A0131

We are currently on the Journey between Hong Kong and Tokyo. The standard service is consistently giving approx. 0.5MB/s down and 250kB/s up, but also has periodic disconnection. It’s fine for WhatsApp, ok for downloadable email but really quite frustrating for any website, eg reading BBC news. Also takes quite a while to download my newspaper, The Times. The standard service is USD 240 for the full cruise, we received a 50% discount for status (discoverer) and same again for being in a suite so it becomes free. This for all of us (me, my wife and son). It is for one device per person at a time, and is easy enough to swap back and forth from phone to laptop etc. The staff tell me that the high speed service provides 4MB down and 1MB up and it costs $8.95 per day. They also said that it is Starlink, whereas the standard is something else. My son has just opted to pay the additional $8.99/day (every day from the day your start until end of cruise) and is getting a much more pleasant experience, seeing 3.5MB / 0.9MB on speedtest so consistent with the above info. We also have data SIMS for Asia from Airalo which cover Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. They seem like good value and provide good service. Without them, I’d find the basic service to be unsatisfactory for my needs which is lots of general browsing but not really watching videos. When I’m next on Azamara, I expect to upgrade to the Starlink service.