wscott52

after more research,it appears she is not gone yet,but the clock,is ticking.I know they all wear out,but it will be a sad day when they finally cut her up.We had such a good time,my mother took my brother through the Pama,a Canal on her.Glad I could bring back memories although I am not sure we are talking about the same ship Take care.Google"Sky Wonder"to see Sitmars Fairsky.

What became of the Sitmar Fairsky?

with the age of the op,Iwouldguess you know the Fairsky was broken up,in Turkey.My mother and I sailed on hertoAlaska via the inside passage,in1985on her dime..The ship was beautiful,the food was good, and the service was impeccable.The Erie thing was the complete lack of vibration when the ship was underway.We had what they called amino-suite.No balcony,but a huge salsealedpicture window and a nice seating area.We were seated at dinner with a nice doctor and his wife.A couple of times ,we had them up to the room after dinner for drinks and snacks.My mother and Iwere both fond ofJohnnie Walker Black scotch at the time.It turned out the Doctorand hist wifeliked the stuf too,so they appreciated us sharing a bottle with them

Wife and I and a couple of friend's had dinner at Fogarty's on Duval St. about a month ago. We were just walking by and some of the food people had on the outside tables looked pretty good so we went in. It was.

i'm a bit confused....but this is a basic question. Do you have to pay the roaming fees through your carrier AND the ship's fees? or is it one or the other?

You cannot connect calls through the ship's WiFi. Cell phone service is contracted with Wireless Maritime Services. On my Verizon Galaxy S3 calls were billed at $2.49 a minute. If your phone has WiFi you can use the ship's WiFi for data and Internet connectivity. The best plan available on the Oasis was 500 minutes for $150.00 which they claimed worked out to $.30 minute. As a former math teacher the numbers don't quite work out for me but whatever. Hope this helps.

I'll let you know in a few days. We're doing it Sat. night on the Oasis.

For my wife and I Chef's Table was worth it. It was one of the better meals I've had anywhere. The wine pairings complemented the food and the sommelier's comments about the wine and why it was paired with each course were interesting. The chef went into great detail about how each course was prepared, sometimes too much detail for me. I'm kind of an amateur chef though and my wife really enjoyed the chef's descriptions of each course.

Okay, we are halfway between Nassau and St. Thomas so this is about as far at sea as we are going to get. Speed does appear to be dependent on load. After dinner in Nassau I saw 2.96 mps. This is from just a few minutes ago, around 8:30 AM:

I'm not a big Skype user but was unable to connect. Not sure if it's a speed or port issue.

I will continue to check in on this thread and try to answer questions.

I will say so far it's been a good cruise, good to great food, beautiful room (deck 12 JS), friendly and helpful crew, and good weather so far.

As promised I have hard numbers. Frankly they're not as bad as I expected. We are still in port so that may be why. I was not given the option for an unlimited Internet package. I opted for 500 minutes for $150.00.

Speedtest.net results:

I will repeat the test after we are at sea.

Look forward to seeing what you say about it, enjoy it

Thanks. We're going to try.

Has anyone been successful with using Skype or Facetime on the Oasis? I'm interested in getting an internet plan only if I can keep in touch with my toddler. He's so use to us skyping or using facetime when we go out of town. Does Oasis have the unlimited plan yet?

I'm guessing it won't be fast enough but I'll let you know tomorrow. Also let you know about the unlimited plan.

I will be on Oasis tomorrow. I will post an actual speedtest.net test report. Any questions on how wifi works on Oasis I will try and answer or find out the answer.

I'll let you know in a few days. We're doing it Sat. night on the Oasis.

Never did it as a cruise excursion but as a FL resident I strongly recommend it if you have the time to do it. I saw 3 shuttle launches when they were flying, 2 from across ICW in Titusville and 1 from the Visitor's Center which was really spectacular. I think it's tragic and short sighted we have basically ended our space program but maybe if more people can become aware of what we were capable of it can be restarted in the future.

When you have a fast connection, the speed of your browser may not matter, but with a slow connection like the satellite connection on a ship), your browser can make a huge difference in how fast a page loads. Currently Chrome is reported as the fastest for most pages. IE is badly outdated and no longer a standard at all. There are sites that require it, but there are also sites that won't run in it at all. As always, your mileage may vary.

Enjoy

Ron

Most of your post has little to do with what I said. I did mention speed issues were more likely compatibility issues between browser and website. The OP question was did browser speed affect wifi speed and the answer is still it doesn't. I realize the OP may be misusing technical terms they are not fully familiar with but I answered the question as asked. I use IE9 on Win7 and other people seem to agree it is probably MS's best iteration of their browser yet.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214674/Internet_Explorer_9_speeds_past_the_competition?taxonomyId=167&pageNumber=1

Thanks, as I'm a numbers guy also I'm curious how fast/slow it is. I saw your speedtest image and I was excited until I saw that it was a sample... :D

Hehe, sorry to burst your bubble.

Has anyone ran a speedtest.net or similar test while connected to the ships wi-fi? I was curious what kind of up & down speed I will be getting for my $110 per week... :)

I haven't seen any but I plan to do that onboard the Oasis in 3 weeks. I hear descriptive like "slow as molassas" to "ok" and I'm a numbers kind of guy. If everything works out I will have a speedtest.net report sometime late on 2/23 or 2/24. Something like this:

Although I suspect not quite as fast.

