://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/

Also, this photo appears very similar to the installation in this 2022 news article. You can see the same mast mount in detail here: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/starlink-s-new-flat-antenna-for-maritime-doesn-t-seem-special-costs-an-arm-and-a-leg-200232.html#agal_2

The Starlink "Flat High Performance" antenna do not pivot. They have a much wider angle of view than the residential dishes with the motorized pivots. A pivot mechanism would be failure-prone in high winds. In contrast, old-school satellite dishes in marine environments have to be enclosed in the giant golf-balls (radome) on the top decks. The radomes protect the enclosed pivoting satellite dishes from the wind. The antennas you mention on other ships are probably the same "Flat High Performance" antenna with different mounting hardware. But, I'll agree, the antennas in your photo look very similar to the pivoting residential antennas. I just think they are the FHP antennas on a mast mount. See description here https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starlink-launches-maritime-service-tier/

Wow! You are having great weather. Thanks for posting.

Very nice photo. It's good to have a photographer posting from ship.

I'd love to visit the QM2 galley. In contrast, I loathe department stores.

Later in the day, with the sun up.

Arriving in Olden (webcam)

Great thread idea! I've seen "drydock" mentioned a couple of times here. It might be convenient to install during a drydock, but it's not required. Azamara did most of their installs during a normal cruise deployment. I went on one Azamara cruise (Peru to Miami) in Feb with Starlink. It was very impressive. I am surprised to see the 6 (?) Starlink antennas in the photo. That would be some serious bandwidth if they all ran simultaneously. Very nice! I'll be on Island Princess next month in Norway. I assume no Starlink yet on that ship. It's also a seriously far north cruise (> 60 degrees lat) so most of it would only work with the relatively few Starlink polar orbit satellites. Fortunately, it is a port intensive cruise so I'll be using Google Fi Unlimited Plus on my phone, and Airalo Europe eSIM on my DWs phone.

Evening Hamburg departure, about 2 hours ago. Destination: Alesund, Norway You can see everyone standing on the top decks for sail away.

Full profile view. That's a real beautiful photo for an industrial port web cam.

Sunset arrival in Hamburg, last night.