I use Internet Explorer on my laptop. Can anyone tell me from experience if Firefox or Netscape (or something else) works better with the ship's wi-fi?

The browser you use has nothing to do with how well your wifi works. Your browser only knows HTTP, not entirely but basically true. The incoming wifi signal is converted to something the browser recognizes by the physical electronic hardware built into the computer and the wifi subsystems of the OS. At that point the data will appear the same to any browser. Differences in speed are most likely caused by browser compatibility with the website you are attempting to load. HTML is supposed to be a standard but not all browsers decipher it the same. IE used to be the standard all websites were written to but that is changing. Still, if you want the most compatible browser IE is probably going to be it. Most people I know who use Chrome or Netscape still occasionally have to use IE to get some websites to display correctly. I've used Firefox and Netscape, but not Chrome, and didn't see any real advantage for my basic form of web browsing so IE is still what I use.

Wow! That was something. Has anybody said anything about what those lights were?

My best guess, as a former MUFON State Section Director and Investigator, is helium filled mylar balloons reflecting the lights of the port. The camera is pointing south. The wind was out of the east at 15 gusting to twenty which agrees fairly closely with the seen direction of flight. The distance between the three objects changes so they are likely separate objects. They also appear to be tumbling since the light is not constant. Distance from the camera is impossible to tell with no frame of reference so they could be fairly close to the camera. Of course if you listen to this guy there is only one answer:

Anyone else see the UFO video on the PTZ site? It was right where the Oasis of the Seas latest video usually is. Probably Chinese lanterns, or swamp gas, or three Venus'. Cool anyway.

Can you pack a corker and get it through security?

Yes but it can't have a blade, even one of the tiny dull foil cutter blades. I couldn't find one without a blade locally so I ordered one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/HomeAndWine-com-Black-Pocket-Corkscrew/dp/B0027HRNWW/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1359332731&sr=8-8&keywords=Black+Pocket+Corkscrew

It works.

Since we will be wanting a cold glass of wine shortly after we are allowed in the room I also ordered one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OBEMZY/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

And last bought two of these to put in it:

http://www.vivino.com/wine/rock-view-reserve-mendocino-chardonnay-2011.html

It's pretty nice if you like Chardonnay. I bought one to taste.

(SW-short wave, common for long range receiving) Should be no problem.

Actually it might. All ships still have HF Marine SSB equipment. While it is no longer the ship's primary long distance communication equipment it is there as backup for loss of satellite systems. Don't know but would guess it still gets some use. Ham shortwave equipment can transmit on the marine ssb frequencies and some sailors with ham licenses use theirs for SSB communication. The boat in my avatar came with a very nice Drake ham station built into a cabinet in the salon. Since I'm not a ham and had no idea how to use it I had it replaced with a SEA 222 SSB transceiver.

I am thinking about taking some of my better radios with me on my next trip . They are 5W max 36-174/400-480Mhz . Do you think these will be an issue onboard? Any recommendations on channels to use ? Any help will be very appreciated.

 

Thanks!

This seems to say you could:

Cruise Questions, Cruise FAQ - Royal Caribbean International Guests may reserve a set at the Guest Relations Desk, (price is subject to change). Guests are also allowed to have two-way radios, more commonly know as walkie-talkies, for onboard personal communications. Basic specifications are as follows: Up to 10-mile coverage range, Up to 5 watts power, Internal Voice, Operated Transmission, No external mounting antenna.

Another thread had me thinking about bringing my handheld VHF radio to listen to in ports but was told in an online chat with a RCCL CS rep that "any transceiver that can operate in the VHF band is STRICTLY forbidden (ibid).

After reading the above I may contact RCCL again and see which is accurate.

As a note of interest, some cruise lines (NCL for example) have instituted a zero tolerance for alcholic intake for ship's officers during their entire 4 month contract.

I think that's a good idea. Basically, the captain is always on duty and should always be at his best to handle any unusual situations.

Uni ... The course he says he set was 0.5 mile from the coast which in itself is not dangerous and previous evidence is available to prove that case ie previous sailbys.

 

Not being on duty ie a 4 hour shift the Captain of any vessel is entitled to leave the bridge and have dinner with whom he chooses, that is the reason they have a Staff Captain and other officers as you well know.

 

The course 1/2 mile from the coast may or may not be dangerous depending on the topography of the bottom. Many Caribbean islands have a dropoff to 1,000 feet depth or more several hundred yards offshore. A half mile standoff might make sense for them. I don't think it did for Giglio with known shallow submerged rocks off it's shore. He still ordered a deviation from Costa's approved course and I think that will hurt him. He was seen drinking wine with Ms. Cemortan prior to the accident. This was not wrong in itself, unless maybe you're the Captain's wife, since he was off-duty. What was wrong was him returning to the bridge and retaking command, under the influence of alcohol, to personally guide the ship through his risky, planned, dangerously close pass by "salute" to the island. The ship, with it's limited maneurerability, was going too fast to be that close to disaster. Off-duty or not the captain is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on or to the ship. This captain foolishly and recklessly engangered his ship, passengers, and crew. I'm no ship captain but was a yacht captain so I do have a little knowledge on the subject.

Are they not smokestacks disguised?

Nope. They're purely "decorative":

http://peninsulaclarion.com/stories/051803/ala_051803ala009001.shtml

Enjoying the review and pictures. Just want to subscribe for updates.